Cluster Hiring Initiatives at US Research Universities: An Analysis of Productivity and Variation in Outcomes

University Of California-Riverside, Riverside CA

Investigators

Abstract

This project investigates the productivity and variation in outcomes of cluster hiring initiatives at U.S. research universities. Cluster hiring is as an approach to hiring multiple faculty members over a short period of time. These faculty members are expected to work in high-impact interdisciplinary areas designated by the university. These new hiring approaches have been justified for their capacity to meet the grand challenges facing the country that require the skills and knowledge bases of scholars from several disciplines. Cluster hiring initiatives are resource-intensive, because they involve not only hiring of multiple faculty members but the allocation of labs, offices, staff support, and instrumentation. In spite of the relatively large investments entailed by cluster hiring programs, the outcomes of these programs have not been systematically investigated. Given the high expectations for these hiring initiatives and the opportunity costs involved in making these relatively large investments, solid, empirically grounded guidance on how to maximize returns on investment in cluster hires, and when not to make investments, should prove to be a valuable contribution to university administrators and to national and state policy makers. The project focuses on two kinds of comparisons. The first is between faculty members hired through cluster hiring initiatives in the same, or closely related, fields at different universities. The second is between faculty members hired through cluster hiring initiatives and those hired in closely related fields through traditional departmental processes at the same universities. The goal is to use these comparisons to determine the conditions under which cluster hiring yields productive groups and the conditions under which it fails to do so. The project will also make available a data base on cluster hiring initiatives for the use of higher education and educational policy scholars.