Science-Society interactions in the social sciences and humanities:empirical studies of the Spanish Council for Scientific Research

Las interacciones entre los agentes del sistema de innovación son una pieza clave para el fomento del intercambio de conocimiento, los procesos de aprendizaje y el proceso innovador. El análisis de las interacciones entre universidades y organismos públicos de investigación (ciencia) y los agentes del entorno social (sociedad) ha recibido una gran atención en la comunidad científica, entre otras razones, porque los resultados de estas interacciones pueden tener implicaciones en el diseño de las políticas de ciencia e innovación y en la gestión de la organización. En esta tesis se analizan las interacciones entre los investigadores del área de ciencias sociales y humanidades (CCSSHH) y los agentes sociales, dado que es un colectivo que ha sido escasamente estudiado desde esta perspectiva y presenta características específicas respecto a otros ámbitos científicos. Los tres estudios que componen la tesis abordan aspectos diferentes del tema objeto de estudio y se basan en datos empíricos obtenidos mediante encuestas y entrevistas realizadas en el Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC). El primer estudio pretende averiguar si la utilidad del conocimiento producido en las CCSSHH es menor que en las STEM (acrónimo inglés para ciencia, tecnología, ingeniería y matemáticas), tal como los enfoques de las políticas científicas al uso parecen presuponer al establecer medidas basadas en indicadores difíciles de aplicar a este colectivo (licencias de patentes, contratos de I+D con empresas, creación de spin off). El análisis empírico realizado muestra que los resultados de las investigaciones en CCSSHH no son menos útiles que los de las STEM porque, en ambos casos, hay agentes sociales interesados en ellos. Sin embargo, se aprecia que el tipo de mecanismo de colaboración varía entre áreas del conocimiento, al igual que el tipo de agente social con el cual los investigadores interactúan. Las empresas predominan entre los agentes sociales con los cuales colaboran los investigadores de las STEM mientras que los de CCSSHH colaboran con un grupo más variado de agentes sociales (i.e. administraciones, organizaciones no gubernamentales, etc.). El segundo estudio explora en qué medida los grupos de investigación del área de CCSSHH se relacionan con una variedad de agentes sociales mediante cauces no formalizados. Para ello, se realizan dos análisis complementarios (cuantitativo y cualitativo). Los resultados obtenidos ponen de manifiesto que la mayoría de las relaciones no se formalizan institucionalmente, lo cual significa que la institución no las identifica, registra o valora. Sin embargo, la participación en este tipo de colaboraciones informales, que no tienen necesariamente una contrapartida económica, resulta atractiva por su coste relativamente bajo (en términos económicos y de tiempo), por la ausencia de condiciones restrictivas (p. ej. derechos de propiedad, confidencialidad) y por la existencia de beneficios intangibles para el investigador. El tercer estudio analiza en qué medida los grupos de investigación de CCSSHH interactúan con su entorno mediante diferentes actividades de transferencia de conocimiento (TC) ¿consultoría, investigación contratada, investigación conjunta, actividades de formación e intercambio de personal¿ e identifica los determinantes de cada una de ellas. Los resultados indican que las actividades de TC más frecuentes son la consultoría y la investigación contratada, mientras que el intercambio de personal representa una actividad marginal entre las analizadas. El estudio de los factores que determinan la participación en estas actividades de TC muestra que considerar el potencial uso social de los resultados desde el principio aumenta la participación de los grupos de investigación en todas las actividades de TC analizadas. En conjunto, los tres estudios permiten concluir que la investigación en CCSSHH produce conocimiento y resultados que son de interés para la sociedad. Sin embargo, se diferencian de otras áreas científicas en los mecanismos de interacción predominantes y en la variedad de agentes sociales con los que interactúan. Estas conclusiones pueden tener utilidad práctica para el diseño de políticas destinadas a fomentar el amplio conjunto de interacciones identificadas, para la mejora de las prácticas de gestión y para tratar de evaluar las citadas interacciones mediante indicadores capaces de recoger el amplio espectro de mecanismos identificados en esta tesis.Interactions among agents in the innovation system are critical for the promotion of knowledge exchange, learning processes and the innovation process. The analysis of interactions between universities or public research organisations (science) and social agents (society) has received great attention in the scientific community because, among other reasons, the results of these interactions can have implications for the design of science and innovation policies and organisation management. This thesis analyses the interactions between researchers in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) and social agents. The SSH community is a collective that has been little studied from this perspective and presents particular characteristics as compared to other scientific fields. The three studies included in the thesis address different aspects of the topic and are based on empirical data obtained through surveys and interviews conducted in the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). The first study explores whether the knowledge produced by the SSH is less useful than that produced in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), as science policy seems to presume when establishing measures based on indicators (patent licenses, R&D contracts with companies, creating spin off) that are difficult to apply to the SSH community. The empirical analysis shows that SSH research outputs are no less useful than those from STEM because, in both cases, there are social agents interested in them. However, the preferred type of collaborative mechanism varies across fields, as does the type of agent with whom researchers interact. Firms are the prevailing type of agent collaborating with STEM researchers whilst SSH researchers collaborate with a varied group of social agents (i.e. government, NGOs, etc.). The second study explores the extent to which SSH research groups engage with a variety of social agents through non¿formalized collaborations. To do this, two complementary analyses (quantitative and qualitative) are conducted. Results show that most of the collaborations are not institutionally formalized, which means that the research organisation does not identify, record or value them. However, engagement in these informal collaborations, that do not necessarily have an economic counterpart, are attractive due to the relatively low cost (in time and economic terms) of many such activities, the absence of restrictive conditions (e.g. IPR, confidentiality) and other intangible benefits accruing to the researcher. The third study examines the extent to which SSH research groups interact with social agents through different knowledge transfer (KT) activities ¿consultancy, contract research, joint research, training and personnel mobility¿ and identifies the determinants of each. Results show that the most frequent KT activities are consultancy and contract research, while personnel exchange is a marginal activity among those analysed. The study of the factors determining the engagement in these activities shows that consideration of the social uses of the research outputs from the beginning enhances research groups¿ engagement in all the knowledge transfer activities analysed. Overall, the three studies support the conclusion that SSH research produces knowledge and outputs that are of interest to society. However, differences from other scientific fields are found in terms of the prevalent type of interaction mechanisms used and the variety of social agents with whom interactions are established. These findings may have practical utility for the design of policies aimed at encouraging and enhancing the range of interactions, for improving managerial practices and for the assessment of these interactions through indicators able to capture the type of interactions identified in this thesis.Olmos Peñuela, J. (2013). Science-Society interactions in the social sciences and humanities:empirical studies of the Spanish Council for Scientific Research [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/31653TESISPremiad

