Suchergebnisse

Visual communication is critical in contemporary societies. Research in social sciences increasingly tends to mobilize the image, for example, in the form of photography, in its processes (in the collection and interpretation of information) and products (in the communication of research results), which leads to the need to reflect critically on its specificities. This paper aims to add to the analysis of the potentialities, limitations and challenges of the use of photography in social sciences research. For this purpose, the paper presents and discusses empirically collected documentary expressions, selected from an organizational case study based on their heuristic capacity to illustrate the argumentation put forth herein. It is concluded that the potential of the use of photography in research in social sciences is high, but it is essential that the researcher considers, besides more technical aspects and ethical complexities, that photography is, in part, also the materialization of a certain socially constructed representation of reality.

This paper identifies the different funding streams for social science research and the different purposes for which it is carried out. The issue of making research 'useful' and relevant and how this links to different modes of user involvement is discussed. For research users to be involved in research in a real, strong, way requires long‐term relationships to be built between users and researchers. A large proportion of research being carried out within the higher education sector is funded by external bodies of some kind, on short‐term contracts. The argument is put that little time and energy goes into the management of this contract research. The combination of high staff turnover, little management and the decline of the dual support system have made it increasingly difficult for long‐term relationships between researchers and research users to be built up. The paper concludes with a discussion of the role and effect of the Research Assessment Exercise. There are no incentives in the RAE for the creation of the kind of environment within which applied research can flourish—team working, a focus on problems rather than disciplinary issues, support, training and skill development for researchers, and good management.

Researchers engaged in the social & political sciences tend to examine issues of identity using singular approaches, eschewing an interdisciplinary method. Classical research approaches have direct connections with the structure of human consciousness that serve as the framework for the empirical methods of classification & understanding, & many connections exist between & within the approaches in various scientific disciplines. Adapted from the source document.

Researchers engaged in the social & political sciences tend to examine issues of identity using singular approaches, eschewing an interdisciplinary method. Classical research approaches have direct connections with the structure of human consciousness that serve as the framework for the empirical methods of classification & understanding, & many connections exist between & within the approaches in various scientific disciplines. Adapted from the source document.