Promoting Guidelines for the College of Government , Rangsit University , Thailand

Considering that researches are perceived as the main mission for every universities in Thailand, a key performance indicator representing performance quality of relevant agencies, as well as an assessment factor for world leading university ranking programmes. None the less, there are no clear guidelines set by the College of Government, Rangsit University with respect to the internal practices towards the promotion of research activities. Accordingly, this study aims to (i) examine all researches context and research promotion policy found within the College of Government, Rangsit University; (ii) conduct a strength-weakness analysis; (iii) analyse experiences and lessons learned of other institutes; and lastly; (iv) provide applicable recommendations, based on literature reviews of both primary and secondary materials, for the College. From the research findings, it is discovered that (i) supports given by the University have, in general, led to a higher number of research publications, however, more could still be achieved should they had utilised the support programme more effectively; (ii) despite the College’s research support programme including its fostering environment and favourable organization culture, a lack of research initiatives as well as limited number of competent staffs are essentially main challenges that restrict possible research potentials; (iii) the challenges faced by either the College or Rangsit University are also present amongst other institutions, of which they have laid down relevant guidelines aiming to promote research publications; (iv) there are three steps that the College could undergo, as an ad hoc response, the College should provide greater research incentives and more supporting environment for its academics, followed by creating appealing conditions to encourage publications and disseminations, and lastly as an ultimate long run solution, practical strategy and systematic regimes should be put in place.

As "research" is considered one of the four main missions (Note 1) set across all universities in Thailand, a key performance indicator upon assessing education quality by relevant authorities, for example, the Office of the Higher Education Commission (OHEC) and the Office for National Education Standards and Quality Assessment (Public Organisation) (ONESQA), as well as an attributing factor taken into account when conducting world university rankings by many leading organizations such as Times Higher Education World University Rankings (2014), of which 60% weight is given to research factor.To be more specific, 30 per cent weight is derived from acknowledgements and revenues received from research publications, another 30 per cent weight is given to research uses as references, and around 7.5 per cent weight is comprised of factors concerning overall image perceived by the public worldwide including aspects of academic staff, students, and researches.Evidently, it can be said that almost 2 out of 3 (Note 2) assessment criteria rest upon the element of research, therefore, this can be generally assumed that universities that do not reach the requirement of having a minimum of 200 research publications over the course of 5 consecutive years would then automatically be disqualified from entering Times Higher Education World University Rankings.This is relatively similar to practices carried out by QS World University Rankings (2014) where great emphasis has also been given to research factor by assessing level of academic acknowledgements, of which a ratio of 40 per cent weight is awarded, while another ratio of 20 per cent is granted towards references given to academic staffs (Note 3).
Accordingly, the purposes of this research are to (i) examine research background and research supports given by the College of Government and Rangsit University; (ii) explore current situations including weakness and strengths; (iii) analyse learned lessons of other institutes; and last but not least (iv) to provide the College with applicable and practical recommendations and guidelines, constituted from desk researches of both relevant primary and secondary materials conducted between the month of July and August 2014.

Rangsit University
Similar to other higher education institutions in Thailand, research is considered to be top priority mission of Rangsit University and great attention is given by the executives.This echoes the long standing supports, of which the ultimate goal is to level up the overall perception regarding researches and publications, even though this would still fall short under the requirements towards entering for world university rankings (Note 4).
Upstream Level: Research Institute of Rangsit University (2014) provide research fundings for its staff with maximum value of up to 100,000 Baht per project.Funding applications can be made in June, September and January of every year.After considering results made over the past 4 years, it is found that the scheme successfully and evidently drove up numbers of researches and publications, from 40 projects in 2010 to 64 (2011), 77 (2012) and 90 projects in 2013.
