Management of Research Infrastructures: A South African Funding Perspective

This open access book provides an overview of the building blocks necessary for managing, steering and guiding the establishment of a research infrastructure (RI). It offers valuable insights into RI investment, access and management at the academic, grants management, agency and policy level, and serves as a useful guide for the research community, students, and those in the private sector wishing to understand the approaches and opportunities involved in the establishment, maintenance and management of research infrastructure platforms. Presenting a holistic view of RI investment and granting cycles from a South African perspective, the book’s target audience includes those working in science diplomacy, policymaking and science grants councils (especially in Africa) as well as funders and donors

Enjeux éthiques des communications directes aux patients par les compagnies pharmaceutiques

Il est consensuel d’affirmer que les patients devraient recevoir des informations équilibrées et crédibles leur permettant de prendre des décisions éclairées sur la meilleure façon de gérer leur santé. Les sources ne sont cependant pas toujours fiables et la recherche d’informations équilibrées, impartiales et compréhensibles peut être particulièrement difficile. Grâce à la richesse de son expérience en matière de marketing et ses ressources financières importantes (qui dépassent de loin celles des régulateurs nationaux), l’industrie pharmaceutique est l’un des acteurs majeurs en ce qui a trait aux communications directes aux consommateurs des médicaments (CDCM). Cependant, le marketing pharmaceutique est souvent considéré comme un vecteur transmettant des informations biaisées destinées à accroître la consommation de médicaments, au point où dans les dernières années, nombreux sont les appels lancés pour plus de régulation gouvernementale et pour que l’industrie autorégule mieux ses pratiques. Bien que les CDCM soient généralement présentées de manière accessible et compréhensible, les pratiques des compagnies pharmaceutiques soulèvent (et sont influencées par) une tension importante entre deux impératifs conflictuels que sont la réponse aux: 1) attentes sociales pour l’information et l’autonomisation des consommateurs; et 2) attentes commerciales voulant que le marketing stimule la vente des médicaments et qui servent de référence pour évaluer la pratique des marketeurs pharmaceutiques. Ces deux impératifs justifient simultanément les pratiques pharmaceutiques, chacun auprès de différentes parties prenantes: le premier pour les régulateurs et les défenseurs des patients, et le second pour les acteurs et les actionnaires de l’industrie. Sans ces deux impératifs, la promotion des médicaments n’aurait tout simplement pas lieu: l’industrie n’investirait pas temps, argent et énergie, s’il n’y avait pas de gains financiers, et les pratiques n’auraient pas de légitimité sociale et réglementaire, si elles ne possédaient pas de qualités informationnelles. La valeur sociale accordée aux CDCM, et la réponse régulatoire, varient grandement selon les juridictions. Seuls deux pays de l’Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques (OCDE), les États-Unis et la Nouvelle-Zélande, ont une approche permissive et sont plus enclins à reconnaître une qualité informationnelle aux CDCM. La plupart des autres pays de l’OCDE (le Canada inclus) ont une approche plutôt prohibitive et ne permettent que les communications de sensibilisation aux maladies, de recherche d’aide et d’autres non directement liées à la vente d’un médicament. Bien qu’ils doivent coexister, les deux impératifs sont néanmoins souvent difficiles à concilier compte tenu des objectifs de commercialisation très élevés, découlant des attentes des marchés financiers, que les marketeurs pharmaceutiques se doivent d’atteindre. Il n’est donc pas surprenant que les activités de marketing présentent l’une des questions éthiques les plus discutées et les plus difficiles dans le monde contemporain des affaires. Ceci, bien sûr, soulève beaucoup de questions en ce qui concerne la gestion et la résolution appropriées des problèmes d’éthique liés au marketing. Dans le cadre de cette thèse, ces considérations sont analysées à travers l’étude de quatre cas paradigmatiques permettant d’expliciter les enjeux éthiques et régulatoires que soulèvent les CDCM. Chaque cas est ciblé sur un dispositif communicationnel particulier et vise à dresser un portrait plus précis de l’impact de l’utilisation des CDCM, des considérations d’ordre social et des implications en termes réglementaire et éthique. L’objectif de chaque étude de cas, et de façon plus générale celui de la thèse, est d’émettre des recommandations quant à la responsabilité des principaux acteurs en vue de mieux encadrer la pratique marketing et baliser l’éthique des CDCM. In fine, l’analyse