Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

Symposium for directors of university-based centres

Monday and Tuesday, 3 - 4 September 2007, RMIT

About Delivering Outcomes

This is a two-day event for the Directors of university-based Centres of research and education.

"Delivering Outcomes" will bring together the most innovative, network-minded and connected directors in universities. Centres have the potential to deliver significant benefits to the community and the nation, but how can their effectiveness be improved?

Through a combination of case studies, plenary sessions and master classes, the event will enable directors to explore ways of describing and delivering benefits in a new age of accountability under the RQF.

How will Centres manage the RQF? We have invited the head of the RQF Taskforce in DEST to report on progress in setting up the RQF. Also on the guest list are five of the newly appointed Chairs of the RQF Panels. How do they plan to manage the process within their panels?

The event also offers an opportunity to share experiences and discuss solutions to problem areas, at an "arranged networking" session. This is in response to feedback for shorter plenaries and more discussion time from our event last year.

The program includes an "Open Space" session, where people nominate ideas and themes they would like to discuss in small breakout workshops. All registrants can then add their names to participate in these discussions.

The venue this year is Storey Hall at RMIT, a pleasant and functional location in central Melbourne. It's close to hotels and the optional dinner venue on Monday night. RMIT have also made five breakout rooms available.

If you are a member of, or associated with, one of our financial members you qualify for discount registration. Other people are welcome to register, but only people associated with one of our 103 Member Organisations qualify for the discounted rates.

Some comments from registrants from our Directors' Symposium in 2006:

I want to thank you and the CHASS team for a great two days. Most sessions were really useful and I was able to get some real assistance in thinking through the issues for my area. So on the plane back to Melbourne I mapped out a strategy for my institution's approach to this, and now the path ahead is a little clearer. So it was extremely useful and, as always, enjoyable. (Comments from registrant, 2006)

Congratulations on your hard work. It was an extremely useful conference for me. I enjoyed the sessions where leaders in the field frankly discussed the issues.

[I'd suggest] more opportunities for delegates to share experiences in small groups eg regarding funding, publication, collaboration, mentorship, indigenous research, etc. Most directors are very experienced people and it is good to have more small group opportunity to learn from each other.

I think the most valuable session was "building Impact and engagement", and it was great to be able to come back and rally the troops with the CHASS study on this in hand. Following this up with some examples of existing Centres currently engaged in high impact research was a good idea too.