G.7 Research | (a) BC/EC Statement

The BC/EC must provide a statement assessing the candidate’s research contributions and trajectory. The statement must include the names and signatures of the members who prepared it.

The assessment should address the topics listed below and be written in a way that is accessible to reviewers with academic expertise outside of the candidate’s field.

Reflect familiarity with the candidate’s research, scholarship, and/or creative contributions to their field. Identify areas of distinction and potential weaknesses in performance, contributions, and trajectory related to research, scholarship, and creative endeavors.
- Briefly describe how the candidate’s research contributes to their field and the impact of their work.
- Describe how the BC/EC evaluators conducted their review.
For tenure-track candidates:
- Assess the level of independent research activity in rank.
- Explain any continuing collaboration with former advisor(s) and/or mentor(s) and the impact these collaborations have had on the candidate’s ability to establish a reputation as an independent researcher.
For tenured candidates:
- Assess the level of independent research activity and research leadership roles in rank.
- Define the normative time in rank given the candidate’s discipline. If the candidate’s effective time in rank is longer than the normative period for their discipline, the committee must focus on the candidate’s research record during the most recent normative time in rank.
Assess the evidence that the candidate has established a strong and reasonable pipeline of in-progress scholarly and creative works and (where necessary) funding that predicts a sustainable trajectory of continued and future scholarly excellence.
Contextualize the quantitative measures of the candidate’s research and scholarly productivity in rank.
- Evaluate the candidate’s productivity with respect to the norms of the field for publications, performances, and/or exhibitions.
- Discuss the candidate’s research trajectory in rank, including an assessment of citations and/or reviews.
- Discuss the norms of the field related to co-authorship and the significance attributed to the order of co-authors' names.
- Comment on the contributions or role of the candidate for works with collaborators beyond the faculty member’s group of supervised students and mentees.
- Discuss the period of the candidate’s academic career that have garnered the highest number of citations and external recognition.
- Discuss the relative quality/selectivity of the publication outlets (e.g., prestige of journals, acceptance rates for conference proceedings, and/or reputation of academic presses) and/or performance/exhibition venues. If the candidate has selected non-traditional outlets, explain why review committees at the college/school and university levels should consider the work favorably.

- In the absence of domain-specific information, BC/EC should use the journal impact factor and the rank by journal citation indicator (https://jcr.clarivate.com/jcr/home) to assess the relative prestige of a journal. o For any book(s) published in rank, provide contextualization for book reviews (if available).

If the candidate has addressed the professional impacts of COVID-19 in a separate statement (Section A.11) and/or within their research statement, explain the professional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the candidate’s research productivity and evidence of the candidate’s resilience in overcoming the associated challenges.
Evaluate the candidate’s awards, fellowships, grants, contracts, honors, and/or other recognition for their scholarship and creative works. Contextualize the relative prestige and selectivity of the honors received.
In disciplines in which external funding is the norm and is necessary to sustain research and scholarly activities, the sustainability of the candidate’s funding portfolio and the candidate’s ability to financially support graduate students must be addressed.
In disciplines in which external funding is not the norm, a comment to that effect should be part of the statement.