Suchergebnisse

This paper wants to shed light on organizational factors as conditions for the impact of academic research in social sciences. Organizations play a role as enablers of social impact, providing conditions that improve the probability of impacting on society. We try to ascertain whether this role is supported and stimulated through institutional entrepreneurship, changing the institutions' organizational features, ideas, and beliefs to increase productive interactions and knowledge translation. Our work centres on exploring the actors' social position and their ability to introduce changes that are likely to permanently engage the organizations in the pursuit of social impact and possibly support it in the long run. The empirical basis consists of three case studies about research projects in the social sciences, which brought together academic researchers from different universities and stakeholders. The analysis demonstrates that understanding impact requires adopting a broader perspective, considering also the transformations emerging at the organizational level.

This article investigates how European universities (EU27+UK) respond to different types of incentives, namely, funding derived from: a) core government allocation, b) external sources (i.e., third-party funding), and c) students' tuition fees. The general research question we address is: how does universities' performance respond and adjust to different funding government policies and universities' strategies? We perform an exploratory analysis based on two methodological pillars: 1) the use of the RISIS-ETER database, providing a register of European Higher Education Institutions and containing basic statistical information on them, including descriptors on geographical location, students and graduates, personnel, finances, and research activities; 2) the responsiveness-score econometric model, aimed at testing separately the response of each university toward core funding, third-party funding, and tuition fees. Specifically, we aim at investigating specific research issues, in particular: a) the universities' positioning in terms of the capacity to respond to specific policy measures; b) the identification of the main policy factors that universities' performance; c) the response heterogeneity to different funding inputs; d) the study of the phenomenon of convergence (divergence) taking place in universities' performance.

The increasingly widespread availability of data on characteristics and funding related to joint R&D programmes between European countries represents a key element to shed light on the process of Europeanization of research activities. While there is a growing literature on the national funding schemes devoted to transnational research (Reale et al, 2013), there are few contributions in this field using approaches focusing on interactions and relationships between agents, such as social network analysis (SNA) and spatial analysis. These approaches are likely to provide important insights into communication and knowledge flows, in addition to the effects of proximity and similarity between the units of analysis (Reale et al., 2017). However, the contribution based on the reciprocal interaction in the process of Europeanization of research activities at the level of political decision-making process (policy design and implementation) remains little debated. In fact, most of the studies have been focused at performer level related to research programmes/projects, (Barber et al, 2011; Hoekman et al. 2013; Scherngell and Barber 2009; Zinilli, 2016). By changing the level of analysis from the performer to the policy level, we expect to achieve an understanding of the decision-making network and its evolution over time. The aim of this paper is to discuss the contribution and the benefits of using this different application of methodological approaches to the transnational research programmes.

The aim of this article is to review the potential of Science and Technology (S&T) Indicators for the evaluation of research programs. We suggest that indicators are a useful complement to other evaluation methodologies (surveys, case studies, panels) for summative evaluations, where the focus is on measuring program results and the degree of achievement of program objectives. However, we argue that indicators have a much broader potential to support formative evaluation, where the focus is on learning from past experience in order to design future research programs. Indicators, for example, are a valuable support for debates between social actors concerning strategic choices about research funding. We conclude by suggesting what needs to be done to realize this potential.

AbstractThis article examines how ideational complexity, i.e. the lasting presence of alternative policy frames in a policy domain, can be managed without leading to overt conflicts. By leveraging insights from the organisational literature, we suggest that, in most cases, alternative frames are kept apart within distinct policy instruments, while hybrid instruments are established only when required by the nature of the problem. We provide illustrative examples of how these strategies are employed in the case of public grant schemes for research funding. Our findings suggest that a) composite instrument mixes are an important resource to deal with ideational complexity, and b) the design of the instruments' delivery package, and specifically its procedural and organisational dimensions, plays a central role in avoiding conflicts between policy frames. Accordingly, our analysis advances the unexplored issue of how the coexistence of alternative policy frames impacts policy implementation.

On Friday 29th of May, the 3RD RISIS POLICYMAKERS SESSION entitled "A comparison of US and European Universities: the strong relationship between revenues and excellence" took place in an online format because of the Covid-19 emergency. The conference focused on the results of a recent study published on PlosOne, and titled Scientific output scales with resources. A comparison of US and European Universities, conducted by Università della Svizzera italiana in collaboration with the University of Turin. By integrating data on scientific publications from the CWTS Publication Database with data on European Universities from RISIS-ETER (European Tertiary Education Register) researchers from USI, Università della Svizzera Italiana in cooperation with University of Turin demonstrated a strong relationship between universities revenues and their volume of publication and citations. The conference begun with an Opening of DR Emanuela Reale, Director of the Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth, National Research Council of Italy, mainly focused on RISIS project and its priorities. DR Benedetto Lepori from Università della Svizzera Italiana illustrated in the central session of the conference the main results of the research in his presentation titled Best Universities behind rankings. Finally, Dr Sumathi Subramaniam, DG Education, Youth, Sport and Culture, Policy Officer in the Unit for Policy on Higher Education (European Commission) focused on policy implications and offered a valuable contribution on resources allocation in Higher Education, illustrating the several actions conducted by the European Commission to enhance the development in funding in HEis. ; Based on Policy Brief, Issue 3/A comparison of US and European Universities: the strong relationship between revenues and international visibility: https://zenodo.org/record/3874334