Mid-stream Level: Based on available reviews, it can be said that there is no concrete research supporting regime put in place for the university personnel, academic staffs in particular.Moreover, with respect to annual staff performance assessment, for those titled as permanent academic staff, under the third category marked as Research and Academic Development, it does not take into accounts factors involving research related indicators nor research disseminations towards the assessment.Only texts and teaching materials are taken into consideration.Downstream Level: Rangsit University has organised national academic conferences (Rangsit University Academic Conference, 2014), national published journals (Journal of Rangsit University: Teaching & Learning, 2014) and international journals (soon-to-be categorised as international publications such as Rangsit Journal of Arts and Sciences, 2014 and Rangsit Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 2014) with the purpose of providing platform and channels for those who wish to publish or present their academic works.Additionally, the university also provide financial aids for research disseminations, which include costs arising from presenting the work, having the work published and producing research innovations (full funding equal to incurred actual expenses) as well as giving out awards upon research disseminations (depending on value of the Journal Impact Factor or Quartile Scores), nevertheless, this is only applicable to those regarded as international publications (Research Institute of Rangsit University, 2014).
Considering the information gathered from the past year (2014) researches and publications, it is revealed that there were 32 publications being orally presented in national conferences, of which more than 90 per cent of the stated number were presented in national conferences held by Rangsit University.Nevertheless, university records fail to document essays written by Chitlaoarporn (1 publication), Boonprong (1 publication), and La-ongsakul (1 publication).There were also 58 publications presented in international academic conferences, both in lectures and postures; yet, records kept by the university still miss to document essays and articles written by Boonprong (1 publication), Narktharanun (1 publication), and Thongin (1 publication).Furthermore, there were 20 articles published in national journals (of which 13 essays were published in Rangsit University's academic journals in English) and 42 essays presented in international journals (Research Institute of Rangsit University, 2014).
It is undeniable that the research support programmes provided by the university has at the very least, on prima facie, increased the number of research publications and disseminations as well as steering its course into the targeted directions.That is to say, having greater number of researches (almost double the original amount within the period of 4 years) together with having greater chances and more concrete steps towards having its publications published and acknowledged on a global level (to achieve a ratio between national and international works more than 2:1).In order to advance such scheme, Rangsit University under the running of the Committee of Knowledge Management: Research and Innovations (2014) has compiled learning series on dissemination of researches and innovations so as to provide guidelines for university personnel.

The College of Government
At present, not withstanding the Klangpanya Institute for National Development Strategies, the College of Government, Rangsit University (2014) which is run under the directions of Ourairat (Advisor), Laothamatas (Director), La-ongsakul (Academic Scholar) and Vivatthanaporn (Secretariat), the College still has no clear cut intra-policy towards the promotion of researches, as a result, academic staff are still dependant on supports made available by the university including those of other relevant organisation and they are mostly required to apply for the aids personally.
In 2010, within the faculty members of the College of Government (which also refers to the Faculty of Political Science, the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice Administration, the Institute of Public Administration, and the Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies), it is found that there was only one funded research project (2.5% of the total projects, by Ariyapruchya), 2 projects in 2011 (3.13%, by Tiebtienrat & Siripan), 5 in 2012 (6.49%, by Viriyasiri, Trimek, Natithanakul, Ariyapruchya, & Vivatthanaporn).There was a drop down to 3 projects in 2013 (3.33%, by Boonprong, Petchlertanan, & Atchanan, Research Institute of Rangsit University, 2014).
With respect to researches and publications disseminations in 2013, it is revealed that the College staff had 3 of their works presented by lectures in national academic conferences (9.38% was a presentation at the National Conference on Political Science and Public Administration, 1 essay by Chitlaoarporn, 1 essay by Boonprong, 1 essay by La-ongsakul) and 4 works presented by lectures in international academic conferences (6.90% was delivered as lectures during the 1 st International Conference on Security Studies, the 3 lectures presented were given by Boonprong (1 essay), Jermsittiparsert (1 essay), and Narktharanun (1 essay).There were also an essay by Trimek was published in national journal (5%) and 6 essays presented in international journals (14.29%, 1 essay by Phutrakul, and 5 essays by Jermsittiparsert (Research Institute of Rangsit University, 2014).
Within the College, from the initial analysis, the data indicates that staff are divided into 3 main categories, namely, a group working within the Klangpanya Institute for National Development Strategies, particularly receiving financial supports from other organisations, a group that continuously produce and disseminate academic works which are funded by limited amount of aids given by the university including fundings from available and possible channels, within the college or outside supports, and last but not least, a group that is still unable to access funding schemes and as a result falls short in delivering a concrete research works.

