Data Matters


Book Description

In an increasingly interconnected world, perhaps it should come as no surprise that international collaboration in science and technology research is growing at a remarkable rate. As science and technology capabilities grow around the world, U.S.-based organizations are finding that international collaborations and partnerships provide unique opportunities to enhance research and training. International research agreements can serve many purposes, but data are always involved in these collaborations. The kinds of data in play within international research agreements varies widely and may range from financial and consumer data, to Earth and space data, to population behavior and health data, to specific project-generated dataâ€"this is just a narrow set of examples of research data but illustrates the breadth of possibilities. The uses of these data are various and require accounting for the effects of data access, use, and sharing on many different parties. Cultural, legal, policy, and technical concerns are also important determinants of what can be done in the realms of maintaining privacy, confidentiality, and security, and ethics is a lens through which the issues of data, data sharing, and research agreements can be viewed as well. A workshop held on March 14-16, 2018, in Washington, DC explored the changing opportunities and risks of data management and use across disciplinary domains. The third workshop in a series, participants gathered to examine advisory principles for consideration when developing international research agreements, in the pursuit of highlighting promising practices for sustaining and enabling international research collaborations at the highest ethical level possible. The intent of the workshop was to explore, through an ethical lens, the changing opportunities and risks associated with data management and use across disciplinary domainsâ€"all within the context of international research agreements. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.




Successful Global Collaborations in Higher Education Institutions


Book Description

This open access book presents deep investigation to the manifold topics pertaining to global university collaboration. It outlines the strategies King Abdulaziz University has employed to rise in global rankings, and the reasons chosen to collaborate with other academic and research institutes. The environment in which universities currently exist is considered, and subsequently how an innovative culture might be established and maintained to enable global partnerships to be implemented and to succeed is discussed. The book provides an intense focus on why collaboration is a necessary ingredient for knowledge transfer and explains how to do it. The last part of the book considers how to sustain partnerships. This is because one of the challenges of global partnerships is not just setting them up, but also sustaining them.




Community and Identity in Contemporary Technosciences


Book Description

This open access edited book provides new thinking on scientific identity formation. It thoroughly interrogates the concepts of community and identity, including both historical and contemporaneous analyses of several scientific fields. Chapters examine whether, and how, today’s scientific identities and communities are subject to fundamental changes, reacting to tangible shifts in research funding as well as more intangible transformations in our society’s understanding and expectations of technoscience. In so doing, this book reinvigorates the concept of scientific community. Readers will discover empirical analyses of newly emerging fields such as synthetic biology, systems biology and nanotechnology, and accounts of the evolution of theoretical conceptions of scientific identity and community. With inspiring examples of technoscientific identity work and community constellations, along with thought-provoking hypotheses and discussion, the work has a broad appeal. Those involved in science governance will benefit particularly from this book, and it has much to offer those in scholarly fields including sociology of science, science studies, philosophy of science and history of science, as well as teachers of science and scientists themselves.




Collaborators Collaborating


Book Description

As bio-capital in the form of medical knowledge, skills and investments moves with greater frequency from its origin in First World industrialized settings to resource-poor communities with weak or little infrastructure, countries with emerging economies are starting to expand new indigenous science bases of their own. The case studies here, from the UK, West Africa, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, Latin America and elsewhere, explore the forms of collaborative knowledge relations in play and the effects of ethics review and legal systems on local communities, and also demonstrate how anthropologically-informed insights may hope to influence key policy debates. Questions of governance in science and technology, as well as ethical issues related to bio-innovation, are increasingly being featured as topics of complex resourcing and international debate, and this volume is a much-needed resource for interdisciplinary practitioners and specialists in medical anthropology, social theory, corporate ethics, science and technology studies.




