The Rovira i Virgili University (URV) was founded in 1992. It is a public university serving southern Catalonia, a region with 800,000 inhabitants. The university was founded by the Catalan Parliament to unite existing higher education faculties and schools in the Tarragona area under a joint institutional umbrella. URV is accountable to the Department of Higher Education of the Catalan government, which provides the university’s structural funding (EUR 61 million in 2013). Around 20% of this funding is in recognition of the university’s research performance. Additionally, URV takes advantage of national and regional government run competitive-funding programmes for education, research and knowledge transfer activities. URV has become one of the leading institutions in Spain for research quality and output. It has gained international recognition in its five areas of specialisation (chemistry and energy, nutrition and health, tourism, oenology, heritage and culture.) 

  Innovative Features

• Organisational Capacity, People and Incentives

The HEI has been successful in breaking down traditional boundaries and fostering new relationships - bringing internal stakeholders together (staff and students) and building synergies between them

In 1992, URV was a university under construction, with young ambitious academic staff willing to fight for career success. This staff ambition and vision was well aligned with the university’s vision to create a research intensive and highly competitive modern university with a strong academic reputation. 

URV had the advantage of working in a context where the majority of the faculty shared ambitions. They could create systems from scratch that supported the delivery of their vision and the surrounding ecosystem actively wanted their success. This lack of historic baggage has been a key factor in URV’s success. 

In 1999 the Rector’s Technical Bureau established the Research and Academic Staff Commitment Agreement (RASCA). RASCA is an online tool using in-house developed software. It is organised into three annually recurring phases: planning, monitoring and final evaluation. The tool is used by academic staff to establish their individual objectives and activities and to monitor their progress against these objectives. Alignment with departmental activity is achieved through the development of a departmental RASCA agreement. The departmental agreement is then sent by the head of department to the vice-rector. 

This people-centred organisational tool has strategic, operational and cultural impact. It brings together individual motivation and talent with organisational structure, so reinforcing a developmental culture in which success at all levels is actively recognised and appreciated. 

The rationale for RASCA can be summarised as follows: 

• The need to channel the efforts of educators and researchers towards URV’s strategic objectives, and create meaningful goals at individual and organisational levels that are in alignment across all levels.
• Recognition of the synergy and value created by departmental collaboration in teaching, research, transfer of knowledge, service and administration. In particular, recognition that collaboration enhances both the quality and quantity of work delivered. 
• Teaching and research are collective rather than individual tasks, which are best carried out by individuals with a high level of autonomy and respect for their peers. 
• The role of teaching staff has changed since the Bologna and Lisbon processes. Educators have a triple role: they are facilitators of learning processes, enablers of knowledge generation, and promoters of the university’s third mission activities. 
• Providing flexibility to accommodate for the diversity of professors, in terms of their professional backgrounds (both academic and industry experiences), and their local and international networks. Professors need to reach their full potential and be available for the benefit of the university as a whole. 

RASCA follows a clear, ‘plan-execute-evaluate-improve-report’ cycle. The system supports a high level of autonomy facilitating alignment of individual, departmental and university interests. It allows the University to maintain up-to-date records of its activities in teaching, research and third mission activities. The cycle is clear and the objectives accessible to all academic staff. The system has proved to be useful for recognising opportunities, research and teaching, and for building synergies between URV’s mission pillars. 

The RASCA activities are classified in five groups, which cover: 

• Teaching: credits, tutorships, merits, extra activities, examining boards.
• Research: merits, active projects, doctoral theses, scientific output, other research-related activities.
• Outreach and knowledge exchange: including technology transfer, cultural activities, involvement in society and other ‘extramural’ activities.
• Management: management of study programmes, merits, positions of responsibility, management and coordination assignments.
• Personal development: training, mobility. 

Staff can add new information to these 5 activity groups, including adding sub-headings for activities which are not yet recognised by the system. This makes the system interactive and dynamic, and enables the system to provide suggestions for activities for staff, inspired by the activities of their colleagues. 

Valuation of annual achievements works on customised standard units of measurement called academic activity units (AAU). AAUs are assigned to the five activity areas according to an agreed weighting system. There are two types of AAU:  1) Cross-sectional AAUs, which measure the academic work load relative to administrative and management tasks, including general university tasks applicable to all staff and all areas studies and 2) individual AAUs, which measure time spent on academic tasks e.g. teaching, research activities. 

Department-specific tasks are measured by the departments themselves. In the diagram below the management dimension includes personal development and mobility, and 3rd mission include enterprise and entrepreneurship support. 

The HEI invests in staff development to support its entrepreneurial agenda

RASCA valuation can have significant implications for individual staff members. The minimum number of AAUs is set at 10 points. For results below this, the department and individual staff member jointly design an improvement plan. For example, a RASCA valuation of 8, showing poor dedication to research activities, might lead to a re-planned incrementing teaching load or the development of a research action plan. Results above 10 points are rewarded by additional funds for the activities of those staff that have delivered additional resources. These extra resources are normally allocated for each department within the annual action plan. There is also a collective incentive for the department or the research group. If the average AAUs of staff in the department is higher than the average results of departments in the university, additional funds are made available from the central university budget.  Throughout the system, there is provision for rewarding excellence in performance at the level at which it is delivered. 

