A case analysis of registering research activity for institutional benefit

Those in senior managerial positions and working in central services in higher education institutions (HEIs) need data about research activities. Such data is used by these individuals to assist their planning and reporting, for promoting the institution, and to enable them to identify opportunities for funding. This article describes the requirements for research activity information of senior managers and administrative staff at a large, research intensive HEI in the UK. A pilot registry for research activity data and exemplar web services that it supports have been created as part of a project designed to address some of those needs. The project was born out of the development of an institutional repository and uses a solution based on semantic web technologies. Developments are considered against the backdrop of change in current research information management activities.     

Commercializing the laboratory: Faculty patenting and the open science environment

This paper investigates the relationship between patenting and publication of research results by university faculty members. Our study adds to the limited evidence on this topic with an empirical investigation based on a panel data set for a broad sample of university researchers. Results suggest that publication and patenting are complementary, not substitute, activities for faculty members. This is not consistent with recent concerns regarding deleterious effects of patenting on the research output of faculty members. Average citations to publications, however, appear to decline for repeat patenters, suggesting either a decrease in quality or restrictions on use associated in patent protection.     

以色列高效创新运行机制揭密

以色列在科技创新方面取得的惊人成就,有目共睹,许多方面值得世界称道。以色列建立高效创新活动运行体系的主要方法:一是通过政府各部门通力合作,共同组成国家科技决策和创新活动管理机构,健全国家创新体系宏观管理机制。二是通过政府部门、地区、企业和大学分别建立研发机构或技术转移公司,形成由不同类型创新活动主体组成的灵活运行体系。三是通过完善科技计划,确定科技发展方针和战略方向,促进产学研密切合作,加快创新成果转化。     

校外兼职对我国高校教师科研产出的影响

    本文基于2014年中国大学教师微观调查数据,采用OLS回归模型实证检验了教师校外兼职参与以及兼职类型对科研产出的影响,并探究了教师科研偏好的调节作用。实证结果表明：（1）我国高校教师的校外兼职参与和科研产出存在互补效应。具体而言,校外兼职与教师国内论文发表数量呈显著的正相关关系,与其他形式的科研产出不显著相关。（2）与没有参与校外兼职的教师相比,教师在公共部门从事校外兼职主要对国内论文的发表和专著出版有正向促进作用,而在私有部门兼职有利于高校教师获取更多的发明专利。（3）教师科研偏好对校外兼职与科研产出之间的关系具有调节作用。研究结果为我们更好地引导和规范我国高校教师参与校外兼职,规避潜在角色冲突提供了实证证据与新的启示。     

The impact of the pandemic-enforced lockdown on the scholarly productivity of women academics in South Africa

The underrepresentation of women in research is well-documented, in everything from participation and leadership to peer review and publication. Even so, in the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, early reports indicated a precipitous decline in women's scholarly productivity (both in time devoted to research and in journal publications) compared to pre-pandemic times. None of these studies, mainly from the Global North, could provide detailed explanations for the scale of this decline in research outcomes. Using a mixed methods research design, we offer the first comprehensive study to shed light on the complex reasons for the decline in research during the pandemic-enforced lockdown among 2,029 women academics drawn from 26 public universities in South Africa. Our study finds that a dramatic increase in teaching and administrative workloads, and the traditional family roles assumed by women while “working from home,” were among the key factors behind the reported decline in research activity among female academics in public universities. In short, teaching and administration effectively displaced research and publication—with serious implications for an already elusive gender equality in research. Finally, the paper offers recommendations that leaders and policy makers can draw on to support women academics and families in higher education during and beyond pandemic times.     

The impact of transaction costs on the institutional structuration of collaborative academic research

This paper addresses a crucial question: Which factors explain the choices of institutional structures made by university researchers? The main findings of the study point to the central importance of publication assets, coordination costs, additional funding, and membership in the disciplines of engineering, natural sciences and health sciences as factors affecting the choices of institutional structures university researchers make when they become involved in collaborative research projects. On the other hand, the number of years researchers have been involved in collaborative research, the capture of additional publications linked to involvement in collaborative research, the importance of administrative burdens and the time required to coordinate collaborative research were demonstrated to be unimportant in explaining these choices.     

The role of social embeddedness in professorial entrepreneurship: a comparison of electrical engineering and computer science at UC Berkeley and Stanford

Professorial entrepreneurship has recently attracted much attention. This paper draws upon historical research, a survey of faculty, and an Internet-based methodology for identifying professorial affiliations with entrepreneurial firms at two of the premier electrical engineering and computer science departments in the US, The University of California, Berkeley and Stanford. We employ the concept of “nested embeddedness” to explain why the faculty members in these two institutions have different levels of entrepreneurship and corporate involvement. EE&CS faculty at both universities were found to be socially embedded in departments and disciplines that supported and placed value on entrepreneurial activities. However, while being embedded in a university environment with a history of success and high level of support for entrepreneurship, EE&CS faculty at Stanford had a significantly greater level of corporate involvement, including the founding of start-ups. Although significantly less than Stanford, the level of corporate involvement among EE&CS faculty at Berkeley was also substantial. This suggests that being embedded in an academic department and disciplines with cultures that are supportive of entrepreneurial activity can help counteract the disincentives created by a university environment that is not strongly supportive of these activities.     

