How can you strategically grow research capacity?

Do you have enough time for your research? For many of us, having sufficient time on task is the greatest challenge researchers face in pursuing an impactful program of work.  “If only I had more time” is a common phrase that reflects a desire for greater research capacity.

But growing research capacity isn’t just a matter of having more time. As researchers, we should think creatively and strategically about efficient ways to increase research capacity.

One way to conceptualise growing research capacity is using the McKinsey Three Horizon Model (Figure 1). The premise of the model is that there are three equally important opportunities for a person/team/organisation to “do business”. Applying this model to research can provide ideas for growing capacity without compromising the quality of your work.

Research Horizon 1: Maintain and Defend

This first horizon is considered ‘core business’. For researchers, this is the capacity that is inherent in your work profile or workload allocation. Many academics have about 40% of their workload dedicated to research, i.e. 2 days per week if working full time. For others, including research fellows, they can have up to 100% of their workload dedicated to research i.e. up to 5 days per week if working full time. 

In this horizon, the key to success is efficiency and effectiveness. Arranging your work so that you are getting maximum return on your own time investment is vital. Practically speaking, this can mean quarantining research time in your calendar, creating milestones or deadlines for yourself, designing studies to efficiently collect data (or make use of existing data), writing in ‘snack sessions’ or utilising many other time-management strategies. 

Performance in this horizon is assessed by outputs i.e. publications, reports, conference presentations. When it comes time for your performance appraisal, you may wish to structure your reporting to reflect the time you have for research, for example, “Despite having 40% of my workload allocated to research, I have produced XX outputs this year, including XX peer-reviewed manuscripts, XX industry/stakeholder reports, and XX conference presentations.”

It is natural for most of us to be strongly focussed on this first horizon, particularly early in our careers. However, more significant growth in research capacity comes from looking beyond this horizon.

Research Horizon 2: Nurture Emerging Business

The second horizon is considered the start of entrepreneurial thinking, where opportunities for growth start to appear. For researchers, this is an opportunity for additional time on task by conceptualising your work taking place in teams, beyond yourself. Common sparks for early growth in research capacity include (i) collaborating on a study or project with a colleague, (ii) supervising an Honours or PhD candidate, (iii) securing an internal seed grant or capacity building grant.

In this horizon, the key to success is converting opportunities into reality. Here are some tips for pursuing these opportunities:

1.     Share your research vision or interests with new people. Articulate the value of your work and capabilities while actively considering how their work can enhance your research. These new people could include those in your school/centre/institution whom you have known for a long time but may not have considered collaborating with. Without compromising on research quality, be prepared to expand your focus slightly to accommodate your prospective collaborators' shared skillset and interests. 

2.     Meet with prospective Honours or PhD candidates about what projects are available under your supervision, what their future experience may involve, and how the experience may benefit their career development. If your role does not expose you to prospective candidates, then actively meet with Honours or HDR convenors of programs or Schools in your field, inside or outside your institution, to understand how you can get the word out that you can offer high-quality supervision.

3.     Working with others to develop competitive seed grant or capacity building initiatives. Pay attention, or ask questions, about the fundamental purpose of the initiative, and design your work around that. For example, some seed grants are for equipment that can expedite research processes (Horizon 1), others are for strengthening international collaborations (Horizon 2), while some are to help prepare for large competitive grants (Horizon 3 work). 

Pursuing these opportunities will not only increase your research outputs (adding to Horizon 1), it will also develop new skills within yourself that come from broadening out your focus to consider other people’s work. Ultimately, this means you are growing your research skills and experience and are then positioned well for even more opportunities in research.

Research Horizon 3: Create Genuinely New Business

This horizon is where your entrepreneurial spirit can fly. By having a strong foundation of Horizon 1 and Horizon 2 research work, you can start to explore bold options with significant potential. Research pursued in Horizon 3 could be disruptive or transformative, where you make new concepts possible or unravel fundamental assumptions in your field. Importantly, with greater opportunity, there is lower likelihood of success, but don’t let that put you off!

For many researchers, Horizon 3 involves leading nationally competitive grant applications, or pursuing commercialisation from research. To sustain your attention to Horizon 3, you need to be prepared to accept failure, most commonly missing out on grant ‘success’. If your efforts in Horizon 3 do eventually succeed, then your research capacity can skyrocket through significant investment – the ultimate goal for many researchers.

When should I be in Horizon 1, 2, 3?

The McKinsey Horizon model displays ‘time’ on the x-axis which can be misleading. A person or team or organisation should not move from Horizon 1, to 2, to 3 over time. The true intention of the x-axis is to communicate that time should be placed in each Horizon concurrently. The y-axis represents the value (or for us, research capacity) that can be achieved by succeeding in all three horizons. This is the holy grail we are looking for!

Personally, I’ve found this model to be a good framework for strategically growing research capacity, but I’m sure many other approaches are also effective. I’d love to hear from others about how you’ve approached this issue and what activities you have undertaken to break through to the next horizon.