Academic Senate

CAP statement indicating the intellectual importance of an individual’s contribution to a research team’s scholarly research effort and/or innovation transfer and entrepreneurship:

We are witnessing an increasing degree of interdisciplinarity and collaboration in research publications in many areas of academic pursuits. These arise both in what are often separately called “team science” and “collaborative research.” Team science is of particular relevance to medicine, engineering, and the physical, life, and social sciences and pertains to the combination of many different techniques, experimental methodologies, field observations, and so on. Collaborative research is a better description for what takes place in the humanities, the law, economics, and related disciplines where investigators approach a given question coming from different intellectual perspectives. The common denominator between these two forms of academic pursuits is their bringing together scholars in the common pursuit of knowledge.

Currently, various review committees often provide credit from publications to first and last author with limited consideration of the work done by the team or collaborators. “Team Science” and “Collaborative Research” are often pivotal in making advances and new discoveries in increasingly challenging research venues. In order to make a more objective assessment of a researcher’s contribution to a multi-authored manuscript—in an era where different disciplines employ very different standards in the ordering of author lists often obscuring the significance of a given author’s contribution—candidates for personnel actions are encouraged to add an assessment of the significance of their role in their publications in a separate statement reviewing their research accomplishments. In the community of scholars, there are interactions leading to outcomes that are far more significant than the sum of the individual parts. The candidate’s statement should include remarks indicating whether they led the research project, whether they served as collaborators bringing essential expertise, insights, and methodologies in areas differing from the other authors which proved to be fundamental to achieving the objectives sought by that work, what specific contributions and discoveries that they have made, and any other information that can help provide insight into the intellectual significance of their contribution.

We are also witnessing an increasing degree of innovation transfer and entrepreneurship activities in many fields of academic pursuits. UC has policies guiding the many facets of these activities and the metrics for measuring these activities include but are not limited to research/invention disclosure, patent protection, licensing, new products/loyalties and start-ups. These innovation transfer and entrepreneurship activities should be reviewed in relation to the three main criteria of academic review: research, teaching, and service. In reporting these activities, the candidate’s statement should indicate their specific role and contributions, whether they first conceived the original idea leading to a patent or served as a key advisor to a start-up company, and any other information that can help provide insight into the intellectual significance of their specific contribution.

Last Updated: April 25, 2023