RELATIONS BETWEEN RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS AND USERS OF RESEARCH

In: International social science journal: ISSJ, Band 22, Heft 2, S. 226-242

Abstract

Users have many diff needs requiring diff kinds of res. There is a wide range of instit's for conducting res, & selecting the appropriate one requires a sophisticated knowledge both of one's particular needs & of the available facilities. In addition, the res'er must have a realistic conception of the part he can expect res to play in formulating a policy or determining alternative methods. Each society has its own particular way of organizing educ, possesses its own type & range of soc, pol'al & econ instit's, & each, therefore, tends to develop its own set of instit's for conducting res. A res'er should anticipate this & realize that in a particular country some of the necessary res facilities may not be available or have to be developed. Res today suffers from 2 major problems. The 1st is the lack of coordination between career planning & the range of existing res agencies & instit's. There has been little planning of res careers & structures to meet future needs & to ensure that the diff kinds of res agencies will have an adequate supply of suitably trained people. The 2nd problem involves the dissemination of knowledge. Publication of academic work may render it less accessible, because the res is divorced from the soc context in which it was undertaken. As a result it becomes less available to the diffusion channels in its original context, eg, the more res in educ'al sociol is treated 'like sociol' the less it belongs to educ. Org'al studies, too, become abstract & generalized so that they contribute to the sociol of org's but the org in which they were undertaken does not benefit from their findings. There are 3 interrelated approaches to optimum utilization of res: (a) industr & other org's engage in a mutual learning arrangement with U's & res org's, (b) development of internal dept's to work with outside instit's, (c) educ in the concepts & methods of soc sci, if appropriately followed up, may eliminate the engineering approach to sociotechnical & socioplanning problems, or at least encourage the use of other approaches. Modified AA.