Perceptions of the Research Climate in Universities and National Research Institutes: The Role of Gender and Bureaucracy in Three Low-Income Countries

This article examines the relationship between sex and sector of employment and perceptions of the research climate among a sample of researchers in three lowincome areas: Ghana, Kenya, and Kerala India. Using data gathered in 2010 from scientists working in universities and national research institutes, we address the following questions: 1) Are there differences in men’s and women’s assessment of the research environment in terms of their satisfaction with funding, ratings of problems associated with communication and coordination, and sense of autonomy? 2) Do contextual factors— primarily sector of employment but also controlling for home region—account for these differences? 3) Does the effect of sex vary across sector and location? 4) Are there other factors—family status, education, and experience—that mediate the relationship between sex, context and perceptions of the work environment? Findings indicate that female scientists’ satisfaction with funding is governed by national context rather than institutional context, while their sense of autonomy and experience with problems related to communication and coordination is governed by institutional contexts. By engaging with the literature on the gendered nature of bureaucracy, our results provide insight into the features of organizations that shape male and female researchers’ experiences

Hidden in the Middle : Culture, Value and Reward in Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics - the so-called shotgun marriage between biology and computer science - is an interdiscipline. Despite interdisciplinarity being seen as a virtue, for having the capacity to solve complex problems and foster innovation, it has the potential to place projects and people in anomalous categories. For example, valorised 'outputs' in academia are often defined and rewarded by discipline. Bioinformatics, as an interdisciplinary bricolage, incorporates experts from various disciplinary cultures with their own distinct ways of working. Perceived problems of interdisciplinarity include difficulties of making explicit knowledge that is practical, theoretical, or cognitive. But successful interdisciplinary research also depends on an understanding of disciplinary cultures and value systems, often only tacitly understood by members of the communities in question. In bioinformatics, the 'parent' disciplines have different value systems; for example, what is considered worthwhile research by computer scientists can be thought of as trivial by biologists, and vice versa. This paper concentrates on the problems of reward and recognition described by scientists working in academic bioinformatics in the United Kingdom. We highlight problems that are a consequence of its cross-cultural make-up, recognising that the mismatches in knowledge in this borderland take place not just at the level of the practical, theoretical, or epistemological, but also at the cultural level too. The trend in big, interdisciplinary science is towards multiple authors on a single paper; in bioinformatics this has created hybrid or fractional scientists who find they are being positioned not just in-between established disciplines but also in-between as middle authors or, worse still, left off papers altogether

Science and Development

Aimed at a contemporary view of science and development that takes into account changes brought about by information and communication technologies, this article examines why low-income countries are in pursuit of the Western way of knowing known as science. Toward this aim, several perspectives are reviewed: modernization, dependency and world systems, neoinstitutional, global systems, postcolonialism, and reagency. The intent is to highlight how each casts the nature of science and its relation to the project of development

International graduate science training and scientific collaboration

Graduate training abroad is typical for scientists in developing countries. Owing to resource scarcities, collaboration is a common form of research for these same individuals. Yet few studies have examined the linkage between graduate education and scientific collaboration. This article examines this question in a population of scientists who have experienced the simultaneous influence of three scientifically strong training systems: Australia, Japan and the US. Survey data from 312 agricultural scientists in two Philippine locations are used to explore the relationships between graduate education, Internet use, professional networks and scientific collaboration. The findings show that most collaboration is domestic, but the most common international collaborations are Japanese, followed by Australian and finally US collaborations. Japanese training, but not professional networks, is associated with such collaborations, while US and Australian training appear unimportant to collaborations in these locations. This the article explains by identifying two aspects integral to graduate education, mode of study and mentoring style, which may be critical to the development of durable professional ties and ultimately to collaborative work. The results show that even among scientific training systems in developed areas, there are variations in interaction and practices that have implications for differential participation in scientific collaboration. © International Sociological Association

Are mobile phones changing social networks? a longitudinal study of core networks in Kerala

Mobile telephony has diffused more rapidly than any Indian technology in recent memory, yet systematic studies of its impact are rare, focusing on technological rather than social change. We employ network surveys of separate groups of Kerala residents in 2002 and again in 2007 to examine recent shifts in mobile usage patterns and social relationships. Results show (1) near saturation of mobiles among both the professionals and nonprofessionals sampled, (2) a decrease in the number of social linkages across tie types and physical locations, and (3) a shift towards friends and family but away from work relationships in the core networks of Malayalis. We interpret these findings as support for the bounded solidarity thesis of remote communication that emphasizes social insulation and network closure as mobiles shield individuals from their wider surroundings. © The Author(s) 2011