Power BI

New self-service dashboards have been made available to senior staff on the Power BI Dashboard Portal

These include:

• Research Applications & Awards Dashboard: A dashboard detailing the research applications and awards at the University of Aberdeen.
• Research Income Dashboard: A dashboard detailing the Research project income for the University of Aberdeen.
• Research Excellence Framework Dashboard: A dashboard detailing the Research Excellence Framework (REF) results for the University of Aberdeen.
• Research Staff Protected Characteristics: A dashboard detailing the Research staff appointments by protected characteristics for the University of Aberdeen.

The dashboards can be found here

Additional research dashboards in line with School and University performance indicators are in development. We welcome suggestions that would benefit schools and disciplines in research reporting, please email your suggestions to researchreporting@abdn.ac.uk

Standard Reports

Several standard reports can be provided to Schools and Disciplines where requested by the Research Development Executive, Director of Research, Head of School or members of Senior Management. Reports include

• Current Live Grants
• Award details by Discipline
• Research awards by funding Organisation
• Previous Applications to Funding Organisations

Standard reports will usually include the Applicant or PI Name, Discipline name (where broken down to discipline level), applicant or PI/Co-I share, full value of the award, start and end dates of the application or award, project title, and funder name. Where you require additional information in your report please include this in your request. We aim to provide standard reports within two working days, if you require additional information added this may take longer to provide.

Worktribe

Worktribe is an online platform that provides a single end to end solution for development, submission, and approval of grant applications through to post award monitoring and financial management. Find out more about Worktribe

Worktribe is used to feed application and award information to the Power BI Dashboard and underpins much of the data in the Research Applications & Awards, Research Income, and Research Staff Dashboards.

Additional reporting from Worktribe is through standard and advanced search criteria. Example reports from Worktribe include:

1. Application and Awards Status reports
2. Reporting on Research tags such as IDR themes, Research Centres, Sustainable development goals, etc.
3. Responding to funder and Freedom of Information requests

Pure

Pure is the University’s Research Information system, it holds a range of research-related outcomes, impact, activities, and promotes the University’s research excellence to the wider community. Find out more about Pure 

Data from Pure supplements reporting in the Power BI dashboards and is used to populate REF related data such as units of assessment, in Research Applications & Awards, Research Income, and Research Staff Dashboards.

Ad hoc reporting in Pure is supported through a dedicated reporting module and through individual reporting access.

Example reports from Pure include:

1. Individual Pure reports to support annual review and promotion activities
2. Publication reports for Schools, Disciplines, Research Centres or Research Groups
3. Activity and Impact reporting
4. REF reporting

Support for Research Reporting

Colleagues in Research and Innovation are available to help with your reporting needs.

Our Research Reporting Officer, Kathleen Faulkner, and Research Information Officer, Nykohla Strong are available to help with various reporting needs and requirements. Ad hoc and regular reports can be requested by emailing researchreporting@abdn.ac.uk

Demonstrations are also available to help senior users with the Power BI Dashboards please email researchreporting@abdn.ac.uk to request a demonstration of the available dashboards.

Key performance indicators and School performance indicators

Colleagues across Research and Innovation and the Scholarly Communications team in the Library provide a range of metrics and analysis to the directorate of Planning to support the production of KPIs and School PIs including:

• Institution and School level data on citations and international co-authorship
• Institution and School level data on research publications categorised by multiple research areas
• Institution and School level data on research income, including benchmarking with comparator institutions
• Institutional data on Research funding with external partners
• Institutional data on publications relating to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal

Reporting to University Research Committee, Senior management meetings and Court.

(text suggestions)

Reporting from external sources

InCItes

The university of Aberdeen currently subscribes to the Web of Science Database and the Analysis tool InCites

An institutional licence allows staff to search publications across the Web of Science database and access and query the analysis tool to discover their own data in relation to citations, H-Index, number of published documents, collaborations, category and journal normalised impact, and topic word clouds.

The University of Aberdeen also uses this data to provide benchmarking information for School and Institutional level Performance indicators, to understand collaboration networks across geographic areas, and to identify areas of research excellence. 

Heid Plus (HESA)

Heidi Plus includes up to 12 years of HESA data and is updated on a regular basis. Heidi Plus allows the University of Aberdeen to review higher education data insights on students, graduates, staff, finances, estates, community and business interaction and other metrics, Heidi plus is also used to Benchmark performance by institutions, regions, mission groups and the overall HE sector. Find out more about Heid plus

Data from Heidi plus is used on an annual basis to produce institutional key performance indicators and will feature in some of the in-development dashboards due for release from 2023.

Other reporting requirements

Researchfish: Funder Reporting

Principal Investigators (PIs) are responsible for ensuring that research projects are undertaken in line with the terms and conditions issued by the funder. Most funders require annual, interim and final reports on the activities that have been completed as a result of the funding they have awarded. For many funders that involves an annual return to Researchfish. Research & Innovation can support PIs with the Researchfish return however the submit process must be completed by the PI. Reports are provided to Schools during the main Researchfish reporting window to confirm accuracy of response codes and provide completion information.

Find out more about Researchfish and reporting to your funder

Scottish Funding Council (SFC) Outcome Agreements

The University’s Outcome Agreement with the Scottish Funding Council is developed in partnership with the SFC and sets out how the University intends to contribute towards the delivery of Scottish Government priorities. This includes outcomes for research e.g., Research Excellence and Research Sustainability. Find out more about the SFC outcome agreements

Research Excellence Framework (REF)

The REF is the latest iteration of research assessment exercises held every 6 years or so by the UK government since the 1980s. It is a measure of research quality as well as research intensity. Reports on REF preparations form part of our Institutional KPIs

The REF outcome has become an internationally recognised standard of research quality for UK institutions, and feeds into many institutional ranking and benchmarking exercises. It therefore has great reputational value to UK institutions. The REF results also feed into the formula used by the funding councils to calculate the annual research block grant or Research Excellence Grant (REG). Reports are provided to

Find out more about REF