Developing the European Research Area: Improving Knowledge Flows via Researcher Mobility

This report focuses on some of the knowledge creation and circulation processes that underpin the development of knowledge-based societies. Specifically, the report looks at aspects of human resource development and researcher mobility within the European Research Area (ERA) and between the ERA and other parts of the world. This topic is critical to the evolution of the ERA and the free circulation of knowledge within it, the so-called ¿Fifth Freedom¿. Recent developments are reviewed and the implications for further policy assessed.JRC.DDG.J.3-Knowledge for Growt

Génesis y desarrollo interdisciplinar del programa mertoniano para la ciencia

Génesis y desarrollo interdisciplinar del programa mertoniano para la ciencia" da cuenta de la sociología de la ciencia de Robert K. Merton atendiendo al papel que juegan las relaciones entre la historia de la ciencia, la filosofía de la ciencia y la propia sociología en el desarrollo e interpretación de la misma. El estudio analiza el modo en el que los vínculos de estas disciplinares y los propios presupuestos disciplinares "condicionan" la elaboración, recepción de su obra y determinan las diferencias entre los supuesto que el autor plantea para su programa sociológico y los que proponen las Sociologías del Conocimiento Científico para la renovación de la sociología. El trabajo aplica una metodología bibliométrica con unos fines histórico-interpretativos al apoyar las reflexiones del estudio con un análisis de las referencias de los textos más relevantes de la sociología de la ciencia del autor constatándose así las influencias, relaciones y la secuencia temporal de éstas

International stays abroad, collaborations and the return of Spanish researchers

This article uses curricular information from a sample of applicants to the Spanish Ramón y Cajal programme to, on the one hand, assess the extent to which international mobility has an impact on the collaboration patterns of researchers and, on the other hand, to address the connection between collaboration patterns and the likelihood of return to Spain. We focus on two main types of collaborations: co-publications and collaboration in research projects through formal participation. We find that longer stays abroad seem to provide better opportunities to publish with a host principal investigator and to participate in research projects in the recipient country. We find that the length of the stay also has an impact on the likelihood of return to Spain: longer stays abroad reduce the likelihood of return. However, a longer duration international stay does not affect the collaboration links maintained with the home country, which may persist over time. We also find that public financial support is crucial for explaining and facilitating the return of Spanish researchers from abroad.Peer Reviewe

European university funding and financial autonomy. A study on the degree of diversification of university budget and the share of competitive funding

The main objective of this report is to investigate the structure of the budget in a sample of research-active European universities and to analyse to what extent the level of financial autonomy effects the diversification of their budget and the amount of competitive funding they receive. The study covers 200 research-active universities from 33 European Research Area (ERA) countries (27 Member States and Croatia, Iceland, Israel, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey) within the framework of the 'European Observatory of Research-Active Universities and National Public Research Funding Agencies' (UniObs). The criteria followed to select the list of universities in the sample are based on research performance and country representativeness. The main findings of the study are as follows: ¿Looking at the general budget, 70 % of the total university income comes from government allocations. Sources from private companies represent about 6 %, around 3 % comes from non-profit sectors and approximately 2 % is from abroad. The remaining 19 % belongs to a residual category 'Other'. ¿Considering only public funding coming from government (national and regional) we observe that, on average, about 20 % is assigned on a competitive basis, with UK institutions and, in general, technological universities having the highest shares of competitive funds. ¿We observe large within-country variability in the shares of government competitive funds, which could be attributed to the strategic behaviour of single institutions in acquiring funds or to their ability to compete successfully against other institutions. Examples of these are the University of Cambridge in the UK, the University of Karlsruhe in Germany, the University of Florence in Italy, and the universities of Leiden and Wageningen in the Netherlands. ¿Most institutions with highly diversified budgets are located in the UK. ¿University research budgets vary considerably between institutions. Research funds coming from regional authorities are considered important for institutions operating in countries with a more decentralised government structure such as Belgium, Germany or Spain. ¿Institutions that declare to be completely autonomous are the ones that have the most diversified budget. ¿The share of competitive-based government funds increases with increasing levels of institutional financial autonomy. ¿National or institutional settings which do not allow universities to act in a fully financially autonomous way appear to be less likely to produce a real change.JRC.DDG.J.3-Knowledge for Growt

El sistema català de recerca i innovació en el context europeu: avaluació i reptes