Immersive time (ImT): Conceptualizing time spent in the metaverse

With growing investment into the metaverse or metaverses, the required hardware and software is becoming more powerful and cheaper, and tech firms’ expectations for this market are high. In parallel, consumer brands are claiming their digital real estate as consumers seek experiences beyond those available in the real world. Having people engage on this platform is important for all stakeholders. To address this much needed level of engagement, this editorial introduces the concept of immersive time (ImT), which is described as the conscious, deliberate, and dedicated time spent using a headset and other accessories to continually engage in the metaverse, presumably at least in part to escape the real world. Once in ImT, there are rather limited opportunities to multitask and simultaneously devote time to the activities within the metaverse and the real world. As such, while prolonged ImT is important for the stakeholders, it is imperative to recognize the inherent dark sides of this time. Understanding ImT has important implications for researchers and practitioners (including tech developers, and brand and marketing managers who contemplate their metaverse strategies), and policymakers who aim to ensure customers’ safety when immersing in the metaverse. This editorial concludes with an agenda for future research to enhance our understanding of consumer behaviors and engagement in the metaverse.     

The Bayh-Dole Act and university research and development

This paper examines the relationship between university research and development (R&D) activities and the Bayh-Dole Act. This act made it much easier for universities to obtain patents from research funded by the federal government and may have provided universities with an incentive to alter their R&D activities. The Act may provide an incentive to reduce basic research (which does not generate licensing fees) and increase applied research (which does generate patents and licensing fees). In addition, industry might be more willing to fund university R&D projects since the results would now be easier to patent. This paper differs from the existing literature which uses patent data (a measure of research output) by using research and development data (a measure of inventive input) to examine the effect of the Act.     

论资源会计学的研究基础与研究框架

资源科学在“可持续发展”理论体系中的客观地位,决定了不仅需要对其从宏观管理的层次进行定性性的政策研究,同时也需要从微观管理层次进行定量性的核算方法研究。该文通过分析以“可持续发展”理论为核心的资源生态循环和经济循环的原理及其与资源管理循环的关系,阐述了资源核算与资源会计的差异,得出了需要专门研究资源会计问题的基本结论。并以全面剖析国际、国内会计理论学术界和资源科学界对这一问题研究进展及其所形成基本观点为基础,就专门研究资源会计学的基本目标、所涉及的主要内容、应当采用的研究方法和实施研究观念创新等方面的问题做了初步讨论。     

Research upon return: The effect of international mobility on scientific ties,production and impact

Highly skilled return migrants contribute to the establishment of ties between the home and host systems. This paper studies how the professional ties, which Argentinean researchers built up during the time spent in foreign research systems, influence their collaboration patterns and their research outputs upon return. It confirms the expectation that having foreign work experience helps to explain the propensity to co-publish internationally and it also shows that researchers collaborate to a higher degree with their former host system. Another central finding is that foreign work experience has a positive effect on the propensity to publish in journals with a high impact factor. Additionally, a large share of this type of research is published without international co-authorship. We therefore do no not find evidence of a lack of publication autonomy in the case of Argentinean returnees.     

Explaining Australia’s increased share of ISI publications—the effects of a funding formula based on publication counts

Australia’s share of publications in the Science Citation Index (SCI) has increased by 25% in the last decade. The worrying aspect associated with this trend is the significant decline in citation impact Australia is achieving relative to other countries. It has dropped from sixth position in a ranking of 11 OECD countries in 1988, to 10th position by 1993, and the distance from ninth place continues to widen.The increased publication activity came at a time when publication output was expected to decline due to pressures facing the higher education sector, which accounts for over two-thirds of Australian publications. This paper examines possible methodological and contextual explanations of the trends in Australia’s presence in the SCI, and undertakes a detailed comparison of two universities that introduced diverse research management strategies in the late 1980s. The conclusion reached is that the driving force behind the Australian trends appears to lie with the increased culture of evaluation faced by the sector. Significant funds are distributed to universities, and within universities, on the basis of aggregate publication counts, with little attention paid to the impact or quality of that output. In consequence, journal publication productivity has increased significantly in the last decade, but its impact has declined.     

Are ideas being fished out?

This paper examines whether declining research productivity can be explained by fishing out—is the production of new knowledge decreasing in the level of existing knowledge? We estimate the knowledge production function for US firms and find instead that knowledge production is increasing in the knowledge stock. This is reinforced by the observations that maximum research productivity across firms is increasing over time, and that research productivity year effects continue to exhibit decline after modeling contributions from knowledge and research labor. Given that fishing out appears unable to explain the decline in research productivity, we offer preliminary evidence of contingent factors that might contribute to the decline.     

