Why Universities Need Institutional Researchers More Than They Realize?

This paper discusses the benefits of universities maintaining and utilizing institutional researchers, citing specific examples of invaluable research conducted that proved instrumental in providing data and surveys for key papers and discussions by faculty at other institutions, as well as the importance in using offices of institutional research to guide decision-making at universities

Optimising child accident research outcomes: An action research project on maximising the dissemination and implementation of the Summer Research Scholarship Project reports and recommendations of the Child Accident Prevention Foundation of New Zealand

A key objective of the Child Accident Prevention Foundation of New Zealand (hereafter referred to as "CAPFNZ" or "the Foundation") is to reduce the incidence and severity of child accidents. The reports and recommendations that arise from the Foundation's Summer Research Scholarship (SRS) projects have the potential to be a major means to achieving this end. The purpose of this research was to investigate the extent to which the SRS projects were achieving that objective, by assessing the degree to which CAPFNZ SRS reports and especially their recommendations are currently in the public domain. The research also identified the current barriers or obstacles to dissemination, and determined cost-effective ways in which dissemination and implementation of these reports and their findings could be enhanced. Our proposal foreshadowed the prospect of this project yielding a demonstration website as one approach to achieving a more effective distribution of CAPFNZ SRS reports and related material

New Approaches to HIV Prevention: Accelerating Research and Ensuring Future Access

Summarizes the state of research on new HIV prevention approaches and recommends ways to accelerate research and ensure rapid access to new prevention methods

Linking Research and Policy: Assessing a Framework for Organic Agricultural Support in Ireland

This paper links social science research and agricultural policy through an analysis of support for organic agriculture and food. Globally, sales of organic food have experienced 20% annual increases for the past two decades, and represent the fastest growing segment of the grocery market. Although consumer interest has increased, farmers are not keeping up with demand. This is partly due to a lack of political support provided to farmers in their transition from conventional to organic production. Support policies vary by country and in some nations, such as the US, vary by state/province. There have been few attempts to document the types of support currently in place. This research draws on an existing Framework tool to investigate regionally specific and relevant policy support available to organic farmers in Ireland. This exploratory study develops a case study of Ireland within the framework of ten key categories of organic agricultural support: leadership, policy, research, technical support, financial support, marketing and promotion, education and information, consumer issues, inter-agency activities, and future developments. Data from the Irish Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority (Teagasc), and other governmental and semi-governmental agencies provide the basis for an assessment of support in each category. Assessments are based on the number of activities, availability of information to farmers, and attention from governmental personnel for each of the ten categories. This policy framework is a valuable tool for farmers, researchers, state agencies, and citizen groups seeking to document existing types of organic agricultural support and discover policy areas which deserve more attention

Addressing data management training needs: a practice based approach from the UK

In this paper, we describe the current challenges to the effective management and preservation of research data in UK universities, and the response provided by the JISC Managing Research Data programme. This paper will discuss, inter alia, the findings and conclusions from data management training projects of the first iteration of the programme and how they informed the design of the second, paying particular attention to initiatives to develop and embed training materials

History of economic thought

International audienceThe chapter provides an overview of the main areas of research in history of economic thought, that correspond to a classic division of phases of development of the economics discipline from its origins to its present state. Following the Journal of Economic Literature classification, the evolution of economics is subdivided into two phases—namely, history of economic thought through 1925 and since 1925; a shorter third part on recent developments is added to this basic scheme. Focus is on what each period contributed to the study of three foundational issues in economics, namely, the theory of individual economic behavior, the market mechanism as a coordinating device, and the respective roles of markets and governments in the regulation of economic systems. Reflection on these issues has progressively formed economists’ understanding of society and has then been extended to a broad range of social phenomena, from monetary and financial matters to health and the environment. These very issues have been the object of major controversies that have divided economists into different schools and have ultimately shaped the history of the discipline. In outlining these developments, similarities and differences between past and present theories are emphasized

The Vittel Payments for Ecosystem Services: A Perfect PES Case?

This paper describes and analyses the PES programme developed and implemented by Vittel (Nestlé Waters) in north-eastern France. In order to address the risk of nitrate contamination caused by agricultural intensification in the aquifer, the world leader in the mineral water bottling business is financing farmers in the catchment to change their farming practices and technology. The paper examines the methodology used by Vittel, and the tenyear process that was necessary to transform conflict into a successful partnership.The paper's main conclusion is that establishing PES is a very complex undertaking, one that requires the consideration of scientific but also social, economic, political, institutional, and power relationships. The ability to maintain farmers' income level at all times and finance all technological changes was an important element of success, but primary reasons for the programme's success were not financial. Trust-building through the creation of an intermediary institution (locally based and led by a "champion" sympathetic to the farmers' cause); the development of a long-term participatory process to identify alternative practices and a mutually acceptable set of incentives; the ability to link incentives to land tenure and debt cycle issues and to substitute the old technical and social support networks with new ones, were all fundamental conditions of success

Physicists, stamp collectors, human mobility forecasters

One of the two reviewers studied in high school to be a physicist. In the end, he became something else, but he never lost his awe of physics. The other reviewer never intended to become a physicist, but he sometimes asks himself why he didn’t become one. Today, they are both sociologists who practice their science on an action theory basis and believe that regularities exist in the world of social actions which can be perceived, understood, explained – and even used for making predictions

The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation's Tropical Disease Research Program: A 25-Year Retrospective Review 1976-1999

Documents and details the foundation's commitment to the program from its inception, and provides an analysis of its successes until the completion of the program in 1999

A Better Way to Generate and Use Comparative-Effectiveness Research

President Barack Obama, former U.S. Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, and others propose a new government agency that would evaluate the relative effectiveness of medical treatments. The need for "comparative-effectiveness research" is great. Evidence suggests Americans spend $700 billion annually on medical care that provides no value. Yet patients, providers, and purchasers typically lack the necessary information to distinguish between high- and low-value services. Advocates of such an agency argue that comparative- effectiveness information has characteristics of a "public good," therefore markets will not generate the efficiency-maximizing quantity. While that is correct, economic theory does not conclude that government should provide comparative-effectiveness research, nor that government provision would increase social welfare. Conservatives warn that a federal comparative- effectiveness agency would lead to government rationing of medical care -- indeed, that's the whole idea. If history is any guide, the more likely outcome is that the agency would be completely ineffective: political pressure from the industry will prevent the agency from conducting useful research and prevent purchasers from using such research to eliminate low-value care. The current lack of comparative-effectiveness research is due more to government failure than to market failure. Federal tax and entitlement policies reduce consumer demand for such research. Those policies, as well as state licensing of health insurance and medical professionals, inhibit the types of health plans best equipped to generate comparative-effectiveness information. A better way to generate comparative-effectiveness information would be for Congress to eliminate government activities that suppress private production. Congress should let workers and Medicare enrollees control the money that purchases their health insurance. Further, Congress should require states to recognize other states' licenses for medical professionals and insurance products. That laissez-faire approach would both increase comparative-effectiveness research and increase the likelihood that patients and providers would use it