Future impact - how can we rationally evaluate impact statements?

Making claims about the future impact of research as part of research grant applications has since it’s inception been controversial. As, if impact statements are accurate they suggest that the outcomes of research are already known. As UKRI (the UK’s main research funding body) considers scrapping impact statements, Paul Benneworth and Julia Olmos Peñuela argue how impact statements can produce meaningful statements of the potential future impact of research and set out a framework for assessing these claims

Resolving tensions of research utilization: the value of a usability-based approach

This is a position paper addressing the debate about the nature of how research is utilised and measured that questions the prevalent practice of measuring terminal use transactions (TUTs) – i.e. patents, spin-outs or license income – for measuring research impact. In so doing, our starting point is that a science system is a progressive business in which any piece of research builds on a whole set of antecedent research and knowledge. We contend that the extent of research utilisation across this science system is determined by the extent to which antecedent research can feed into research that ultimately feeds into these TUTs. We introduce the concept of ‘valorizers’ as research users that valorise knowledge by transforming it into the socio-economic domain, for the purpose of defining the ‘usability’ of antecedent research as the ease with which it may contribute to research that valorizers are able to absorb. We argue that the flow into the pool of ‘usable knowledge’ is ultimately dependent on the extent to which newly created scientific knowledge is cognate with valorizer needs and that more consideration need to be given to the processes by which research creates knowledge that is usable through the course of the research cycle

Technological innovation and the challenges of novelty and failure: Evidence from Spanish manufacturing firms

Trabajo presentado al EU-SPRI Forum Conference: Management of Innovation Policies: new forms of collaboration in policy design, implementation and evaluation, celebrado en Madrid (España) del 10 al 12 de Abril de 2013.Peer Reviewe

Explaining researchers’ readiness to incorporate external stimuli in their research agendas

Ingenio Working Paper SeriesThis paper seeks to provide a better understanding of how researchers incorporate external (non-academic) influences in their research process. Firstly we advance the notion of ‘openness’ as a researcher characteristic that describes researchers’ readiness to let external stimuli modify the different stages of the research cycle and we identify the kind of behavioural changes expected from ‘open’ researchers. Secondly, we look at the factors explaining researchers’ openness. We empirically analyse researchers’ openness drawing upon a database containing 1583 researchers from the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). We found that researchers open in any stage of the research process tend to be also open through the rest of the stages. We also found that personal factors related to researchers’ identity and past experiences are key aspects that determine researchers’ openness. Policy implications are derived regarding suggestions to foster researchers’ openness.The authors acknowledge the EU-Spri Forum for the PhD Circulation grant provided to Julia Olmos Peñuela and to the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS) as her host institution.N

Does it take two to tango? Factors related to the ease of societal uptake of scientific knowledge

[EN] Science policy increasingly focuses on maximising societal benefits from science and technology investments, but often reduces those benefits to activities involving codifying and selling knowledge, thereby idealising best practice academic behaviours around entrepreneurial superstars. This paper argues that societal value depends on knowledge being used, making knowledge¿s eventual exploitation partly dependent upon on whether other users¿societal or scientific¿can use that knowledge (i.e. on how far new knowledge is cognate with users¿ existing knowledge). When scientists incorporate user knowledge into their research processes, what we call `open research behaviours¿, their knowledge may be more usable. We develop a set of hypotheses concerning whether researchers¿ personal and professional characteristics are associated with open research behaviours. We find evidence which suggests that, whilst personal characteristics are not associated with open research behaviours, researchers who experience professional signals validating open research behaviours are more likely to demonstrate such behaviours.The authors acknowledge the EU-SPRI Forum for the PhD Circulation grant provided to Julia Olmos-Penuela and to CHEPS as her host institution, and to the Conselleria d'Educacio, Cultura i Esport (Ref. APOSTD-2014-A-006) for the post-doctoral grant provided to Julia Olmos-Penuela. The authors acknowledge the CSIC and other IMPACTO project researchers (INGENIO and IESA) for their hard and very satisfactory work and the CSIC researchers whose answers to the questionnaire enabled us to develop the database. 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Universities in external knowledge networks: particular roles for particular universities?