Strengths
The research promoting programme laid down by Rangsit University is fairly effective considering the upstream level.It facilitates researches conducted by new researchers because the fundings are restricted to a maximum amount of 100,000 Baht.For downstream level, it also favours research disseminations by competent researchers whose work can potentially be presented at national and international platforms including providing financial supports for relevant costs and expenses arising from dissemination processes, whether it is a presentation in a conference, a publication in journals, or a production of research related innovations.The programme also gives out awards so as to promote disseminations of academic works at international forums.This factor together with favourable organisation culture that allow its staff to be intellectually independent, allowing the staff to pursue topics and areas they interest in, and in particular, allowing the personnel to be able to apply and go after outside fundings, have ultimately driven their staff to reach their most possible potentials vis-a-vis conducting and disseminating their academic works.
With respect to the faculty of political science, although at present the faculty still lacks graduate learning and teaching management system, the existing structure of POL498, assigning each academic staff to oversee approximately 10 undergraduate students, is considered to welcome promising research skills developments between the staff and the supervised students (Note 5).Certain similarities can also be found in other university units, especially in international programme where it enables its staff to develop their research skills as well as teaching and learning management.More importantly, the supervision of dissertations or independent studies, which is a requirement towards the completion of the studied degrees, issued under the announcement of the Ministry of Education entitled "Methods of Graduate Programme Standards Management 2005" which stipulates that students must deliver a certain form of dissemination of their work either by the presentation at an academic conference or a publication in an academic journal.

Weakness
Although certain research supporting schemes are available at Rangsit University, unfortunately, it is discovered that the scheme may only benefit a particular group of staff, leaving others who cannot access the supporting programme with very little guidelines as to how to conduct researches.
A number of facts and data explaining such incidents must be carefully examined in order to understand why a large number of academic personnel did not make it to the research support programme.1) Not enough research incentives: this involves factors concerning the amount of fundings offered to newcomers, requiring the applicants to give out very detailed expenses record, limiting sums of budgets in particular expense categories, for example, restricting transport expense to a maximum of 4,000 Baht, a spending cap of 1,500 Baht or not more than 3,000 Baht in the case of desk research for photocopying cost, an amount not exceeding 1,000 Baht for a utilities expenses, a cap of 2,000 Baht for office supplies and a maximum sum of 7,000 Baht for making copies of the complete final research.Moreover, payments made to researcher and the research advisor are not available.Only 3,000 Baht support is given to research supervisor and an amount of not exceeding 30% of the total project fund for graduate research assistants, with no more than the period of 4 months (Research Institute of Rangsit University, 2014).
When we consider that there are insufficient supports given during the mid-stream level, as research factor is still not being taken into account when assessing the staff working performance and given that time is the most valuable opportunity asset, no payment incentives and, what is worse, as doing researches is not regarded as performing assigned duty, it is understandable that other choices of work are more appealing.That is to say, spending time on teaching would at the very least generate 400 Baht income per hour for undergraduate subjects (18,000 Baht per month over the course of 4 months would amount to an earning of 4,500 Baht per month), or even higher earning rate for graduate subjects taught at the university or other institutions (the department of political science and public administration, Kasetsart University pays for master degree modules at the rate of 2,500 Baht per hour constituting a total amount of 112,500 Baht over the period of 4 months, which means an earning of 28,125 Baht per month).Accordingly, it is undeniable that the latter choice would be more attractive, both in terms of security and concrete tangible gains.
2) Questionable competency of academic personnel: from the data gathered from learning and teaching management of POL498, it could be indicated that even though the academic staff are competent to manage teaching assignments, nevertheless, with respect to research, a certain number of staff are still lacking sufficient research skills, whether it is a quantitative or quantitative research, not to mention issues of applying for external research fundings.Having not enough research incentives set within the organisation (comparing to those provided in the case of teachings), sending out of a policy driven signal which does not require researches to be one of the assessment criteria for performance assessment whilst giving more importance towards producing texts and teaching materials, all of which have made an issue of researches to seem insignificant and irrelevant as viewed by the staff, rendering no incentives and supports that would encourage its personnel to go into research (including issues of no financial compensation given to research advisor, little amount of payment of 3,000 Baht made available to research supervisor, which is basically equal to payment received by volunteering students working for only 15 days).
