Expansion policy and the role of agricultural research in Nazi Germany

Agricultural science played a prominent role in Nazi research policy. During the Second World War, German science commandeered research results and materials from occupied Europe. This process advanced individual careers. It also had a decided influence on research practice and problem choice, both during and after the war. This essay explores the significance of wartime developments for an understanding of Nazi policy and the history of agricultural research.     

The Snowbird Charrette: Integrative Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Environmental Research Design

The integration of ideas, methods, and data from diverse disciplines has been a transformative force in science and higher education, attracting policy interventions, program innovations, financial resources, and talented people. Much energy has been invested in producing a new generation of scientists trained to work fluidly across disciplines, sectors, and research problems, yet the success of such investments has been difficult to measure. Using the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) program of the U.S. National Science Foundation as a strategic research site, we conducted an experiment to determine whether and how the process and products of research of IGERT-trained scientists differ from those of scientists trained in disciplinary graduate programs. Among scientists in the early years of graduate study we found substantial and consistent differences suggesting that interdisciplinary training improved the quality and process of research, but this pattern was equally strongly reversed among students in the latter years of graduate study. Using systematic observation and other data we suggest why this might be so, then discuss the implications of these results for the design and conduct of graduate education and research.     

The Government's Choice of Bureaucratic Organisation: An Application to Italian State Museums

Italian state museums are characterised by a rigid bureaucratic structure and are almost completely financed by government transfers. In this paper we develop a simplified two-stage model in an attempt to explain how the government's preferences for differentiated museum functions may affect museum organisation. The model shows that the government prefers that complementary functions (e.g., conservation and scientific research) be produced by a single museum, whereas it prefers that substitutable functions (e.g., conservation and access by the general public) be produced by two museums. We use this prediction for an empirical analysis of the organisational structure of Italian state museums. On the basis of the unique ISTAT census of the Italian museum system, we test with two separate probit models the probability of observing in a state museum the concentration of either scientific activities of conservation and research or promotion activities for education and the general public. Higher classes of centralisation for the state museums are also considered by means of an ordered probit model. The results seem to suggest that the Italian state museum structure, as surveyed in the early 1990s, fully reflected the traditional policy model viewing museums as institutions devoted to conservation, scientific research and education. JEL-Classification: D73, Z11     

中华茶业的先驱者谢和寿

2008年秋,台湾省最高的农业学术团体“中华农学会”将今年的“谢和寿研究奖”颁给了台湾农科院校内茶业学的潜心研究者。这一项事业奖金,从1982年设立至今,已有整整26个春秋了,已有近百位在茶业学上有抱负而家境清寒的研究者得到过这项基金的资助。“谢和寿研究奖”的基金,来源于世界著名茶叶专家谢和寿先生的毕生遗款以及他生前好友的慷慨捐赠,这是中华农学会自1917年创立以来所设立的唯一一项专业性研究基会。     

Veterinary medicine and animal husbandry in Mexico: From empiricism to science and technology

Conclusion Foot-and-mouth disease was the event which led to the increased and improved training of veterinarians able to produce through their research new veterinary knowledge for practical application.It led to the transformation of the Mexican veterinary profession. It changed the kind of knowledge veterinarians received at university, and it also changed the work they did as professionals. Veterinarians gradually began to perform a much wider range of tasks: they did research, taught, worked as civil servants, or assumed positions as academic administrators and as high governmental officials with a large amount of influence on governmental agricultural activities. They also engaged directly in animal husbandry and in food production.In parallel with these changes, the National University, and within it the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Husbandry, underwent a concomitant series of changes which ran hand-in-hand with the growth of the Mexican state. The university provided training for specialised research workers by offering scholarships and programmes of graduate study. This consolidated the activities of an academic community working on applied veterinary medicine. The beneficiaries of these efforts take part in and influence, to varying degrees, the planning and programming of agricultural policies in a way that would not formerly have been possible.     

The Training of “Triple Helix Workers”? Doctoral Students in University–Industry–Government Collaborations

Changes in knowledge production, increasing interaction between government, universities and industry, and changes in labor markets for doctoral degree holders are forces that have spurred a debate about the organization of doctoral education and the competencies graduates need to master to work as scientists and researchers in a triple helix research context. Recent policy also has supported a redefinition of researcher training with increasing focus on broader skills and relevance for careers outside the university sector. Consequently, it is pertinent to investigate current changes in doctoral education and researcher training. Particularly further knowledge about university–industry collaboration as a context for researcher training is required. With this in mind, this study provides empirical illustrations of how research training carried out in collaborative research contexts is experienced by doctoral students, and offers some insight into antecedent and process factors that are central in shaping PhD students’ research and training experience in collaborative research contexts. Based on the empirical data and a review of existing literature, suggestions for further research are made.     

