Rouages: “Staying Closely Connected to Research”
Delphine Petit and Magali Puech both work in the Directorate of Research and Doctoral Studies (DRED). The former heads the Research Structures and Resources Coordination Division, while the latter heads the Indicators and Management Division. This month, as part of the“Rouages”video series, they tell us about their jobs.
You’ll need to go to the Triolet campus to find the DRED. Inside Building 7, fourteen people across four departments and one office contribute to this essential mission: implementing the University’s policy on doctoral education and research. Delphine Petit and Magali Puech are both department heads within this division, which works in collaboration with Jacques Mercier, the vice president for research.
A Department Dedicated to Research Policy
“Delphine and I work in the areas of research and doctoral training,” explains Magali Puech, head of the Research Management and Metrics Department. Still in Building 7, we stop by Delphine Petit’s office; she heads the“Research Structures and Resources Coordination” department, which consists of four staff members.
“It’s a bit of a mouthful, so among ourselves, we prefer to call it the SRECH. In short, my department oversees research facilities—in other words, laboratories, platforms, and so on—and the resources allocated to them,” explains Delphine Petit. “Most of the proposals we review are then put to a vote. ” This vote refers to the Research Committee, a body of the Academic Council where the university’s research policy is debated and voted on.“It’s up to our two departments—Magali’s and mine—to implement this policy: I handle the structural, financial, and contractual aspects in collaboration with research organizations and schools, while Magali focuses on metrics, outreach, open science, and so on…”
Magali Puech: Developing Metrics to Improve theUM Visibility
And indeed, for Magali Puech, whose work involves, among other things, responding to surveys and producing indicators, her day-to-day work most often involves“absolutely massive Excel spreadsheets that require a great deal of precision.” Affiliation indicators, in particular, take up a significant portion of her time.“I make sure that researchers clearly mention their affiliation with the University of Montpellier in their publications—and there are more than 4,000 of them each year. This is a key factor in the University’s international reputation.”
This is central and essential if we hope to climb international rankings such as the Shanghai Ranking, which are based, among other factors, on the number of publications authored byUM researchers. “Researchers have often continued the practice of citing their laboratory or university hospital, which represents a loss for us,” she adds . Things are gradually changing, and we’re now seeing 85 to 87% of authors correctly credited,” which is double the rate from 10 years ago.
Another indicator closely monitored by the department is the submission rate to the University’s HAL portal:“The HAL portal is an open archive where researchers can submit their publications to make them accessible to the international scientific community,” explains Magali Puech, who currently co-administers the portal with Laure Lefrançois, a “research support” project manager at the Joint Documentation Service. This practice is steadily gaining momentum under the banner of open science or open access, to which a vice-presidency—headed by Anne Laurent—has been dedicated for the past three years.“The University is developing a genuine policy in support of open science, and this represents a major initiative within my department.”
Delphine Petit, coordinating research organizations
“My department is responsible for managing and overseeing the University of Montpellier’s 73 research facilities and 16 technology platforms. This involves various tasks, starting with updating all information related to these units in the Strech application,” explains Delphine Petit. Designed and developed by the DRED and the DSIN, Strech is a tool accessible via the digital campus portal that allows users to view unit profiles in real time, particularly regarding their governing bodies and leadership.”
As her title suggests, Delphine Petit’s team is also responsible for allocating financial resources to research institutions in accordance with the decisions of the research committee. “This includes funding for research units and doctoral schools, as well as doctoral contracts. It may also include special funding approved by the committee.”
Another important task of this department is preparing for the evaluations of research institutions conducted by the High Council for the Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (HCERES), an independent administrative authority.“My department led this effort in 2019 and 2020 for all research units and doctoral schools. “This involves producing a large volume of documents, conducting preliminary surveys to identify all restructuring efforts, and coordinating with other overseeing bodies,” explains Delphine Petit. “Following these evaluations, we handle the entire process of establishing these structures within the institution and formalizing their contractual arrangements.”
Two scientific profiles
While Magali Puech and Delphine Petit’s respective positions are indeed in administration, the unique nature of their roles also explains the distinctiveness of their backgrounds: both come from a research background. “I originally earned a Ph.D. in biological and medical engineering, ” Magali Puech begins. “Early in my career, I worked in a laboratory in Lille, and then, after taking parental leave and moving, I entered the civil service.” Delphine Petit, for her part, is a chemical engineer : “I, too, worked in a laboratory, and by choice I turned to a career in the civil service related to research—first at the DIPA and then at the DRED.”
They are certain that these experiences continue to provide them with many advantages in carrying out their duties today:“In our day-to-day work, familiarity with the research environment is a significant foundation, but to truly understand it—that is, to grasp its challenges and constraints—you need to have had at least some hands-on experience; this is reflected in the way we interact with the people we work with,” they conclude.