3) Research environment: this also includes resources allocation that would foster research activities, creating research working environment and establishing positive attitudes towards research conducting within the institution.One of the established facts concerning resources allocation so as to stimulate research activities, on this regards, with special reference to the field of political science, it is found that academic publications available in libraries including electronic resources are considerably limited.Such limitations are said to involve outdated texts and journals written in Thai or English, of which the argument of obsoleteness is often referred to as a deterrence against research promoting besides other factors such as adverse attitudes against conducting researches, specially those towards research disseminations which is often true even amongst groups of model staffs from all 30 faculties within Rangsit University.
None the less, when comparing to other institutes (for instance, the faculty of architecture, Khon Kaen University (2006) and Sakon Nakorn Rajabhat University (n.d.), both of which will be discussed later when examining lessons learned from other institutions) including relatively well known private universities such as Bangkok University, it is undeniable that Rangsit University still falls short to keep up with research support regime as it fails to reduce the amount of work assigned to permanent academic staff, while on the other hand, research factor is not regarded as one of the key performance indicators when evaluating and assessing staff's performance.In contrast, Bangkok University has announced to cut down permanent faculty's workload from 2010 onwards, allowing those who wish to undertake academic works to decrease their regular teaching burden by 25% unto 100% basing on comparative scoring table given by ONESQA (Announcement by Bangkok University No.121/2553 on Workload reduction of permanent academic staff).

Lessons Learned from Other Institutions
In essence, the problem in question does not only happen to Rangsit University or the College of Government, similar difficulties are present among other universities in Thailand.
Vis-a-vis the analysis of work allocation for academic personnel, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (ranked during the Asian University Ranking 2014 as the 50 th by Times and was placed at the 184 th by QS Rankings), it is discovered that the workload ratio during the first semester of 2004 academic year was equal to teaching workload: research requirement: other workload as 61.98:19.69:18.33,whilst the targeted ratio was set at 40:35:25.Nevertheless, upon analysing internal environment of each departments, it is found that reasons behind unsuccessful attempt to reach the targeted ration lie with factors involving the environment and staff's competency, which could be a result from previous mismanagement of strategic planning and human resources (Lerttrirak & Chaiyasit, 2004).
Similar incident also occurred at the department of surgery and theriogenology, faculty of veterinary medicine, Khon Kaen University back in 2008 with the research promoting programme for its department staffs.Solutions that were taken are as follow (Khankangplu, 2008).
1) Increasing number of teaching staff in order to decrease workload (Results-same number of staff ( 15) and unoccupied position (1 position)).
3) Encouraging department personnel to take up research advisory roles supervising its students (Results-an increase in number of undergraduate special advisors to 3 positions (1 position as an addition from the previous year)) and a rise of research initiatives to 6 projects, 1 project in addition to the previous year for master degree students.4) Applying for external fundings to support staff's research works (Results-2 staffs were given external financial support to fund 2 research projects).
Overall, it can be established that there has been a move forward that could lead to desirable results, if possible.
With respect to the increase in personnel and providing funds for development, such as coming up with development plans, providing office supplies, producing fiscal plan and allocate teaching and learning resources, reducing staff's workload, and increasing number of personnel to be adequate for existing workload, all of which can be viewed as possible solutions and development strategy as recommended by commission of internal evaluation with set standards issued by OHEC, academic year of B.E.2551, Faculty of architecture and interior designs Rajamangala University of Technology Phra Nakhon (2014).

Applicable Recommendations and Guidelines for the College of Government
1) Prompt response: creating incentives and enabling research environment should be perceived as necessary steps and requirements, subject under various existing limitations.Firstly, knowledge exchange and sharing for research development, as listed in series of independent studies modules offered to undergraduate students, including conducting dissertation and/or independent studies by graduate students are considered to be a mean to initiate and advocate staffs into doing researches.What is more, this approach could lead to the development of research skills with minimum costs, which means that there are very few supports, internal or external, required.Also, due to the degree completion requirement demanding research dissemination, provided that the student's work is well supervised and suitable for publication, the work can then be presented at national academic conferences, held by Rangsit University or other organisers.Higher benefits could also be obtained from the work written in English because this would allow additional supports enabling such work to be presented or published at international forum.
