American society thrives on innovation, which is advanced by the quality and productivity of research from higher education faculty. It is therefore typical for the responsibility of nurturing and sustaining faculty research to fall upon department chairs and deans at postsecondary schools.
The Research-Productive Department is an innovative, eminently practical book that provides readers with two critical tool sets: a user-friendly summary of over 40 years of literature on the essential characteristics of research-productive organizations, plus a wealth of descriptive examples of how these characteristics are actually manifest in a large number of highly research-productive academic departments and schools.
The strategies presented here are based on the literature on research productivity and on interviews with chairs and deans of 37 departments, colleges, and schools in the University of Minnesota system, all highly ranked nationally for their research capacity and accomplishments, yet representing diverse disciplines, college types, and community settings. The end result is an engaging exposition of best practices and lessons learned that readers can adopt as is or otherwise adapt to best fit their own institutional settings.