The paper addresses the key issue within the special track “One size does not fit all”: are there distinct ways that different kinds of universities interact with their environments at local, regional and national levels? In this paper, we begin from the critique in the call for papers in this track of what is termed a simplistic model of the universities’ regional enhancement role. The session seeks to explore how universities (or different tertiary level/higher education institutions) relate with other organizations in their environment in particular ways, depending on the particularities of both the regions and the universities

Las dos culturas en la divulgación de la ciencia: una exploración de la influencia del campo científico de los investigadores

Trabajo presentado al XI Congreso Español de Sociología: "Crisis y cambio: propuestas desde la sociología" celebrado en Madrid del 10 al 12 de Julio de 2013.La necesidad de reducir el déficit de cultura científica de los ciudadanos ha impulsado el desarrollo de iniciativas para su fomento, tanto desde las políticas científicas gubernamentales como desde las institucionales. En este artículo se ha realizado una exploración sobre la implicación de los investigadores en diversos tipos de actividades de divulgación social, tratando de identificar patrones y diferencias entre áreas de conocimiento. Para ello, se emplea una muestra amplia de investigadores pertenecientes a las ocho áreas en las que se agrupan los investigadores del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), a la que se ha realizado una encuesta que indaga sobre su participación en una serie de actividades de divulgación previamente identificadas. Con estos datos, se ha realizado un análisis factorial que ha permitido construir dos indicadores, correspondientes a actividades de carácter individual e institucional. Un ulterior tratamiento de los datos (ANOVA), dirigido a detectar diferencias entre áreas, ha confirmado la presencia de pautas diferenciadas entre los investigadores de ciencias sociales y humanas y los investigadores de algunas disciplinas de las ciencias experimentales que pueden ser de interés para el enfoque futuro de las acciones de fomento de la divulgación social de la ciencia.Peer Reviewe

Knowledge transfer activities in Humanities and Social Sciences: which determinants explain research group interactions with non-academic agents?

Trabajo presentado a la DIME-DRUID Academy Winter Conference: "Economics and Management of Innovation, Technology and Organizations", celebrada en Aalborg (Dinamarca) del 20 al 22 de enero de 2011.In the current society, universities and research centers have acquired an important role as agents responsible for knowledge transfer (KT) to the non-academic environment (OCDE 1996). The different ways in which these collaborations take place have been the subject of many conceptual (Molas-Gallart et al. 2002) and empirical studies (D'Este and Patel 2007; Landry et al. 2007) in recent years. The aim of this exploratory study paper is to contribute to KT literature from an area of study generally neglected, humanities and social sciences (HSS), and from a unit analysis perspective that have received less attention: the research group. Thus, the questions addressed in this study are: what are the main activities of KT used by HSS research groups to collaborate with non-academic agents? Do group characteristics or group’ leader profile influence the group’ engagement in a specific knowledge transfer activity? Data for this study has been gathered through questionnaires, interviews and databases for a sample made up of 79 research groups (80% of the population) belonging to the HSS area of the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). Descriptive and multivariate analyses have been conducted. Results indicate that HSS research groups are very active in some KT activities such as technical advice, consultancy and contract research, whereas their involvement in personal mobility activities is low. Logistic regression analysis shows that the likelihood that research groups engage in any KT activities is not explained by the same factors. However, we obtain evidence showing that there is a common variable positively related with the engagement of HSS research groups for almost all the different activities analyzed: the focus on the social utility of the research.The study benefited from financial support from the Spanish National R&D Plan (Ref.: SEJ2005-24033-E) and the Valencian Regional Government (Ref.: GV06/225).Peer reviewe

Informal collaborations between social sciences and humanities researchers and non-academic partners

The analysis of how research contributes to society typically focuses on the study of those transactions that are mediated through formal legal instruments (research contracts, patent licensing and the creation of companies). Research has shown, however, that informal means of technology transfer are also important. This paper explores the importance of informal collaborations and provides evidence of the extent to which informal collaborations between researchers and nonacademic partners take place informally in the social sciences and humanities (SSH). Data is obtained from two studies on knowledge exchange involving researchers working in the SSH area of the Spanish Council for Scientific Research. We show that informal collaborations not officially recorded by the organisation are much more common than formal agreements and that many collaborations remain informal over time. We explore the causes of such prevalence of informality and discuss its policy implications.Olmos-Peñuela, J.; Molas-Gallart, J.; Castro-Martínez, E. (2014). Informal collaborations between social sciences and humanities researchers and non-academic partners. Science and Public Policy. 41(4):493-506. doi:10.1093/scipol/sct075S49350641