As to the forming of "research team" instead of "researcher" when applying for research funding from relevant agencies, this approach can help reducing the costs paid to project advisors (in the case where supports are given by the Research Institute of Rangsit University) by appointing experienced researcher to be project leader, who can provide guidance and advises to team members.On this regard, it should be noted that level of acknowledgement, profile qualifications and number of research projects (Note 6) are key factors used by grant owners when selecting research grant recipients.
Having research teams where team members are comprised of various staffs from different departments and colleges within or outside Rangsit University, multidisciplinary knowledge synergy will be of great advantages for the particular research teams.Such desirable characteristics favoured among scholarship owners are often preferred and anticipated when reviewing scholarship applicants (Note 7).This is also consistent with the case of collaborations from other institutes, internal or external, where not only the research can cover wider range of fields but also strengthen and unit the collaborations and this has been officially stated as the proposed intentions when awarding all 3 funding categories by the Thailand Research Fund (2014).
Research collaboration also generates more bargaining power for the team.It allows both experienced and new researchers to acquire greater research skills, both in terms of total budget value and sizes of researches (research fields, number of subjects and the project duration).These advantages would not be possible for individual applicants (who is unlikely to meet the primary requirements such as conditions to hold a Ph.D title and to have their works published in international publications, of which are demanded by all 3 types of TRF fundings).It is evident that supports given by other relevant authorities would significantly boost up research incentives for new researchers entering into research field.
One of several examples that has been already completed or still in the running under the supervision of the faculty of political science is a series of research project conducted for independent studies (POL489) on women participation in politics: the cases of the parliament (Note 8), the cabinet (Note 9), political party committee (Note 10), women success as a permanent secretary (Note 11).Prima facie, there are potentials that these works can be further improved and later on published as essays in international journals.
To elaborate further, the organising of research team drawing in members from within the College, namely, with members of the institute of criminology and public administration to work on a project titled "Crimes in Mueng Ake community" (Note 12) and the research cooperation with external agencies, namely, with the faculty of political science and law, Kalasin University, the faculty of humanities and social sciences of Phranakhon Rajabhat University, the faculty of humanities and social sciences of Uttaradit Rajabhat University, and the faculty of humanities and social sciences as well as the faculty of management sciences, Nakhon Si Thammarat Rajabhat University on the research project named "Fear of crimes among Rajabhat's students" (Note 13).There is also a research collaboration with the faculty of business administration Mahanakorn Universety of Technology and the Political Science Association of Kasetsart University on a research topic of A Comparative Study of the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Primary Education Management between the Provincial Administrative Organisation and the Office of the Basic Education Commission (Note 14), to name a few.
2) Mid-term response: this concern creating incentives and less stringent requirements that will encourage works dissemination on national as well as international level.Despite policy signals giving out by Rangsit University concerning the research and dissemination promoting scheme especially at international forum has produced a positive effect of generating greater number of research disseminations at international level; yet, this policy fails to acknowledge certain gaps of inequality existed in the differences of its staff's competency.Such issue demands our attention and, accordingly, the College as weak as the university might benefit further if higher emphasis could be placed upon policies promoting research publications within national academic journals (the ones that are listed in the Thai-Journal Citation Index Centre or TCI).Such notion is found to be in accordance with the regime practiced by Thammasat University where it still awards works that have been published in TCI journals with rate of 5,000 Baht per essay (Office of Research Management Thammasat University, 2014).
In addition, taking for instance from a learning series on research disseminations and innovations, produced from a study of model staff on the concerned topic from 30 faculties across Rangsit University, it highlights that a matter of language barrier is considered as a main deterrence towards research disseminations at international level (Subcommittee of research and innovations management, 2014).With respect to such problem, the Office of Research Management Thammasat University (2014) had announced to provide supports with reference to the cost of translation (from Thai to English) so that the works can be published in international publications (Note 15).Considering this particular funding policy, when the staff are competent enough to produce works that are qualified to be published in international journals, other relevant monetary incentives, with an exception to the money given out to cover the cost of translation, can then be dismissed.
Last but not least, it is advisable to organise an academic cooperation network, specifically with the case of producing academic journals and holding academic conferences, national as well as international basis, in order to offer platforms where academic staffs as well as students can have their work presented and/or published.This would also open up many opportunities that allow others to participate as, for example, a running committee, members of editorial board, qualified readers reviewing and commenting submitted essays or academic presentations.The proposed action would effectively act as a stepping stone before the College take on such business and runnings on its own in the near future (Note 16).
