ABSTRACT
Research and development (R&D) is crucial to any open or distance education institution; and such operations may occur and be managed at various operational levels of the institution. There may be exclusive units or centres dealing with this; and the institution or the centre may base its activities on any framework it decides to be most appropriate and feasible. This chapter looks at the management of research and development initiatives through an action learning or action research framework. To do this it draws upon the Action Learning Project (comprising 40-50 projects) in Hong Kong.This initiative funded and managed 90 action research projects across the eight higher education institutions in Hong Kong. As the Action Learning Project was itself conducted as an action research project into how to manage this type of development and research activity, there are valuable lessons to share. This is also an example of academic development, and of managing a wide variety of research and development activities (including those concerned with open and flexible learning) undertaken collaboratively across institutions.
