Organisational factors and academic research agendas: an analysis of academics in the social sciences

The demands for academic research placed on contemporary universities are closely related to the levels of innovative research they are expected to produce. Concurrently, both governments and university management strive to make the production of academic research more cost-efficient and have implemented measures to ensure this. Top-down policies influenced by the concepts of new public management and managerialism have been introduced, pushing for competitiveness and increased performativity in academic research setups. These policies and guidelines have been criticised by academics as having eroded collegiality and autonomy, which are considered necessary to achieve quality research. The focus of this study is on the social sciences and aligns with this critique, demonstrating that autonomy and collegiality are the key organisational features fostering multidisciplinary, collaborative and riskier research agendas that lead to breakthroughs. Academics with high levels of organisational commitment are more likely to create research agendas that assume more conservative, discipline-bound and risk-averse traits, with less potential to achieve the intended innovative research outcomes.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

The research agenda setting of higher education researchers

Research agenda setting is a critical dimension in the creation of knowledge since it represents the starting point of a process that embeds individual researchers’ (and the communities that they identify themselves with) interest for shedding light on topical unknowns, intrinsic and extrinsic factors underpinning that motivation, and the ambition and scope of what a research endeavor can bring. This article aims to better understand the setting of individual research agendas in the field of higher education. It does so by means of a recently developed framework on research agenda setting that uses cluster analysis and linear modeling. The findings identify two main clusters defining individual research agenda setting—cohesive and trailblazing—each with a different set of determining characteristics. Further analysis by cross-validation through means of sub-sampling shows that these clusters are consistent for both new and established researchers, and for frequent and “part-time” contributors to the field of higher education. Implications for the field of higher education research are discussed, including the relevance that each research agendas cluster has for the advancement of knowledge in the field.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

The Multi-Dimensional Research Agendas Inventory – Revised (MDRAI-R): factors shaping researchers’ research agendas in all fields of knowledge

This study creates a novel inventory that characterizes factors influencing the research agendas of researchers in all fields of knowledge: the Multi-dimensional Research Agendas Inventory-Revised (MDRAI-R). The MDRAI-R optimizes an initial inventory designed for the social sciences (the MDRAI) by reducing the number of items per dimension, improving the inventory’s psychometric properties, and including new dimensions (“Academia Driven” and “Society Driven”) that reflect the greater influence of social and organizational structures on knowledge production and demands for research impact. This inventory enhances our ability to measure research activities at a time when researchers’ choices matter more than ever, and it will be of interest to researchers, policy makers, research funding agencies, and university and research organizations.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The association between researchers’ conceptions of research and their strategic research agendas

In studies of the research process, the association between how researchers conceptualize research and their strategic research agendas has been largely overlooked. This study aims to address this gap. This study analyzes this relationship using a dataset of more than 8,500 researchers across all scientific fields and the globe. It studies the associations between the dimensions of two inventories: the Conceptions of Research Inventory (CoRI) and the Multi-Dimensional Research Agenda Inventory - Revised (MDRAI-R). The findings show a relatively strong association between researchers' conceptions of research and their research agendas. While all conceptions of research are positively related to scientific ambition, the findings are mixed regarding how the dimensions of the two inventories relate to one another, which is significant for those seeking to understand the knowledge production process better. The study relies on self-reported data, which always carries a risk of response bias. The findings provide a greater understanding of the inner workings of knowledge processes and indicate that the two inventories, whether used individually or in combination, may provide complementary analytical perspectives to research performance indicators. They may thus offer important insights for managers of research environments regarding how to assess the research culture, beliefs, and conceptualizations of individual researchers and research teams when designing strategies to promote specific institutional research focuses and strategies. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to associate research agendas and conceptions of research. It is based on a large sample of researchers working worldwide and in all fields of knowledge, which ensures that the findings have a reasonable degree of generalizability to the global population of researchers.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Are the strategic research agendas of researchers in the social sciences determinants of research productivity?