An example project that has been completed and/or still in the running under the supervision of the faculty of political science is a cooperation network between the Command and General Staff College, PSAKU, Centre for Thai Justice Research and Development, the faculty of business administration Mahanakorn Universety of Technology, Asian Forum on Business Education and the Office of Research and Academic Services National University of Laos upon the organising of the 1 st International Conference on Security Studies, held on Wednesday 25 th , June 2014 (Note 17).In this event, 3 selected essays of the College permanent staff were presented by respectively Jermsittiparsert, Narktharanun and Boonprong, whose work was named as Best Paper Award, amounting to international awards standards set by ONESAQ.
3) Long-tern response: this involved a production of systematic settings and research development strategy that the College must put into concrete effect.As a start, there must be a push that would bring about changes of internal regulations on the issue of the assignment and evaluation of staff's workload, which can be consistent with the given fiscal budget (Note 18).When evaluating the staff performance including making decisions to cut down certain workload given to permanent academic staff, this can be done by taking the number of research publications into account, using the scoring standard set by ONESAQ.This approach has been carried out by several institutions such as the faculty of architecture Khon Kaen University (2006) where it has been stated that a research project with the minimum value of 2 million Baht shall be treated as equal to 1.75 workload per week; Sakon Nakorn Rajabhat University (n.d.) stating that one international research publication is amount to a workload of 4 hours per week; Bangkok University announcing that staffs who intend to produce an overall academic work that would score 3 ONESAQ points can ask for their regular workload to be decreased to 75-100 per cent (Announcement by Bangkok University No.121/2553 on Workload reduction of permanent academic staff).
In order to achieve such target, the College is promoted to come up with a research development plan that must be consistent with the existing manpower.In other words, there should be an increase in the number of staff that would fit the overall demand for teaching and research workload, which must be coherent with the milestones set up by the College.On this regard, the founding of college committee to oversee the drafting of development plans, either annually or a 4 year plan, would effectively render the drafting of the development plan to be in accordance to the amount of financial supports, incomes from academic services, anticipated deduction in workload, and the rise in relevant expenses, which would go hand in hand with the flexible ratio of the demand for manpower.Note 5.It is perceived that a supervisor is a key person who initiates research topics, supervises and plays significant role of reviewing and analysing the findings.An appendix in the announcement of the higher education commission on principles and assessment criteria of assigning assistant professor, associated professor, and professor position (No. 2) 2007 on the issue under section 3.8 concerning characteristics of participation in academic works specify that academic works that are published as research papers or student's dissertations under the supervision of the assessed personnel can be taken into account when applying to be assessed and evaluated.(OHEC, 2014) Note 6. Annual 2015 research funds for new researchers, researcher development funds, and fundings for new-found knowledge as essential basis for development given by TRF (2014) all require scholarship applicants to obtain degree qualification of Ph.D or as compatible and are requested to have their works published in international publications (a minimum of 1 publication, 2 and 3 publications within the previous course of 5 years respectively).
Note 7. Announcement on the submissions of annual research proposals 2014 in a series of project on promoting local self governance and decentralisation, it is clearly stated that PCRP recognises the importance of [Interdisciplinary] knowledge utilisation as it is the key success factor towards achieving local self governance development, where interdisciplinary sciences are required, for example, political, legal, sociological and economic sciences (TRF, 2014).
Note 13.K. Jermsittiparsert (project leader), N. Akahat, A. Sawasdee, S. Rodboonsong and T. Therabonchon (researchers).Note 15.Currently, Rangsit University only provide support that cover the cost of translation subject to the restricted amount of 2,000 Baht.
Note 16.On March 20 th , 2015, the College of Government, Rangsit University hosted the 1 st International Conference on Government and Politics at Rangsit University, with collaborations from both national and international academic and vocational institutions, participating as the organising committee, an editorial board, distinguished scholars, research presenters, including as participants of the conference.
Note 17. A. Laothamatas, as the College Rector, was a vice president of organising of this conference (appointed by title), with S. La-ongsakul, W. Boonprong (Organising committee), K. Jermsittiparsert (Conference