des cas permet de mettre en exergue les dimensions éthiques les plus porteuses d’un changement systémique dans la pratique du marketing pharmaceutique. Sont dès lors ciblées les pratiques des employés de l’industrie, pour qui des repères sous la forme d’un engagement éthique ainsi que l’esquisse d’un cadre éthique sont proposés. L’idée est de cibler directement les acteurs qui, au quotidien, ont un rôle majeur dans le déploiement des CDCM, mais qui n’ont largement jamais reçu de formation en éthique leur permettant de comprendre les implications de leur pratique. L’objectif est d’aligner la pratique de marketing pharmaceutique aux attentes prosociales et d’équiper les marketeurs avec des repères éthiques clairs soutenant une pratique appropriée et morale du marketing pharmaceutique.It is widely accepted that patients should be provided with balanced and credible information so that they can make informed decisions about how best to manage their health. However, the sources are not always reliable and the search for balanced, impartial and comprehensible information can be particularly difficult. With a wealth of marketing experience and significant financial resources (far in excess of national regulators), the pharmaceutical industry is one of the major players in direct-to-consumer communications (DTCC). However, pharmaceutical marketing is often seen as a vehicle for transmitting biased information to increase drug consumption, to the extent that in recent years there have been many calls for more government regulation and for industry to better self-regulate its practices. Although DTCC are generally presented in an accessible and comprehensible way, pharmaceutical company practices raise (and are influenced by) a significant tension between two conflicting imperatives: 1) social expectations for information and consumer empowerment; and 2) commercial expectations that marketing stimulate the sale of drugs and serve as a reference for evaluating the practice of pharmaceutical marketers. These two requirements simultaneously justify pharmaceutical practices, each with different stakeholders: the first for regulators and patient advocates, and the second for industry stakeholders and shareholders. Without these two imperatives, the promotion of medicines would simply not happen: the industry would not invest time, money and energy if there were no financial gains, and practices would not have social and regulatory legitimacy if they did not possess informational qualities. The social value given to the DTCC, and the regulatory response, varies greatly between jurisdictions. Only two countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United States and New Zealand, have a permissive approach and are more inclined to recognize the informational quality in DTCC. Most other OECD countries (including Canada) have a rather prohibitive approach and only allow for disease awareness, help seeking and other communications not directly related to the sale of a drug. Although they must coexist, the two imperatives are nevertheless often difficult to reconcile given the very high marketing targets, arising from the expectations of the financial markets, that pharmaceutical marketers must attain. It is therefore not surprising that marketing activities present one of the most controversial and challenging ethical issues in the contemporary business world. This, of course, raises many questions regarding the proper management and resolution of ethical issues related to marketing. In the context of this thesis, these considerations are analyzed through the study of four paradigmatic cases as a means of explaining the ethical and regulatory issues raised by DTCC. Each case is targeted at a particular communication device and aims to provide a more accurate picture of the impact of DTCC, its social considerations and regulatory and ethical implications. The objective of each case study, and more generally that of the thesis, is to make recommendations concerning the responsibility of the main actors in order to better oversee marketing practices and to layout an ethics for DTCC. Ultimately, the analysis of the cases highlights the ethical dimensions that are the most conducive to systemic change in the practice of pharmaceutical marketing. The cases are therefore focused on the practices of industry employees, for whom benchmarks are proposed, in the form of an ethical engagement and a preliminary ethical framework. The idea is to directly target the actors who, on a daily basis, play a major role in the deployment of DTCC, but who have never received training in ethics to enable them to understand the implications of their practice. The objective is to align the practice of pharmaceutical marketing with pro-social expectations and equip marketers with clear ethical benchmarks to support an appropriate and moral practice of pharmaceutical marketing

Human‑centred design in industry 4.0: case study review and opportunities for future research

The transition to industry 4.0 has impacted factories, but it also afects the entire value chain. In this sense, human-centred factors play a core role in transitioning to sustainable manufacturing processes and consumption. The awareness of human roles in Industry 4.0 is increasing, as evidenced by active work in developing methods, exploring infuencing factors, and proving the efectiveness of design oriented to humans. However, numerous studies have been brought into existence but then disconnected from other studies. As a consequence, these studies in industry and research alike are not regularly adopted, and the network of studies is seemingly broad and expands without forming a coherent structure. This study is a unique attempt to bridge the gap through the literature characteristics and lessons learnt derived from a collection of case studies regarding human-centred design (HCD) in the context of Industry 4.0. This objective is achieved by a well-rounded systematic literature review whose special unit of analysis is given to the case studies, delivering contributions in three ways: (1) providing an insight into how the literature has evolved through the cross-disciplinary lens; (2) identifying what research themes associated with design methods are emerging in the feld; (3) and setting the research agenda in the context of HCD in Industry 4.0, taking into account the lessons learnt, as uncovered by the in-depth review of case studies

Enhancing the mechanical efficiency of skilled rowing through shortened feedback cycles

In elite level rowing competition, the average velocities of medallists differ by less than 1 % over 2000 m. Nations place sporting excellence in high regard and this magnifies the importance of success. As a result, sports science and technology is increasingly used to achieve marginal performance gains. This research considers how to advance biomechanical analysis and skills training provision with a particular focus on the technical and practical delivery of real-time feedback to coaches and athletes, thereby shortening the amount of time between feedback cycles. Underpinning any biomechanical feedback intervention, validated determinants of performance are required. Previous research revealed that, while gross biomechanical measures such as athlete power, stroke rate and stroke length have previously been used as key determinants of performance, elite athletes are nowadays performing within expected ranges and therefore it is no longer possible to easily differentiate crews using these measures alone. This thesis describes workshops held with elite coaches to investigate biomechanical efficiency where the outcomes led to a focus on how a boat accelerates and decelerates during a stroke and hence how the boat's velocity fluctuates. Novel metrics are proposed to quantify aspects of a stroke cycle and used to analyse an elite data set, collected using a standardised protocol. It is shown that individual elite rowers can be successfully differentiated and benchmark values of performance are presented. Consideration of previous research suggests that there is currently no suitably functional and flexible biomechanical real-time feedback system to deliver complex skills training in rowing. Therefore, this thesis describes the research that has led to the development and evaluation of new technology to deliver visual and audible interfaces that support the delivery of concurrent and terminal feedback in water and land-based environments. Coaches and athletes were involved throughout the design process to optimise system suitability and encourage adoption. The technology empowers a coach to intricately manipulate feedback provision, thereby promoting motor control and learning theory best practice. Novel insights relevant to designing interactive systems for use within an elite sporting population are also discussed. This research presents an end-to-end strategy for the applied delivery of real-time feedback to skilled rowers bringing together engineering and social science disciplines. A land-based case series reveals that while statistically significant skill learning was not achieved, participants acquired sport specific technical awareness and heightened motivation as a result of the skills training intervention. Existing motor learning literature was tested as part of the study with a key finding being the lack of support for audible display of stroke acceleration through frequency modulation. Study limitations were identified that explain the lack of an effect of skills training on rower efficiency. The study also acted as a validation of the use of a land-based simulator to monitor and manipulate stroke velocity and a validation of the candidate feedback interfaces that had been implemented. As of result of this work, rowing coaches are able to evaluate their athletes in a novel way, achieving a deeper appreciation of their biomechanical efficiency. Upon identifying athletes with a need for technical development, coaches can intervene with the proposed methodology of skill development making use of the new technologies developed to deliver performance gains. This methodology would achieve enhanced validity through a deeper understanding of the reliability of the new metrics and their relationship to boat speed. Future attempts to test for skill learning should build upon the findings made in this work and, in due course, technology and theory should combine to deliver terminal feedback training during water-based rowing

Systemic Design for the innovation of home appliances The meaningfulness of data in designing sustainable systems

This work addressed the domestic environment considering this context as a complex system characterised by significant impacts in terms of resource consumption. Within the theoretical framework of Systemic Design (SD), this thesis focused on home appliances, in order to understand how to reduce the impact directly attributable to them, while optimising and simplifying daily tasks for the user. A design methodology towards environmental sustainability has been structured, by focusing on the use of data for design purposes and on creating value for the user through meaningful products. It considers the user, the product and the environment as central topics, by giving them the same relevance and the literature review is structured accordingly, investigating needs and requirements, ethical issues, but also current products and future scenarios. During my experience at TU Delft, I spent six months in the Department of Internet of Things at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. Together with computer scientists, we developed a prototype to collect some missing data, establishing the importance of grounding the decision-making on reliable information. IoT and data gathering open a variety of possibilities in monitoring, accessing more precise knowledge of products and households useful for design purposes, up to understand how to fill the gap perceived by the user between needs and solutions. It considered the potential benefits of using IoT indicators to collect missing information about both the product, its use and its operating environment to address critical aspects in the design stage, thus extending products’ lifetime. This thesis highlighted the importance of building multidisciplinary design teams to investigate different classes of requirements, and the need for flexible tools to cope with complex and evolving requirements, the co-evolution of problem and solutions and investigating open-ended questions. This approach leaves room for addressing every step of the traditional life-cycle in a more circular way, shifting the focus from the life-cycle centrality of the previous century to a more complex vision about the product