SIM's Governance and Management
December 2006.
SIM's management is the responsibility of a centre director and a management committee of eight persons, including co-ordinators for each of the four themes, the Head of School and the Coordinator of Postgraduate Research. One member of the committee is designated deputy director.
The management committee is responsible for ensuring appropriate supervision of SIM-based projects. Project leaders are required to report quarterly to the management committee.
Members of SIM are academic staff, research associates and postgraduate researchers who give more than 10 per cent of their research time to SIM-based projects, participating in one or more of the following ways: conducting research; supervising research; managing research projects; (co-)writing project proposals; presenting research results through SIM seminars; reporting relevant research activities through SIM procedures. Members of SIM may also be members of other DCU research Centres, but any individual activity must be reported through only one centre. Only members actively involved in SIM may mention affiliation to the centre in research funding applications.
General meetings of SIM members and project seminars are each scheduled at least three times per year; they may be held in conjunction with one another, or separately. One general meeting shall be dedicated to the presentation and approval of the Centre's annual report, presented by the Centre's director, and reports from each research stream coordinator identifying areas that may require special action. This meeting will consider strategic issues, revisions where appropriate to the internal structure of the centre and the appointment of officers, including the Management Committee. Members will be given three weeks notice of all general meetings and invited to submit items for the agenda.
Meetings of SIM's management committee are scheduled at least six times per year. The agenda will be circulated to all members one week in advance. Meetings will be open to all members of the centre but only MC members can participate in any votes at MC meetings. Minutes will be circulated to all members within one week of meetings. Dates and times of meetings will be agreed well in advance, as part of the agenda of each meeting, to facilitate maximum participation. If urgent meetings are required, a date and time will be selected that is convenient to most members. All key documents generated by the MC, including the annual report to RAP, will be circulated to all members.
The key role of the MC is to support members in writing research project proposals, completing projects successfully and disseminating the findings. This includes mentoring, where appropriate, both small research clusters, working on specific research projects falling within the overall SIM agenda, and individual projects, including research related to professional or creative practice or highly specialized areas of production. The MC will be the major forum for planning the overall work of the centre, as well as the relevance of research developments at Faculty, University or national levels, particularly as these relate to funding opportunities. It will manage the centre in line with the goals agreed at general meetings of the members, including strategies for all four research themes. The MC will maintain and develop the Centre's website so that the research activities of members are communicated more widely.
SIM-based projects require approval from the management committee before submission to any internal or external funding agency. Proposers of a project must give notice to the centre director, in a 1-2-page summary, of an intended submission. In exceptional circumstances, the management committee may confer by email or phone on a request for endorsement.