企业衰落与创新行为的关系研究——冗余资源与CEO任期的调节效应#br#

衰落是创新之母还是刚性之母？仍旧是未解决的重要学术问题。本研究在进一步界定企业衰落的基础上,基于企业行为理论、前景理论、“威胁-刚性”假说的观点,分析了企业衰落与创新行为之间的关系,讨论了冗余资源与CEO任期对二者关系的调节效应。采用2012年—2016年中国沪深两市A股制造业上市企业数据,并通过固定效应模型回归分析得出以下研究结论：（1）企业衰落与创新行为之间并不是简单的线性关系,而是随着衰落程度的加深,企业创新行为强度呈现先上升后下降的倒U型关系,在控制内生性及其他稳健性检验之后该结论依然成立;（2）冗余资源在企业衰落与创新行为之间起到显著正向调节作用,企业拥有冗余资源越多,越能转化为帮助企业进行创新的财富,降低衰落对企业的冲击,强化衰落困境下的创新行为能力;（3）CEO任期在企业衰落与创新行为之间起到的正向调节作用与衰落程度存在紧密关系,随着衰落程度的不断加深,其正向调节作用逐渐被削弱。进一步检验产权性质的调节效应表明：国有性质产权在企业衰落和创新行为之间起到正向调节作用,但这种调节作用不显著。研究结果拓展了衰落企业创新与刚性悖论关系的文献研究,为衰落困境中的中国企业的创新实践提供现实指导。      

基于流程再造的高校科研管理协同机制研究

本文针对我国高校科研管理中普遍存在的管理职能分立、考核评估乏力、过程管理滞后等问题,引入业务流程再造理论,从管理理念、组织结构、管理方式等方面探讨了我国高校科研管理的流程再造。提出了以流程再造实践为主体,以现代管理思想和信息技术为依托,以促进高校科研管理中横向管理部门和纵向校院系组纵横协同联动为目标的立体化、全方位、无盲点的网格式科研管理协同新机制。     

A resource-based view on the interactions of university researchers

The high value of collaboration among scientists and of interactions of university researchers with industry is generally acknowledged. In this study we explain the use of different knowledge networks at the individual level from a resource-based perspective. This involves viewing networks as a resource that offers competitive advantages to an individual university researcher in terms of career development. Our results show that networking and career development are strongly related, but it is important to distinguish between different types of networks. Although networks on various levels (faculty, university, scientific, industrial) show strong correlations, we found three significant differences. First, networking within one's own faculty and with researchers from other universities stimulates careers, while interactions with industry do not. Second, during the course of an academic career a researcher's scientific network activity first rises, but then declines after about 20 years. Science-industry collaboration, however, continuously increases. Third, the personality trait ‘global innovativeness’ positively influences science-science interactions, but not science-industry interactions.     

Entrepreneurial effectiveness of European universities: An empirical assessment of antecedents and trade-offs

The phenomenon of entrepreneurial universities has received considerable attention over the last decades. An entrepreneurial orientation by academia might put regions and nations in an advantageous position in emerging knowledge-intensive fields of economic activity. At the same time, such entrepreneurial orientation requires reconciliation with the scientific missions of academia. Large-scale empirical research on antecedents of the entrepreneurial effectiveness of universities is scarce. This contribution examines the extent to which scientific productivity affect entrepreneurial effectiveness, taking into account the size of universities and the presence of disciplines, as well as the R&D intensity of the regional business environment (BERD). In addition, we assess the occurrence of trade-offs between different transfer mechanisms (contract research, patenting and spin off activity). The data used pertain to 105 European universities. Our findings reveal that scientific productivity is positively associated with entrepreneurial effectiveness. Trade-offs between transfer mechanisms do not reveal themselves; on the contrary, contract research and spin off activities tend to facilitate each other. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed.     

Faculty participation in licensing: Implications for research

We exploit a unique database on research and invention disclosure of faculty at 11 major US universities over a period of 17 years to explore the extent to which faculty involvement in license activity has affected their research profiles. We relate faculty disclosures to their industry and government-sponsored research, publications, and citations. Recent disclosure by faculty has a positive effect on industry and government funding, but, if they disclose multiple times, the effect on government funding can be negative. Recent and repeated disclosures increase the faculty member's publication count as well as the importance of these publications in terms of citations. We also examine life-cycle effects and find that the ability to attract funding and the rate of publication increase as the faculty member ages but at a decreasing rate. We also find that post-tenure, both types of funding decrease.     

Engaging excellence? Effects of faculty quality on university engagement with industry

We investigate how universities’ research quality shapes their engagement with industry. Previous research has predominantly found a positive relationship between academics’ research quality and their commercialization activities. Here we use industry involvement measures that are broader than commercialization and indicate actual collaboration, i.e. collaborative research, contract research and consulting. We hypothesise that the relationship between faculty quality and industry engagement differs across disciplines, depending on complementarities between industrial and academic work, and resource requirements. Using a dataset covering all UK universities, we find that in technology-oriented disciplines, departmental faculty quality is positively related to industry involvement. In the medical and biological sciences we find a positive effect of departmental faculty quality but establish that this does not apply to star scientists. In the social sciences, we find some support for a negative relationship between faculty quality and particularly the more applied forms of industry involvement. The implication for science policy makers and university managers is that differentiated approaches to promoting university-industry relationships are required.