Most importantly, the RASCA process stimulates dialogue between departments and individual members of staff, and between departments and the university. This forms the basis for a continuous dynamic process of clarifying and re-defining objectives at the individual, departmental and university level within a common strategic framework. 

A key challenge in setting up the system was the quantification of the different activities in terms of AAUs. To harmonise the different interests and the existing diversity, a search for RASCA profiles and standards was carried out in 2012.This resulted in a general agreement, which has made it easy to transfer to AAUs and to establish a minimum AAU threshold for individual contribution to the goals of the department and the university. 

During the first 5 years, detailed individual RASCA and valuation results were available to the individual staff and the head of department. Only departmental average results were presented when department results were discussed between the head of department and the vice-rector. During this time, the lack of individual recognition was recognised as an obstacle to increasing individual credibility and engagement. Hence, in 2012, the procedure was changed. Today an annual RASCA report, showing individual staff and average department results across the five activity areas, is available on the URV’s intranet. It is presented and discussed by the General University Board. 

Transparency has been crucial to the success of RASCA. An important part of this transparency is the recognition of individual achievements at the university level. 

Looking back at 14 years of RASCA, it is clear that a cultural shift took place with this change in system. The initial perception of the system as a source of control has changed, progressively, to a sense of greater engagement with the institution as a whole. 

Today, RASCA provides a number of benefits for individual staff, departments and URV as a whole. There is a transparent distribution of duties, with a more effective recognition and use of individual interests, skills and talents. Planning of individual activities is steered towards coordination and alignment with overall department activities and URV’s strategic plans. 

Individuals devote most of their effort to activities which they are competent at and enjoy. This increases their contributions to department objectives and raises commitment to URV’s strategic plans. Staff performance and career progress are enhanced, which has a positive impact on the overall performance of departments, and, in turn, on URV as a whole. This has a tangible, positive impact on professional development and work satisfaction. 

Lessons learned

RASCA is a complex system. Initially there was a risk that RASCA would be considered as employing too much control and bureaucracy. To overcome this apprehension, dialogue at all levels was very important. The system was piloted with a small group of individuals and departments (25 staff with different profiles across 5 departments). Considerable efforts (1 year, 2 part time staff and outsourcing contracts) were made in developing a user friendly online platform, acceptable to users from different parts of the university system. 

Since 1999, RASCA has evolved considerably. Initially there was a long period of debate and refinements. At this time, particular attention was paid to activities in the social sciences and humanities because of the diversity of approach disciplines within the social sciences. The ‘hard sciences’ were perceived as easier to define. 

The on-line RASCA software and the integration of the information over a variety of software platforms (including research, teaching, human resources) was an important initial step in the RASCA implementation. This has facilitated the individual and departmental management of the process. 

Over the years, there has been continuous improvement in how information is structured and displayed. A co-creative partnership between the Rector’s Technical Bureau and the IT Department was a key factor in achieving this. In addition, and in parallel to the RASCA on- line platform, two senior project managers were engaged for the technical design in which the heads of several university units also took part. The RASCA is now highly decentralized and automatic. Two junior and two senior managers work part time on the annual RASCA on- going process. At the individual and departmental level, the work load of the RASCA has been completely integrated into the planning and management culture and the time spent is not critical for the RASCA planning, follow-up and end-up processes. 

In 2004, RASCA was included in the university statute as a key tool to increase organisational capacity. This has been crucial to URV’s development. It positioned RASCA as central to university performance. It set the standard for responsibilities, procedures and transparency rules, and provided a strong operational and cultural declaration of intent on behalf of the university. 

In 2006 AAUs were introduced. The development process took 8 months to reach consensus and ended in agreement about the criteria for weighting the various activities and results included in the RASCA. The hardest decisions made were related to valuation issues. It was necessary to quantify and rate activities that are very different in nature. There were significantly different, strongly-held points of view between disciplines. 

In 2007, RASCA was given an award for ‘Good Internal Management Practice’ by the Spanish Ministry of Public Administrations. The RASCA concept has been included in the draft of the Spanish law for academic public servants. Several Spanish universities have introduced RASCA-like processes in recent years. Internationally RASCA has been discussed as a good practice. 

The rationale for RASCA is relevant for universities that aim to be globally competitive and locally engaged. RASCA is a good way of managing and enhancing diversity, by stimulating synergies between different interest & talents at the individual, departmental and institutional levels. The integration of the social sciences and the humanities departments in the project has been particularly successful and important. This was a milestone in the overall process; for the first time a wide range of activities that were routine in social science and humanities were actively acknowledged as staff activities instrumental to achieving the different university missions (E.g. Participating as a jury in poetry awards or evaluating published books in order to include them in the teaching programmes). 

Results/Achievements

The key factors in the success of RASCA can be summarised as follows: 

• A continuous process of proposal, consultation and debate about RASCA at all academic levels, coordinated by the Rector’s Technical Bureau. 

• Inclusion of the concept and philosophy of the RASCA in URV’s central regulation, the statute.  This enabled RASCA’s full integration into the institution and its establishment as part of the daily management processes of URV.

• The implementation of RASCA as a dynamic, interactive, learning process has made it possible to review and revise agreements, provide tailored support and rewards, and expand the activities according to changes in user needs.
 

• An online system based with a user-friendly interface.