National,Regional and Global Perspectives of Higher Education and Science Policies in the Arab Region

In this paper we discuss the interaction between science policies (and particularly in the area of scientific research) and higher education policies in Gulf and Mediterranean Arab countries. Our analysis reveals a discrepancy between the two sub-regions with respect to integration in the global market, cooperation in scientific research and international mobility of students. The paper discusses the implications of the analysis of reform policies and higher education restructuring.     

Postdoctoral Life Scientists and Supervision Work in the Contemporary University: A Case Study of Changes in the Cultural Norms of Science

This paper explores the ways in which postdoctoral life scientists engage in supervision work in academic institutions in Austria. Reward systems and career conditions in academic institutions in most European and other OECD countries have changed significantly during the last two decades. While an increasing focus is put on evaluating research performances, little reward is attached to excellent performances in mentoring and advising students. Postdoctoral scientists mostly inhabit fragile institutional positions and experience harsh competition, as the number of available senior positions is small compared to that of young scientists striving for an academic career. To prevail in this competition, publications and mobility are key. Educational work is rarely rewarded. Nevertheless, postdocs play a key role in educating PhD students, as overburdened senior scientists often pass on practical supervision duties to their postdoctoral fellows. This paper shows how under these conditions, postdocs reframe the students they supervise as potential resources for co-authored publications. What might look like a mutually beneficial solution at a first glance, in practice implies the subordination of the values of education to the logic of production, which marginalizes spaces primarily devoted to education. The author argues that conflicts like this are indicative of broader changes in the cultural norms of science and academic citizenship, rendering community-oriented tasks such as education work less attractive to academic scientists. Since education and supervision work are central cornerstones of any functioning higher education and research system, this could have negative repercussions for the long-term development of academic institutions.     

‘Excellence’ and Exclusion: The Individual Costs of Institutional Competitiveness

A performance-based funding system like the United Kingdom’s ‘Research Excellence Framework’ (REF) symbolizes the re-rationalization of higher education according to neoliberal ideology and New Public Management technologies. The REF is also significant for disclosing the kinds of behaviour that characterize universities’ response to government demands for research auditability. In this paper, we consider the casualties of what Henry Giroux (2014) calls “neoliberalism’s war on higher education” or more precisely the deleterious consequences of non-participation in the REF. We also discuss the ways with which higher education’s competition fetish, embodied within the REF, affects the instrumentalization of academic research and the diminution of academic freedom, autonomy and criticality.     

名城名校的文化教育社区综合体实践研究--以清华大学“苏世民学者项目(书院)”为例

在信息技术和现代社交网络转型的社会背景下,具有悠久历史文脉的著名大学已成为所在名城的文化遗产和景观资源。新时代的教育模式正转型为文化教育社区。提炼了国内外高等教育新的理论实践,以清华大学"苏世民书院"为研究对象,探讨文化教育综合体设计实践思路,即新型社交生态系统的文教社区模式。     

The Rhetorics of Racial Power: Enforcing Colorblindness in Post-Apartheid Scholarship on Race

This article examines the reproduction of colorblindness discourse in selected post-1994 South African studies in economics, education, literature, philosophy, and sociology. It argues that the presence of dominant racial ideologies in this scholarship is emblematic of an active investment in maintaining racialized privileges. As it illustrates some of the rhetorical mechanisms that inform the articulation of colorblindness discourse at large, it shows that unpacking colorblind rhetoric is itself necessary if we are to make sense of the research emphases, arguments, logics, and findings of a significant body of South African scholarship on race published since the advent of democratic rule.     

The Significance of Scientific Capital in UK Medical Education

For decades, debates over medical curriculum reform have centred on the role of science in medical education, but the meaning of ‘science’ in this domain is vague and the persistence of the debate has not been explained. Following Bourdieu, this paper examines struggles over legitimate knowledge and the forms of capital associated with science in contemporary UK medical education. Data are presented from a study of two UK medical schools, one with a traditional, science-oriented curriculum, another with an integrated curriculum. Constructions of legitimate knowledge were explored at both schools through six months participant observation, interviews with faculty members (n=15) and students (n=37) and documentary analysis. Findings show that medical schools compete for both scientific and clinical capital, but ultimately science has greater legitimacy. ‘Science’ is defined in accordance with the structure of the traditional curriculum and has become a symbolic resource – a mark of distinction for both medical schools and medical students – which is equated with clinical competence. The significance of science is circumscribed by the medical education field, yet the struggles for scientific capital there have ramifications beyond medical education itself. It is argued that Bourdieu’s concepts are particularly useful tools for studying the meanings that science takes on outside of the scientific field.     

