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Cross-border academic collaborations in conflict zones are vulnerable to escalated turbulence, liability concerns and flagging support. Multi-level stakeholder engagement at home and abroad is essential for securing the political and financial sustainability of such collaborations. This study examines the multilayered stakeholder arrangements within an international academic health science network...
The academy is widely reported to be going through a period of transformation: not just changes to what is taught, but threats to tenure and internal funding, perhaps balanced by new possibilities for external funding and interdisciplinary projects. This article discusses a recently conducted survey of US and Canadian Philosophy departments, in an effort to understand one discipline’s perspective...
This article explores the crucial moments of scientists’ research activities when they decide to shift to a radical new domain or to perpetuate a project. We introduce what we have called the “respiration model” which describes and analyses key cognitive components which occur in this complex process. Respiration either privileges epistemic expectations which are rooted in socio-cognitive metrics...
This article aims to clarify and improve thinking on normative government laboratories: partly publically funded laboratories that work to improve the functioning of society, particularly through boosting innovation. This article focuses on a case study of TNO, a large Dutch laboratory, and an exemplary case of this type of laboratory. This article argues that TNO is perceived as a plug to fill a...
The present paper proposes a theoretical model of institutional quality of a higher education institution (HEI) which, in addition to the internal dimensions of quality, incorporates also the external dimension, i.e. the outcomes dimension. This dimension has been neglected by the quality standards and models examined in our paper. Furthermore, the standards and models analyzed consider stakeholders...
By comparing three types of hybrid organizations—18th-century scientific academies, 19th-century institutions of higher vocational education, and 20th-century industrial research institutes—it is the purpose here to answer the question of why new hybrid organizations are continuously formed. Traditionally, and often implicitly, it is often assumed that emerging groups of potential knowledge users...
This paper argues that the impact of individual higher education institutions’ strategies on system diversity should be explored. By looking at how universities respond strategically to governmental policies as well as to the actions of other (competing) institutions, our understanding of determinants of diversity can be enriched. A conceptual framework focusing on institutional positioning is explained...
This study looks at some of the traits that characterized Argentina’s scientific and university policies under the military regime that spanned from 1976 through 1983. To this end, it delves into a rarely explored empirical observation: financial resource transfers from national universities to the National Scientific and Technological Research Council (CONICET, for its Spanish acronym) during that...
Universities are expected to be places where knowledge is shared freely among academicians. However, the reality shows that knowledge sharing is barely present within universities these days. As Malaysia shifts towards building a knowledge-based society, academic institutions, particularly the public universities, now face ever-growing faculty demands for sharing quality resources and expertise. As...
The ambiguous material identity of nanotechnology is a minor mystery of the history of contemporary science. This paper argues that nanotechnology functioned primarily in discourses of social, not physical or biological science, the problematic knowledge at stake concerning the economic value of state-supported basic science. The politics of taxonomy in the United States Department of Energy’s Office...
Ranking systems such as The Times Higher Education’sWorld University Rankings and Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Academic Rankings of World Universities simultaneously mark global status and stimulate global academic competition. As international ranking systems have become more prominent, researchers have begun to examine whether global rankings are creating increased inequality within and between...
Many science systems are witnessing the rise of intermediary organizations with a coordinating mission, but to date a systematic understanding of their function and effects is lacking. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the coordinating efforts of intermediary organizations. Starting from the definition of coordination as the establishment or strengthening of a relationship among the activities in a system, with the aim to enhance their common effectiveness...
This paper reports on an experiment concerning the social construction of statistical definitions, where the first census of Higher Education Institutions in Europe has been developed. It conceptualizes the construction of indicators as a social process of definitions and boundaries’ negotiation, involving value judgments, social and political opinions, as well as practical interests and power strategies...
Select groups and organizations embrace practices that perpetuate their inferiority. The result is the phenomenon we call “mediocrity.” This article examines the conditions under which mediocrity is selected and maintained by groups over time. Mediocrity is maintained by a key social process: the marginalization of the adept, which is a response to the group problem of what to do with the highly able...
More recent advancements in digital technologies have significantly alleviated the dissemination of new scientific ideas as well as the storing, searching and retrieval of large amounts of published research findings. While not denying the benefits of this novel ‘economy of memory,’ this paper endeavors to shed light on the ways in which the use of digital technologies may be linked to a distortion...
Science and technology (S&T) policy studies has explored the relationship between the structure of scientific research and the attainment of desired outcomes. Due to the difficulty of measuring them directly, S&T policy scholars have traditionally equated “outcomes” with several proxies for evaluation, including economic impact, and academic output such as papers published and citations received...
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