One-Stop Research Shop: Improve collaboration and streamline processes

‘Five years ago, two policy officers at Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences (ESSB) were responsible for grant applications, research policy and data management. Now, twelve people support hundreds of employees, says Flora Vanlangendonck, project leader and head of research support. Private money and subsidies are increasingly being requested for research because the government is making cutbacks. ‘These are long-term, complex procedures that sometimes take years. In addition, all kinds of other rules have been added.’ For example, all research must be ethically assessed. Privacy is also subject to increasingly strict rules, and there is a lot of attention to open science, in which data, software and publications are shared at the earliest possible stage of the research.

‘The project was very complex in the beginning. We didn’t even know exactly where to start. Of course, we had drawn up a project plan and knew our goals: we wanted to improve the research support services, be more visible and findable, and develop tools that other faculties could use. But we didn’t know what the outcomes would be. The challenge was to decide which of the many processes we wanted to include in the project and to choose a good method for this.’

Streamlining processes

The project group decided to work with design thinking, which focuses on the user and is very suitable for solving complex problems. That is why many conversations were first held with researchers. What do you need? What do you need? What are you missing in the support now? The support staff were also asked the same questions. This resulted in 100 problems, divided into overarching themes: collaboration, workload, digital infrastructure, processes and roles, recognition and policy.

Because there was attention to work processes, employees felt supported and wanted to think and change. Vanlangendonck: ‘Sometimes small things make a big difference. Why do people choose to email when you can also call? That is often faster because you can ask questions immediately, and it is more personal, which benefits mutual relationships. Double profit.’ It also applies to more extensive processes. If a scientist applies for a grant shortly before a deadline, the workload of the grant advisor increases. ‘They mirror each other’, says Vanlangendonck, ‘the busier the scientist, the busier the support staff. The stress then moves through the entire chain of support staff preparing an application. So not only the grant advisor but also the project controller, business operations coordinator, data steward and so on suffer from this. By streamlining these processes, the workload decreases.’

Benefits of the project

Vanlangendonck: ‘The benefits of this project quickly became clear to everyone: colleagues get to know each other and can inspire each other, the mindset can change, mutual understanding is created, and job satisfaction increases.’ The challenges also remained clear. Because what was the best approach to streamline processes? Moreover, it turned out to be quite labour-intensive, and due to imposed cutbacks, less money was available than expected. The strategy of Erasmus University provided the financing, and there was cooperation with the ERS department, Engagement Research Services, which provides research support to the entire university. ‘Enough challenges, but above all enough positivity’, Vanlangendonck concluded.

Results

Sometimes, it turned out that scientists and support staff needed to learn exactly how a particular process worked, or there appeared to be no process. ‘We have made a lot of progress by recording processes’, says Vanlangendonck. ‘For example, there are now checklists at the start of projects, and for large projects, there is a kick-off with all those involved, including scientists and support staff, where the steps and important moments in a study are discussed.’

The MyEUR intranet is being redesigned to make information and documents available and findable there. This makes it easier for scientists to look up information themselves. Every six months, a group of people will critically review all the texts on MyEUR so that it remains a clear and accessible tool. Vanlangendonck: ‘We are already seeing more visitors to MyEUR.’

Another solution is to make clever use of the SharePoint environment. Scientists often emailed their documents to various support staff but now put them in SharePoint. Creating a project, performing a privacy check or drawing up a data management plan is now possible without the scientist having to email all his papers to various support staff. 

Goals achieved

‘We have achieved our goals’, says Vanlangendonck. ‘Sometimes in a different way than expected. Of course, it is not finished yet. We will continue to implement the solutions in 2025. And from January onwards, we want to share our experiences and results with the entire university.’

For example, visuals have been created that show the route of the past years, including the ‘thresholds’. Vanlangendonck: ‘Others can benefit from this. We have also developed a ‘menu’ that shows the expertise of the support staff. For example, if a team wants to know more about open science, a data steward will talk about it for 30 minutes.’

Innovative

One-Stop Research Shop was a new type of research for Erasmus University because the results were not concrete in advance. ‘The research support had to be improved; that was the end goal, but what exactly that meant and how we were going to achieve that was a puzzle, ' says Vanlangendonck. ‘Innovating with design thinking was valuable. With our toolkit, other departments can get started. I am proud that the project went well. I am especially proud that we did it together. There was energy because we all wanted to make ESSB better.’