MAPPING LIFE SCIENCES & BIOMEDICINE RESEARCH

Purpose: This study analyzes and highlights the research productivity and the trend in the top fields of “Life sciences and Biomedicine”. Methods: The data were collected from Clarivate Analytic’s “Web of Science” for a period of 10 years (2006-2016). The search was further refined to the top 10 fields in the field of “Life Sciences and Biomedicine”. The data were downloaded on the following parameters: “author productivity”, “country contribution”, “organisational involvement”, “funding agencies”, “publication year”, “most preferred document type” and “language”. Findings: No consistent growth is observed in the research activities pertinent to the fields of “Life sciences and Biomedicine”. Among the studied fields, “Neurosciences and Neurology” is in lead with “2016” as the most productive year. Research in “Life sciences and Biomedicine” is quantitatively dominated by the “USA”, followed by the “England” and “Japan”. Authors have mostly reported their findings in the form of “Research articles” and “English” as a language of publication has remained a dominant medium of communication. Furthermore, it is also observed that “National Institute of Health (NIH)” and “National Natural Science Foundation of China” are the top funders across all the fields with “Harvard University”, “Chinese Academy of Science” and “University Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre” as the leading organizations in terms of contribution. Limitations: However, more research would have been published across other indexing and abstracting services, but the results of the study are confined to the data indexed by “Web of Science”. Research implications: The study may serve as a summary of global history on “Life sciences and Biomedicine” research and a potential basis for future research

Collaborative networks for scientific knowledge commercialisation: A science-to-business marketing approach

Scientific-knowledge commercialisation has become a primary objective for universities worldwide. Science-industry exchange is a prerequisite for innovation. Collaborations are viewed as key to this objective. Despite government financing, artificially supporting the development of such networks has proved difficult. This study extends relationship marketing’s B-2-B model by using a unique multiple-stakeholder research design to explore why, how and by whom scientific-knowledge-commercialisation networks are established and managed. The study uses qualitative evidence from 82 stakeholders in 17 collaborative projects in Irish and German universities. This approach facilitates an analysis of the true value of the stakeholders’ roles. This provides for a holistic view, as opposed to prior research which reported findings based on analysis of one or two stakeholders. The study demonstrates how contextual differences impact on scientific-knowledge commercialisation in Ireland and Germany. The study finds that network capabilities are the main reason that collaborative networks are established. It finds that enduring networks are conduits for innovation and scientific-knowledge commercialisation due to continuously improving capabilities. Stakeholder retention is a catalyst for improving collaborative networks. Stakeholder retention results from stakeholder loyalty. Stakeholders become loyal because they are content with the overall relationship and quality of the commercialisation service. It is fundamental that stakeholders understand each other’s roles and motives as incongruities hamper network development. The findings highlight the central role that PIs play in building and managing relationships. The PI, like the entrepreneur, has to be ‘a jack of all trades’, taking on the roles of negotiator and project/ relationship manager. These roles are in addition to the traditional role of teaching, researching, acquiring funding, Ph.D. supervision and mentoring and administration. The findings suggest that PIs are better placed than TTO managers to act as boundary spanners between science and industry

Analyzing the funding and personal acknowledgements of the publications of the University of Kerala during 2001-2018

148-155Acknowledgements have caught the attention of policy makers as they, like citations, indicate influential contributions to a scientific work. The present paper analyzes the acknowledgements-funding and personal- of the research output of the University of Kerala for the period 2001-2018. Of the 1972 records extracted from the Web of Science, 829 records (42%) had funding information. Among the countries, other than India, the United States was the leading country with 26 funding agencies. There were 166 unique funding agencies of which the Government agencies were the predominant funders. Though Chemistry had the largest number of funded publications, the research area of Geology was seen to be funded by the largest number of 25 funding agencies. Personal acknowledgements were categorized into five main categories and the category- “Access to Research Related Information” accounted for 46.02% and “Peer Interactive Communication” accounted for 16.82% of the acknowledgements. The lack of consistency of acknowledgment data still poses difficulty in analyzing the acknowledgment section

Analyzing the funding and personal acknowledgements of the publications of the University of Kerala during 2001-2018

Acknowledgements have caught the attention of policymakers as they, like citations, indicate influential contributions to scientific work. The present paper analyzes the acknowledgements-funding and personal- of the research output of the University of Kerala for the period 2001-2018. Of the 1972 records extracted from the Web of Science, 829 records (42%) had funding information. Among the countries, other than India, the United States was the leading country with 26 funding agencies. There were 166 unique funding agencies of which the Government agencies were the predominant funders. Though Chemistry had the largest number of funded publications, the research area of Geology was seen to be funded by the largest number of 25 funding agencies.  Personal acknowledgements were categorized into five main categories and the category- “Access to Research Related Information” accounted for 46.02% and “Peer Interactive Communication” accounted for 16.82% of the acknowledgements. The lack of consistency of acknowledgement data still poses difficulty in analyzing the acknowledgement section

Sharpening the Sword of State

Sharpening the Sword of State explores the various ways in which 10 jurisdictions in the Asia-Pacific enhance their administrative capabilities through training and executive development. It traces how modern governments across this region look to develop their public services and public sector organisations in the face of rapid global change. For many governments there is a delicate balance between the public interest in promoting change and capacity enhancement across the public service, and the temptation to micro-manage agencies and be complacent about challenging the status quo. There is a recognition in the countries studied that training and executive development is a crucial investment in human capital but is also couched in a much wider context of public service recruitment, patterns of entry and retention, promotion, executive appointment and career development. This empirical volume, authored by academics and practitioners, is one of the first to chart these comparative differences and provide fresh perspectives to enable learning from international experience

Are internationally co-authored journal articles better quality? The UK case 2014-2020

International collaboration is sometimes encouraged in the belief that it generates higher quality research or is more capable of addressing societal problems. In support of this, there is evidence that the journal articles of international teams tend to be more cited than average. Reasons other than the benefits of international collaboration could explain this, however, such as increased national audiences from researcher networks. This article investigates research quality using 148,977 UK-based journal articles with post publication peer review scores from the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF). Based on an ordinal regression model controlling for collaboration, international partners increased the odds of higher quality scores in 27 out of 34 Units of Assessment (UoAs) and all four Main Panels. At the country level, the results suggests that UK collaboration with other advanced economies generates higher quality research, even if the countries produce lower citation impact journal articles than the UK. Conversely, collaborations with weaker economies tend to produce lower quality research, as judged by REF assessors. Overall, the results give the first large scale evidence of when international co-authorship for journal articles is beneficial, at least from a UK perspective, and support the continuation of research policies that promote it

HIV/AIDS Intervention in Ghana: A Constructivist Approach to Understanding AIDS Policy

This study is about how donor policy, NGO policy and public policy work together in Ghana\u27s national strategic response to HIV and AIDS. The dissertation touches on two areas of public policy - development policy and health policy specifically relating to HIV/AIDS to determine congruity of the policy approaches of the three groups. Based on a survey done in Accra, Ghana in summer 2010 and on documentary sources of data collection, the study captures areas of agreement and disagreement of the three groups and discusses their effects on policy implementation. In broader terms, it analyzes assistance for HIV/AIDS in the context of international development aid and how current economic realities make such assistance unsustainable in the long term. It concludes by developing a prescriptive model of HIV policy intervention in Ghana with proposed revisions to the current policy model