A new tool for judging the value of research management

What value does your research support office provide? When Olaf Svenningsen and colleagues presented a way to prove the value of research support at EARMA, the audience loved it. Here they set out their new evaluation method, Vespers.

In an era of rampant key performance indicators and metrics-based research evaluation, it is becoming increasingly important for research support offices to be able to spell out their impact and the value of the management and administration processes they use.

Our values proposition model for research support, or Vespers, sets out to create a simple procedure for analysing the value provided by research support offices and services providing a way to visualise how your research management and administration is perceived.