Research culture: setting the right tone

Improving the research culture of an institution may lead to a fairer, more rewarding and successful environment, but how do you start making changes

Organising and Sustaining Hegemony: A Gramscian Perspective on Suharto's New Order Indonesia.

The Suharto New Order was born out of ethnic conflict around religious, ideological and regional/cultural issues that were threatening national chaos. As a pre-requisite to pursuing the socio-political and economic developmental agendas deemed necessary to legitimize their hold on power, the new regime committed the resources of the state behind forging national unity and stability out of potentially antagonistic ethnic and cultural diversity. This study examines how the Suharto New Order sustained the processes that organised the Indonesian nation behind its agendas through an exclusive representation of the state ideology Pancasila, as the ideological pillar of socio-political and economic development. The Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci, viewed social politics as an arrangement that inextricably linked pluralism, political participation and ideological supremacy and placed critical emphasis on the methods by which a ruling order deployed ideology and culture to craft mass consensus that would underwrite the moral and intellectual legitimacy of hegemonic rule. The study is original in that it contrasts Gramsci's insights into ideology as a discourse of hegemonic legitimacy, in the context of the Suharto New Order's exclusive representation of Pancasila as the ideological pillar of the regime's arrangement of Indonesian life. The study also examines whether the Gramscian model of hegemonic order is robust when employed to explain the Suharto regime's decline and collapse, as well as the prospects for socio-political and economic stability during the post-Suharto transitionary phase and the pressures of Islamic socio-political resurgence, which were accompanied by demands for more liberal democratic processes and participation. Antonio Gramsci provides the analytical framework for the study, and the Suharto New Order the behavioural perspective, with the prime purpose of the research being to test Gramsci's model of hegemonic order and ideological legitimacy against a contemporary context. With Indonesia comprising the world's largest Islamic population, the Suharto New Order's endeavours to construct national consensus and unity around Pancasila's secular-nationalist orientation suggest prima facie a highly appropriate perspective in which to test Gramsci's theories. The post-Suharto era of transition, also offers a timely opportunity to test the Italian Marxist's thoughts on crafting national consensus to underwrite a ruling arrangement's ideological legitimacy in the contemporary environment of Islamic socio-political resurgence accompanied by a global spread of secular, liberal democratic ideals

CRediT: Recognising Author Contributions to Publications

The talk presents a mini case study of implementing the CRediT taxonomy (https://www.casrai.org/credit.html), which is a controlled vocabulary to represent the roles that collaborators can have when contributing to research outputs. Examples include supervision, software programming or writing an original draft of a paper. It is one of many tools that help to facilitate open research. Few universities have embedded CRediT so far, but several more are now on the point of adoption. The talk will cover the what and how of the case study, as well as some lessons learned and suggestions for the future

Re-imagining research culture

We are reminded constantly — by funders, by policy makers, and by our own researchers — of the need to incentivise a positive research culture. There is no question that we all want this, but how do we make it happen in practice? Changing culture requires a range of aligned approaches, a lot of patience, as well as creative ways of measuring whether we are moving in the right direction. This paper summarises the outcome of an event that brought together around 60 researchers, funders, policy makers, research managers and representatives from the publishing industry to identify the practical actions that promote a positive research culture; that is, one in which good practice and collegiality are the norm. This briefing is based on the experience of the University of Glasgow of assessing and furthering research culture, but our observations are relevant to all institutions. The question set for our first survey on research culture is also open for others to use or adapt

expansion of maxillary arches with crossbite a systematic review of rcts in the last 12 years

The aim of this study was to review recent randomized clinical trials (RCTs) dealing with the effectiveness of various modalities of orthopaedic/orthodontic expansion of maxillary arches with crossbite and the associated 6 month post retention stability. The study selection criteria included RCTs involving subjects with maxillary deficiency with crossbite, with no limits of age. The authors searched the following electronic databases from 1999 to January 2011: the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE, LILACS, and WEB of SCIENCE. The search strategy resulted in 12 articles meeting the inclusion criteria. Most of the studies did not meet major methodological requirements; some studies were not relevant because of small sample size, possible bias and unaccounted for confounding variables, lack of blinding in measurements, and deficient statistical methods. Treatment outcomes were different depending on the appliance used, tooth tissue-borne/tooth-borne expanders, bonded semi-rapid maxillary expansion (SRME), or rapid maxillary expansion (RME); in any case, methodological flaws prevent any sound conclusion. Stable results have been measured at the 6 month follow-up after removal of the retention plate in the treated groups in the maxillary intermolar and intercanine distances. Long-term stability results should be assessed. The Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) Statement could be helpful in improving the reporting of RCTs

Equity & inclusion in research funding forum: a summary of findings and outputs from the stakeholder consultation

In January 2023, the University of Oxford published the report Equity and Inclusivity in Research Funding: Barriers and Delivering Change. The report investigated and identified the systemic barriers and challenges that individuals in marginalised groups face to secure research funding. It also set out recommendations for how Universities and funders could make their funding schemes and systems more equitable and accessible to a diverse range of researchers, thinkers, and innovators. While many of the recommendations may be readily implemented by organisations acting unilaterally, several require coordinated action by universities and funders working together to deliver sector-wide change

Hierarchical ZSM‐5 catalysts: The effect of different intracrystalline pore dimensions on catalyst deactivation behaviour in the MTO reaction

We present the effect of different combinations of intracrystalline pore systems in hierarchical ZSM‐5 zeolites on their performance as MTO catalysts. We prepared ZSM‐5 zeolites with additional intracrystalline mesoporous, intracrystalline macropores and a novel ZSM‐5 type zeolite with intracrystalline meso and macropores. The catalytic results showed that both used catalysts with mesopores and macropores exhibited three times longer catalyst lifetime compared to a conventional catalyst. However, TGA analysis of the deactivated catalysts showed much larger coke content in the mesoporous catalyst than in the macroporous catalyst. Consequently, macropores predominantly led to reduced coke formation rate while additional mesopores predominantly enhanced the resistance against deactivation by coke. Combining both intracrystalline meso and macropores in one catalyst lead to a tenfold increase in catalyst lifetime. Besides the effect on the catalyst lifetime there was also a strong effect of the additional pore systems on the selectivity of the catalysts. The catalysts containing mesopores showed reduced selectivity to short chain olefins and increased selectivity to larger hydrocarbons in comparison to the catalysts without a mesopores system