CETAPS Strategic Project Plan for 2019-2022

The strategic plan hereby presented for CETAPS has benefited from input sought and received from its members, over the past year, at a series of highly clarifying plenary, group, and board meetings. These meetings worked as fora for discussing 1) CETAPS’ strengths, weaknesses, uniqueness, and value; 2) opportunities and possible directions for a successful development of the research centre; 3) and research priorities. The meetings were planned and organised by the Centre’s board of directors, who provided members with performance indicators and reports on the centre’s activity as a basis for informed discussions. It was the board’s responsibility to ensure that the goals set as a result of these meetings for the period 2018-2022 are strategically in line with those of the two host universities. The list of questions that structured the debate raised awareness about the centre’s identity and achievements, urging participants to reflect on what and where they would like it to be in 2022.

The meetings, and the extensive consultation they involved, have resulted in a clear strengthening of CETAPS by bringing out the research values shared by its members. Such values are reflected in the list below, which details the Centre’s goals and strategies for addressing its perceived opportunities and shortcomings over the next 5 years. For each goal and strategy, target numbers – to be considered as milestones – are defined.

GOAL 1: Cultivate a research culture that values quality, promotes the advancement of knowledge, provides researchers with adequate infrastructures, and ensures a sustainable critical mass of researchers, attracting high-quality postdoctoral students and visiting scholars

Strategies: enhance CETAPS’s performance across all Research Areas (RA) and Research Strands (RS); update our libraries; focus on high-quality research outputs, emphasizing quality over quantity; pursue publication policies geared towards international recognition, as with the recent indexation to Scopus of the Journal of Anglo-Portuguese Studies (Revista de Estudos Anglo-Portugueses (http://www.fcsh.unl.pt/japs ); improve our communication policy to give due visibility to outstanding achievements, as when our researchers publish their outputs under major imprints, are awarded prizes, or attract external grants and contracts; attach incentives to established priorities (eg. support for participation in conferences to be conditional on plans for publication with peer-reviewed outlets); provide researchers with updated lists of recommended world-class journals and imprints; share with all members progress performance indicators to monitor their contribution to the advancement of knowledge in their field; promote contact with specialists and organize events in innovative formats for knowledge exchange; promote CETAPS’s postdoctoral programmes, highlighting the opportunities they offer for research, network and outreach activities.

Targets – Until 2022, each RA and RS aims to: release at least one major publication internationally recognized as a reference in the field; depending on group dimension, publish 5 to 10 major articles in indexed journals; organize at least 1 major conference with a considerable number the presence of international experts. Globally, CETAPS aims to attract at least 2 postdoctoral students or visiting researchers every year.

GOAL 2: An organizational model based on a transparent policy for allocating resources, circulating information, promoting equality of opportunities and monitoring progress

Strategies: Publicize a rationale for allocating resources that researchers may clearly understand, ensure effective funding for internationally valued and recognized research areas, enhance capabilities and incentivize new efforts; publish guidelines for conference organizers on how to access and deploy CETAPS’s human and financial resources, media channels, website, poster, abstract and PowerPoint templates; publish a quarterly Newsletter on CETAPS’ activities to foster collaboration across the participant institutions and our RAs and RSs; promote regular meetings to discuss performance indicators and any necessary adjustments, as well as newly available research paths and partnerships; involve external advisors in this reflective, self-assessment process, especially as regards theoretical and methodological grounds.

Targets – Promote annually: at least 1 plenary meeting; 1 meeting with the advisors; 2 RAs and RSs meetings.

GOAL 3: national and international recognition for CETAPS’s training programmes, attracting, training, and integrating high-quality MA and PhD students.

Strategies: publicize Nova’s and U.Porto’s MA and Ph.D. programmes nationally and internationally, enhancing the links between these academic programmes and CETAPS research and outreach activities; secure programmatic funding for awarding grants to our best students; provide young researchers with training workshops on competences required by academic and research careers; encourage young researchers to present their work at conferences, and fund participation of best students in major events; provide the JRAAS Platform (Junior Researchers in Anglo-American Studies) with adequate resources for their planned activities

Targets: Integrate at least 4 new students every year into the JRAAS Platform; offer JRAAS at least 6 training workshops per year. Secure programmatic funding for scholarships for at least 7 doctoral students (academic years 2019-2022).

See current training programmes: https://www.cetaps.com/training

GOAL 4: Consolidate efforts towards international acknowledgement of CETAPS’s excellence in advancing knowledge in fields key to its operation

Strategy: Align the centre’s activity with international research priorities; consolidate the presence of CETAPS’ researchers on executive and advisory committees of societies and journals; highlight participation of our researchers in international projects and networks (eg. PETALL; C4C – CLIL for Children; New Faces); increase presence at conferences; increase the number of publications in international indexed journals.

Target: 80% of the events CETAPS’ members attend are international; 70% of CETAPS’ publications aim at international readership. At least 1 member per Research Area and Strand belongs to an executive board or scientific committee of a major society or journal.

GOAL 5: Increase visibility and awareness of CETAPS’s value while investing in wide impact outreach activities, promoting ‘citizen science’ and complying with open-access policies

Strategies: keep CETAPS’s site updated, and monitor visitor nos. to gauge perceived relevance of contents; publicize key success factors through external media; encourage media presence of members on topics pertinent to their research; organize book launches and send publications to journals for reviewing; regularly publicize CETAPS’s online journals and booklet series; define metrics to prove public impact and show how research conducted by our RAs and RSs results in social, cultural and environmental benefits to the public; engage with local community and sign protocols with local institutions – schools, senior universities, local authorities, libraries and museums; develop communications media, including a channel on YouTube and another for podcasts; engage with bloggers; organize 2 massive open online courses (Pre-Service Teaching Education; Utopian Thinking)

Target: Triple the number of followers on Facebook; triple the number of protocols with Theatres, Museums and cultural associations; triple the number of protocols with schools

GOAL 6: Participate in international networks for collaboration and exchange, extend the range of our research and give international visibility to research outputs

Strategy: Secure programmatic funding for collaboration with networks of recognized international standing; benefit from their connections, expertise and innovative research practices by attending their meetings and events and participate in their projects; continue the partnership with other European Universities within the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership New Faces, the Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate TEEME, the international projects PETALL and C4C, and the interdisciplinary network Laboratory of Architecture, Art, Image and Innovation

Target: Be actively engaged with all the networks mentioned in 14.3

GOAL 7 – Invest in knowledge and technology transfer by further developing and updating CETAPS’s Digital Lab, its databases and software, organizing open online massive courses and training researchers to develop projects in the Digital Humanities

Strategy: Secure programmatic funding to: train researchers in the Digital Humanities; keep CETAPS technologically updated, optimise user interfaces of the Digital Lab and its databases, and hire ICT experts to maintain and enrich contents; use the media to publicize the Digital Lab and databases; present them at international conferences, highlighting the variety and relevance of research results; incorporate a hit-counter to monitor visits.

Targets: Number of visits until 2022: to the Digital Lab: 5,000; to the databases/software: EDTL: 5,000.000; ARUS 5,000; BBP 2,000; Biblio Aps 2,000; EDVP 2,000; VAP 2,000; Shakespeare TM 2,000; Alimentopia: 1,000.

LATEST FCT REPORTS

2016-2017: List of complete publications

2015-2016: List of complete publications (Relatório de progresso 2015)