Examining Core Elements of International Research Collaboration


Book Description

The globalization of science, engineering, and medical research is proceeding rapidly. The globalization of research has important implications for the U.S. research enterprise, for the U.S. government agencies, academic institutions, and companies that support and perform research, and for the world at large. As science and technology capabilities grow around the world, U.S.-based organizations are finding that international collaborations and partnerships provide unique opportunities to enhance research and training. At the same time, significant obstacles exist to smooth collaboration across national borders. Enhancing international collaboration requires recognition of differences in culture, legitimate national security needs, and critical needs in education and training. In response to these trends, the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable (GUIRR) launched a Working Group on International Research Collaborations (I-Group) in 2008, following its meeting on New Partnerships on a Global Platform that June. As part of I-Group's continuing effort, a workshop on Examining Core Elements of International Research Collaboration was held July 26-27, 2010 in Washington, DC. One primary goal of the workshop is to better understand the risks involved in international research collaboration for organizations and individual participants, and the mechanisms that can be used to manage those risks. Issues to be addressed in the workshop include the following: (1) Cultural Differences and Nuances; (2) Legal Issues and Agreements; (3) Differences in Ethical Standards; (4) Research Integrity and the Responsible Conduct of Research; (5) Intellectual Property; (6) Risk Management; (7) Export Controls; and (8) Strategies for Developing Meaningful International Collaborations. The goal for the workshop and the summary, Examining Core Elements of International Research Collaboration, is to serve as an information resource for participants and others interested in international research collaborations. It will also aid I-Group in setting its future goals and priorities.




International Research Collaborations


Book Description

Part of the International Studies in Higher Education series, International Research Collaborations considers what can go wrong in cross-national collaborations, and how scientists can avoid these problems.




Research Collaboration and Team Science


Book Description

Today in most scientific and technical fields more than 90% of research studies and publications are collaborative, often resulting in high-impact research and development of commercial applications, as reflected in patents. Nowadays in many areas of science, collaboration is not a preference but, literally, a work prerequisite. The purpose of this book is to review and critique the burgeoning scholarship on research collaboration. The authors seek to identify gaps in theory and research and identify the ways in which existing research can be used to improve public policy for collaboration and to improve project-level management of collaborations using Scientific and Technical Human Capital (STHC) theory as a framework. Broadly speaking, STHC is the sum of scientific and technical and social knowledge, skills and resources embodied in a particular individual. It is both human capital endowments, such as formal education and training and social relations and network ties that bind scientists and the users of science together. STHC includes the human capital which is the unique set of resources the individual brings to his or her own work and to collaborative efforts. Generally, human capital models have developed separately from social capital models, but in the practice of science and the career growth of scientists, the two are not easily disentangled. Using a multi-factor model, the book explores various factors affecting collaboration outcomes, with particular attention on institutional factors such as industry-university relations and the rise of large-scale university research centers.




Knowledge, Networks and Nations


Book Description

Surveys the global scientific landscape in 2011, noting the shift to an increasingly multipolar world underpinned by the rise of new scientific powers such as China, India and Brazil; as well as the emergence of scientific nations in the Middle East, South-East Asia and North Africa. The scientific world is also becoming more interconnected, with international collaboration on the rise.




Africa and the Sustainable Development Goals


Book Description

The book draws upon the expertise and international research collaborations forged by the Worldwide Universities Network Global Africa Group to critically engage with the intersection, in theory and practice, of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Africa’s development agendas and needs. Further, it argues that – and demonstrates how – the SDGs should be understood as an aspirational blueprint for development with multiple meanings that are situated in dynamic and contested terrains. As the SDGs have substantial implications for development policy and resourcing at both the macro and micro levels, their relevance is not only context-specific but should also be assessed in terms of the aspirations and needs of ordinary citizens across the continent. Drawing on analyses and evidence from both the natural and social sciences, the book demonstrates that progress towards the SDGs must meet demands for improving human well-being under diverse and challenging socio-economic, political and environmental conditions. Examples include those from the mining industry, public health, employment and the media. In closing, it highlights how international collaboration in the form of research networks can enhance the production of critical knowledge on and engagement with the SDGs in Africa.




Artistic Research in Performance through Collaboration


Book Description

This volume explores the issue of collaboration: an issue at the centre of Performance Arts Research. It is explored here through the different practices in music, dance, drama, fine art, installation art, digital media or other performance arts. Collaborative processes are seen to develop as it occurs between academic researchers in the creative arts and professional practitioners in commercial organisations in the creative arts industries (and beyond), as well as focusing attention and understanding on the tacit/implicit dimensions of working across different media.