The neurotic academic: anxiety,casualisation, and governance in the neoliberalising university

Based on empirical research conducted with academic staff working on fixed-term contracts, the article explores the subjective experience of anxiety in the UK’s ‘neoliberalising’ higher education (HE) sector. As HE undergoes a process of marketisation, and the teaching and research activities of academics are increasingly measured and scrutinised, the contemporary academy appears to be suffused with anxiety. Coupled with pressures facing all staff, 34% of academic employees are currently working on a fixed-term contract and so must contend with the multiple forms of uncertainty associated with their so-called ‘casualised’ positions. While anxiety is often perceived as an individualised affliction for which employees are encouraged to take personal responsibility, the article argues that it should be conceptualised in two ways: firstly, as a symptom of wider processes at work in the neoliberalising sector; and secondly, as a ‘tactic’ of what Isin [(2004). The neurotic citizen. Citizenship Studies, 8 (3), 217–235] refers to as ‘neuroliberal’ governance. The article concludes by proposing that the figure of the ‘neurotic academic’ is emblematic of the contradictions facing the contemporary academy.     

The Theory and Practice of the Virtual University: Working Through the Work of Making Work Mobile

The coming of new Information CommunicationTechnologies (ICTs) has prompted muchcontroversy in higher education. Scholars andadministrators have been excited by thepotential – perhaps the threat – of the`virtual' university. But whilst much has beenwritten about `virtual higher education', lesshas been said about the actual `work' involved.Drawing upon insights from the sociology oftechnology, this paper reports on the attemptsof one university to reconcile ideas about`virtuality' with the more established networksand infrastructures of traditional universitylife. This research is based upon aparticipant-observation study carried out inthe UK.     

The Academic Profession in a Rentier State: The Professoriate In Saudi Arabia

This paper describes the academic profession in Saudi Arabia, a state dependent upon oil exports, and explores how different social groups are accommodated within the higher education system. The discussion examines the relationship between political power and academic labour, and seeks to explain how local policies and practices are negotiating the converging effects of globalization on higher education.     

A Cultural Political Economy of Research and Innovation in an Age of Crisis

Science and technology policy is both faced by unprecedented challenges and itself undergoing seismic shifts. First, policy is increasingly demanding of science that it fixes a set of epochal and global crises. On the other hand, practices of scientific research are changing rapidly regarding geographical dispersion, the institutions and identities of those involved and its forms of knowledge production and circulation. Furthermore, these changes are accelerated by the current upheavals in public funding of research, higher education and technology development in the wake of the economic crisis. The paper outlines an agenda for science & technology policy studies in terms of a research programme of a ‘cultural political economy of research and innovation’ (CPERI). First, the implications of the overlapping crises for science policy analysis are discussed. Secondly, three rough constellations of contemporary approaches to science policy are critically compared, namely: a techno-statist Keynesian governance; a neoliberal marketplace of ideas; and co-productionist enabling of democratic debate. CPERI is then introduced, showing how it builds on the strengths of co-production while also specifically targeting two major weaknesses that are of heightened importance in an age of multiple crises, namely neglect of political economy and the concept of power.     

Changing Funding Arrangements and the Production of Scientific Knowledge: Introduction to the Special Issue

With this special issue, we would like to promote research on changes in the funding of the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Since funding secures the livelihood of researchers and the means to do research, it is an indispensable condition for almost all research; as funding arrangements are undergoing dramatic changes, we think it timely to renew the science studies community’s efforts to understand the funding of research. Changes in the governance of science have garnered considerable attention from science studies and higher education research; however, the impact of these changes on the conduct and content of research has not received sufficient attention, and theoretical insights into the connections between funding practices and research practices are few and far between. The aim of this special issue is to contribute to our theoretical understanding of the changing nature of research funding and its impact on the production of scientific knowledge. More specifically, we are interested in the interplay between funding and research practices: What is the impact of institutionalised funding arrangements on the production of scientific knowledge?     

Excellence and Frontier Research as Travelling Concepts in Science Policymaking

Excellence and frontier research have made inroads into European research policymaking and structure political agendas, funding programs and evaluation practices. The two concepts travelled a long way from the United States and have derived from contexts outside of science (and policy). Following their conceptual journey, we ask how excellence and frontier research have percolated into European science and higher education policies and how they have turned into lubricants of competition that buttress an ongoing reform process in Europe.     

Universities in the New Knowledge Landscape: Tensions,Challenges, Change—An Introduction

In the last decades of the twentieth century universities in Europe and other OECD countries have undergone a profound transformation. They have evolved from mainly élite institutions for teaching and research to large (public and private) organisations responsible for mass higher education and the production and distribution of new knowledge. Increasingly, new knowledge is produced by universities not only for its own sake but also for potential economic gains.