This study analyzes the association between the strategic research agendas of researchers in the social sciences and their research performance. Based on a worldwide sample of 604 researchers, this study assesses whether researchers’ strategic research agendas are predictors of both short-term (last 3 years) and long-term career publications and citations, after controlling for relevant literature-informed determinants of research productivity. The results show that, in a short-term perspective, research agendas have a limited association with productivity and visibility. Solely the research agendas strategically oriented towards publishing and those collaborative in nature have positive associations with research productivity and visibility. This changes when a long-term perspective is considered. Over the course of a career, research agendas are significantly associated with number of publications and citations. Research agendas oriented towards publishing and collaboration, and those focused on a single field of knowledge, prestige gain and discovery have a positive effect on career research performance, while those research agendas that are overspecialized, dispersed over several fields of knowledge and topics, and influenced by a mentor have opposite associations. This study also finds that prolific research productivity shapes one’s strategic research agenda: the more one publishes, the more one is bound to have a strategic research agenda that is focused on prestige, discovery, a further drive to publish, engagement in a multitude of topics to research, and pursuing multidisciplinary and collaborative research. This effect is driven by an accumulation of publications, not citations. These findings highlight how strategic research choices interact with the individual performance of researchers in the social sciences in performativity-oriented research landscapes.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

The relationship between academics’ strategic research agendas and their preferences for basic research, applied research, or experimental development

In this study, we assess the association between academics’ research agendas and their preferences for basic research, applied research, or experimental development. Using a sample of Mexican academics working in some of the country’s most research-oriented universities, we identify three clusters. The largest is composed of applied research-oriented academics, the second largest is composed of basic research-oriented academics, and the smallest is composed of academics who engage in both basic and applied research, and experimental development. The strategic research agendas of the three clusters are distinguished from each other along four main dimensions: Divergence, Discovery, Mentor Influence, and Social Orientation. These findings show that strategic research agendas are associated with preferences for basic research, applied research, or experimental development, but only to some extent. We also extend the Multi-Dimensional Research Agendas Inventory – Revised, a widely used instrument for measuring strategic research agendas, by adding a new dimension, “Government,” and validating the instrument in a new context. We also make the scale available in Spanish for use by academics, practitioners, managers, and administrators in Spanish-speaking countries.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Exploring knowledge types as determinants of preventive behaviour and diabetes risk among older people

The association between education and risk of getting diabetes is established in the context of primary prevention. Yet, the determinants that can account for this association are under-analysed, particularly regarding older people living in cities. This article addresses this gap in an explorative study (n=356), focusing in older people in vulnerable urban areas of Lisbon, Portugal. The analysis focuses on data drawn from interviews and surveys analysed by regression methods. The data includes variables accounting for socio-demographic condition, risk perception, risks of having diabetes based on FINDRISC scores, and habits related to modifiable risk factors. The analysis suggests that: 1) the role of education (a formal knowledge type) is connected with healthy lifestyles, underlining the role of values and social rules; 2) risk perceptions and factual knowledge per se do not seem to be the most adequate to foment behavioural change in older people; and 3) a knowledge typology is proposed for a first-step conceptual framework applied to the older, lower educated, urban populations. The article concludes that education’s social dimension has a strong effect on risk of developing diabetes than knowledge per se. This highlights the need of considering other aspects of preventing disease beyond the more often used traditional strategies.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Mobility and research performance of academics in city-based higher education systems

This study assesses how four types of mobility, which are analysed simultaneously, are associated with the current research output quality and visibility of academics working in the city-based higher education systems of Hong Kong and Macau. Transnational educational mobility is associated with the academics’ educational path, whilst intrasectoral job mobility, intersectoral job mobility and transnational job mobility are related to their professional careers. The research output, quality and visibility of academics are based on three indicators pertaining to the publications of these academics in international, peer-reviewed and indexed journals: the number of publications, the cumulative SCImago journal rank of these publications (which measures quality from an output perspective) and the citations obtained by these publications (which measures visibility). The results show that different mobilities have different effects on research output, quality and visibility, and that often these effects can be beneficial to one indicator but concurrently detrimental to another. Nested analyses of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and non-STEM academics, and by sex, offer further insight into the associations of these mobilities with knowledge output and outcomes.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio