About the Centre
Over the past four years the Centre for Performance-led HR (CPHR) at Lancaster has been successful at bringing together world–class academic experts to work with top HR directors to overcome the most pressing issues facing senior HR specialists. The opening activity within the Centre, known as Phases 1 and 2, culminated in a series of high impact white papers, journal articles, and a highly informative network for HR executives. This initial work, captured in the book Leading HR was intended to unlock and understand what strategy is within businesses, and the business and people models that need to be put in place to underpin strategic execution and delivery.
It is a unique partnership between Lancaster University Management School and major corporations and was nominated as one of five Outstanding Employer Engagement Initiatives in the 2009 Times Higher Education Awards. In June 2011 the Centre came to the attention of the Financial Times, who described it "... an innovative research centre where academics and executives jointly set the agenda" that has "pioneered a new way to interact with business". Executives in the article endorsed our work as follows: "... These guys ask paradigm-shifting questions" and "... Trust is key. It is Chatham House rules"
CPHR featured in the FT
The Financial Times profiled the Centre for Performance-Led HR in a feature on 4th July. The article describes the Centre as a place where "academics and executives jointly set the agenda," and which "has pioneered a new way to interact with business."
The Centre is now moving forward with a cohort of members into Phase 3 of its programme. It continues to enhance this integrated and collaborative research work, offering advice and solutions to tackle real-world HR problems in the current economic climate. It has been established as a problem-based research group that will offer advice and solutions that has the following aims:
- Generate research data and insights of specific relevance and utility to HR functions
- Help foster applied research based on new ideas and emerging trends that address real-world needs by engaging a broad range of stakeholders in the creation, interpretation and dissemination of knowledge
- Provide a reflexive, evidence-based decision-making environment through which HR directors can lead their functions.
- Disseminate such work through academic media and leading business media outlets, encouraging joint authorship
- Facilitate networking opportunities with Lancaster University Management School’s global faculty
The Centre moves away from traditional simple research contracts with business towards the development of a culture of deep engagement around the key business problems that HR functions have to face. To enable this, it:
- Works with sponsors on both generic and bespoke projects that provide unique content and innovative synthesis of existing research in the field of HR.
- Ensures that work is informed by developments in other academic fields that have a bearing on the performance and effectiveness of HR functions
- Brokers research in ways that are relevant to practitioners and ensure that management fads are put into context
- Provides thought leadership (through ideas or people) based upon insights from research networks and our own analysis
- Facilitates interventions and knowledge transfer informed, designed and delivered on the basis of our own insights into learning and development methods
- Capitalises on on-going projects and company contacts in ways that inform the School’s teaching and research activities
A distinctive feature of Lancaster University Management School is that we draw important linkages between a number of our Centres and alliances, leveraging and developing knowledge across each. For HR Directors, there are clear points of contact and mutual insight, for example, between our Centre for Performance-led HR and The Work Foundation Alliance, enabling links to the work of Stephen Bevan and the research teams there. We also work in close association with the Centre for Organizational Health and Well-Being.