La política científica forma part de l’eix de les polítiques socioeconòmiques als estats europeus més avançats, per aquesta raó la Unió Europea ha promogut les Research Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation-RIS3, amb la intenció que els estats i les regions prioritzin la seva activitat econòmica sobre la base dels seus avantatges competitius i la seva massa crítica. En aquest context, moltes regions europees han pres consciència del potencial de les seves polítiques científiques, entre les quals destaca Catalunya. Aquesta regió ha desenvolupat des de fa dècades de manera intensa la seva competència en recerca i innovació, per la qual cosa resulta fonamental detectar quins són els seus reptes de futur en aquest àmbit. Amb aquesta finalitat, el present article ha seleccionat una sèrie de models de dret comparat i un conjunt de temes per avaluar, per tal d’identificar mancances i proposar reformes en el sistema català. Concretament, els països de referència han estat Alemanya, Àustria i el Regne Unit, i els temes la gestió/governança de la ciència i la planificació científica, incloent-hi en ambdós casos la qüestió de la col·laboració publicoprivada i la transferència de coneixements i resultats

Towards a Horizontal Reading of the ERAWATCH Inventory: A Case Study on Policies in Support of Human Resources for Research

The present policy note makes use of information reported in ERAWATCH (EW) national profiles of research policies and the combined EW and TRENDCHART (TC) inventories of support measures to perform a selective review of policies introduced by EU member states in support of Human Resources for Research and Development (HRRD). Despite their limitations, the unique character of the databases permits an overview of the policy landscape in the EU which has been previously impossible to perform in a systematic manner. An original analytical framework has been devised, aiming to extract information relevant to current policy needs and to facilitate comparisons at the levels of policy initiatives and countries. The study¿s main findings can be summarised as follows: -Reported initiatives for HRRD are opening-up to foreign participants and are becoming more internationally oriented; -The overall majority of reported initiatives for HRRD have no thematic / sectoral focus; -Relatively few of the reported policy initiatives aim at improving employment conditions and social security benefits; -At the country level, there are important differences regarding reported policy objectives, target populations, policy domains, instruments and time horizons; -Differences are more pronounced between countries at the low- and high-ends of research capacity (with relative homogeneity around the average). Our exploratory analysis of three experimental indicators - centralisation of governance, diversity of policy domain and specialisation of thematic priorities - shows interesting patterns, some of which are consistent with prior knowledge about national research systems. However, improvements in data consistency across countries will be needed before such indicators become useful policy tools. It should be stressed that the above findings reflect the information reported in the EW and TC inventories and that more general inferences should be complemented with additional sources. The note concludes with lessons for future horizontal analyses and suggestions for improving the reporting of human resource policies.JRC.DDG.J.3-Knowledge for Growt

Propiedades relacionales de las redes de colaboración y generación de conocimiento científico: ¿Una cuestión de tamaño o equilibrio?

El artículo analiza la influencia de las redes de los investigadores en la cantidad y calidad de su producción de conocimiento científico, con datos obtenidos de un cuestionario, cumplimentado por 191 investigadores/académicos españoles especializados en nanotecnología. Se consideran las redes que los investigadores establecen con otros individuos y organizaciones y se examina el efecto de las propiedades relacionales de las redes de colaboración (grado de incrustación y heterogeneidad nodal) en la producción científica, teniendo en cuenta el tamaño de la red. Se observa que el equilibrio en las redes personales y organizativas explica más la cantidad y la calidad de la producción científica que el tamaño de las redes. Las redes personales equilibradas en su fuerza y su diversidad geográfica facilitan la producción científica y, en su aspecto geográfico, su calidad. Las redes organizativas equilibradas en su diversidad institucional, al contrario que en su dimensión geográfica, también facilita la cantidad de producció

Digital Activism Masked. The Fridays for Future movement and the "Global day of climate action": testing social function and framing typologies of claims on Twitter

This article analyses the Fridays for Future (FFF) movement and their online mobilization around the Global Day of Climate Action on September 25th, 2020. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic this event is a unique opportunity to study digital activism as marchers were considered not appropriate. Using the Twitter’s API with keywords “#climateStrike”, “#FridaysForFuture”, we collected 111,844 unique tweets and retweets from 47,892 unique users. We use two typologies based on social media activism and framing literature to understand the main function of tweets —information, opinion, mobilization and blame— and frames —diagnosis, prognosis, motivational. We also analyze its relationship and test its automated-classification potential. To do so we manually coded a randomly selected sample of 950 tweets that are used as input for the automated-classification process (SVMs algorithm with balancing classification techniques). We find that the Covid-19 pandemic appears not to have increased the mobilization function of tweets, as the frequencies of mobilization tweets were low. We also find a balanced diversity of framing tasks, with an important number of tweets that envisaged solution on legislation and policy changes. We find that both typologies are not independent. The automated data classification model performed well, especially across social function typology and the “other” category. This indicates that these tools could help researchers working with social media data to process the information across categories that are currently mainly processed manually, enlarging their final sample size