International audience ; This paper analyses how the interaction between social institutions on the one hand and actors' strategies and interests on the other hand is shaping European integration in research policy. We specifically focus on the implications of the existence of different conceptions of European integration (logics) on the emerging landscape of research funding programs jointly managed by the European Union (EU) and National States (joint programs). Our results display the central role of the introduction of a logic of coordination by the EU; it created a breeding ground for a new generation of programs and, at the same time, allowed to make the integration model more flexible and acceptable to National States (as funding became only virtually integrated). Most newly created programs were characterized by largely symbolic commitments and very small budgets, while stronger commitments had to be constructed through successive steps of integration. This process was highly selective and dependent on the presence of strong interests from the research community; additional funding from the EU was critical to ensure stability of national commitments. Further, National States by large delegated to independent funding agencies the management of national participations: delegation allowed to achieve greater homogeneity among national participants, but also to decouple decisions to participate (driven by compliance to institutional pressures) from the level of resources to be committed (driven by national interests). While in the year 2000, the European Research Area (ERA) strategy of coordinating national research policies was largely an empty concept, our case study shows how in the following decade, it was filled in with specific experiences and practices, led to the redefinition of actors' understanding of European integration and roles in European research policies and, ultimately, to the emergence of original models of integration.

International audience ; This paper analyses how the interaction between social institutions on the one hand and actors' strategies and interests on the other hand is shaping European integration in research policy. We specifically focus on the implications of the existence of different conceptions of European integration (logics) on the emerging landscape of research funding programs jointly managed by the European Union (EU) and National States (joint programs). Our results display the central role of the introduction of a logic of coordination by the EU; it created a breeding ground for a new generation of programs and, at the same time, allowed to make the integration model more flexible and acceptable to National States (as funding became only virtually integrated). Most newly created programs were characterized by largely symbolic commitments and very small budgets, while stronger commitments had to be constructed through successive steps of integration. This process was highly selective and dependent on the presence of strong interests from the research community; additional funding from the EU was critical to ensure stability of national commitments. Further, National States by large delegated to independent funding agencies the management of national participations: delegation allowed to achieve greater homogeneity among national participants, but also to decouple decisions to participate (driven by compliance to institutional pressures) from the level of resources to be committed (driven by national interests). While in the year 2000, the European Research Area (ERA) strategy of coordinating national research policies was largely an empty concept, our case study shows how in the following decade, it was filled in with specific experiences and practices, led to the redefinition of actors' understanding of European integration and roles in European research policies and, ultimately, to the emergence of original models of integration.

International audience ; This paper analyses how the interaction between social institutions on the one hand and actors' strategies and interests on the other hand is shaping European integration in research policy. We specifically focus on the implications of the existence of different conceptions of European integration (logics) on the emerging landscape of research funding programs jointly managed by the European Union (EU) and National States (joint programs). Our results display the central role of the introduction of a logic of coordination by the EU; it created a breeding ground for a new generation of programs and, at the same time, allowed to make the integration model more flexible and acceptable to National States (as funding became only virtually integrated). Most newly created programs were characterized by largely symbolic commitments and very small budgets, while stronger commitments had to be constructed through successive steps of integration. This process was highly selective and dependent on the presence of strong interests from the research community; additional funding from the EU was critical to ensure stability of national commitments. Further, National States by large delegated to independent funding agencies the management of national participations: delegation allowed to achieve greater homogeneity among national participants, but also to decouple decisions to participate (driven by compliance to institutional pressures) from the level of resources to be committed (driven by national interests). While in the year 2000, the European Research Area (ERA) strategy of coordinating national research policies was largely an empty concept, our case study shows how in the following decade, it was filled in with specific experiences and practices, led to the redefinition of actors' understanding of European integration and roles in European research policies and, ultimately, to the emergence of original models of integration.

RISIS project organized a sub-plenary at Eu-SPRI 2021 on the 9th of June (4 -5.30 pm) entitled RISIS NEW resources for researchers and policymakers: ESID and ISI-Trademark, with the aim to explore the two new Datasets now available for the researchers' community and policymakers to face societal challenges. Emanuela Reale, CNR- IRCRES, opened the session illustrating RISIS infrastructure main goals and achievements. ESID, European Social Innovation Database illustrated by Abdullah Gok, University of Strathclyde, utilizes advanced machine learning and natural language processing techniques. RISIS ESID is a comprehensive and authoritative source of information on social innovation projects and actors in Europe and beyond. The main goal: to collect information about social innovation projects and actors from the publicly available information on the web. The advantages and innovative aspects of the new Dataset were explored by Dietmar Lampert, ZSI Centre for Social Innovation in a presentation entitled New social innovation resource for policymakers and researchers: ESID – is it useful? ISI-Trademark Data Collection (ISI-TM) illustrated by Peter Neuhäusler, Fraunhofer ISI, provides detailed information on trademarks filed at the EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Property Office) and at the USPTO (the United States Patent and Trademark Office). The importance of these new RISIS resources has been further investigated by Eric Iversen, NIFU. The upcoming scenarios getting the most crucial development in the integration of the various RISIS resources have been depicted in the last part of the session by Thomas Scherngell, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology. ; Full video of the session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9g_-h0HG8w