Turning scientific and technological human capital into economic capital: the experience of biotech start-ups in France

This paper examines how scientific and technological (S&T) human capital is transformed into financial capital through the creation of firms by scientists. The analysis is based on a database describing the positions held by 132 founders from 62 French biotech SMEs. It shows that star scientists engage in highly risky but also valuable firms. Less famous scientists must develop their human capital rather than valorising a stock. The paper concludes by pointing to three paradoxes concerning the commitment and compensation scheme of star scientists and the managerial position of less known scientists.     

The Art of Straying: Benjamin on Distraction and the Informal Education of the City

In this article, Tyson E. Lewis argues for an alternative form of educational attunement beyond attentiveness. Discourses and practices of schooling emphasize being attentive as a primary educational virtue. This emphasis casts distraction as either the negation of attention or its deterioration. In either case, distraction lacks educational use and, as such, must be overcome through the cultivation of attention. Yet this approach to the question of attention versus distraction misses how distraction contains within itself a different kind of educational potentiality, a different kind of educational attunement. In an attempt to carve out space and time for distraction, Lewis turns to the writings of Walter Benjamin who offers up a more complex view of distraction than is presently found in educational philosophy. In particular, Benjamin argues that cities are not only places of negative forms of distraction (as mere diversions), but also places for cultivating productive distraction in the form of an open and alert attunement to new ways of experiencing and perceiving the relationship between world and self. Cities, for Benjamin, become educational spaces that teach lessons in a distracted form of life, the culmination of which is the creativity expressed in what he refers to as “the art of straying.”     

Opportunities for educational innovations in authentic project-based learning: understanding instructor perceived challenges to design for adoption

Educational technology research and development - Authentic project-based learning (APBL) is a highly effective way for instructors to help students learn disciplinary skills, modes of thinking,...     

From unbundling to market making: reimagining,reassembling and reinventing the public university

ABSTRACT

In Britain and New Zealand the neoliberal assault on universities has shifted from new public management and funding models to the special status of the public university. The project aims to complete neoliberal business initiated 25 years ago by more fully marketising and financialising universities, starting with ‘unbundling’ and outsourcing and culminating in new forms of privatisation, rent-extraction and rebundling. This paper analyses two documents commissioned beyond government to create political momentum for this project: Avalanche is Coming and The University of the Future. These both capture the zeitgeist of reform while simultaneously creating the university futures that they portend. We examine the market-making work they perform in reimagining and reinventing universities ahead of policy reform. We argue that claims made to support fundamental restructuring of public universities lack substance or evidence. Rather, each is underpinned by different configurations of ideology and self-interest that together envelope universities in new agendas of marketisation, financialisation and privatisation. We suggest that in this latest restructuring of public universities critics should pay more attention to the work of consultancies and think tanks alongside the micro-details of market making. By doing so, they too might reimagine public universities, but for a different political project.     

The evidence for the impact of policy on physical activity outcomes within the school setting: A systematic review

BackgroundDespite the well-established health benefits of physical activity (PA) for young people (aged 4–19 years), most do not meet PA guidelines. Policies that support PA in schools may be promising, but their impact on PA behavior is poorly understood. The aim of this systematic review was to ascertain the level and type of evidence reported in the international scientific literature for policies within the school setting that contribute directly or indirectly to increasing PA.MethodsThis systematic review is compliant with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis guidelines. Six databases were searched using key concepts of policy, school, evaluation, and PA. Following title and abstract screening of 2323 studies, 25 progressed to data synthesis. Methodological quality was assessed using standardized tools, and the strength of the evidence of policy impact was described based on pre-determined codes: positive, negative, inconclusive, or untested statistically.ResultsEvidence emerged for 9 policy areas that had a direct or indirect effect on PA within the school setting. These were whole school PA policy, physical education, sport/extracurricular PA, classroom-based PA, active breaks/recess, physical environment, shared use agreements, active school transport, and surveillance. The bulk of the evidence was significantly positive (54%), 27% was inconclusive, 9% was significantly negative, and 11% was untested (due to rounding, some numbers add to 99% or 101%). Frequency of evidence was highest in the primary setting (41%), 34% in the secondary setting, and 24% in primary/secondary combined school settings. By policy area, frequency of evidence was highest for sport/extracurricular PA (35%), 17% for physical education, and 12% for whole school PA policy, with evidence for shared use agreements between schools and local communities rarely reported (2%). Comparing relative strength of evidence, the evidence for shared use agreements, though sparse, was 100% positive, while 60% of the evidence for whole school PA policy, 59% of the evidence for sport/extracurricular PA, 57% of the evidence for physical education, 50% of the evidence for PA in classroom, and 50% of the evidence for active breaks/recess were positive.ConclusionThe current evidence base supports the effectiveness of PA policy actions within the school setting but cautions against a “one-size-fits-all” approach and emphasizes the need to examine policy implementation to maximize translation into practice. Greater clarity regarding terminology, measurement, and methods for evaluation of policy interventions is needed.     

The Eton Montem custom c. 1750–1844: privilege,pageantry and sanctioned misrule

Montem, a triennial customary march by Eton scholars, consolidated into a public expression of patrician social identity under the patronage of the monarchy in the late eighteenth century. This analysis of Montem’s history traces its development from a boy-led pageant of misrule to a public performance of elite patriotism. The custom, which attracted national attention, sheds new light on boy governance and self-fashioning in the period’s elite schools. This article argues that a study of Montem disrupts the standard historiographical narrative of anarchy and violence in the great schools and suggests that boy culture was more complex than previously acknowledged.     

Creating information resources and trainings for farmworker-serving community health workers

Background:Farmworker-serving community health workers have limited access to farmworker health research findings, training, and education resources. With funding from the National Library of Medicine, we are working to improve the health information literacy of both community health workers and farmworkers. We conducted focus group discussions with community health workers to explore their experiences providing health education and information to farmworkers, their information-seeking behaviors, and their technology and information needs. Data from the focus groups provided insights into the main areas in which community health workers would like to receive professional development.Case Presentation:Our team, which includes health sciences librarians, developed a resource list of educational materials for farmworker health, videos to increase community health workers'' skills finding health information online, and webinars to introduce these resources to community health workers. Videos, available in Spanish and English, included instruction on finding and evaluating online health information, accessing reputable online consumer health information sources, and advanced searching tips for Google and PubMed. Through three webinars, we introduced the resource list, videos, and design software for creating handouts and infographics to community health workers.Conclusions:Community health workers have a critical role in providing health education and information to farmworkers, and our efforts represent a first step in addressing community health workers'' limited access to professional development. Health sciences librarians are well positioned to partner with interdisciplinary teams working to reduce health disparities and provide resources and training to community health workers, farmworkers, and other underserved communities.