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Purpose |!|#8211; This Guest Editorial aims to demonstrate the diversity of application fields in which FTA methods are being used and to offer a glimpse into possible consequences that grand challenges may imply for the development of FTA.Design/methodology/approach |!|#8211; This introductory paper provides an overview of selected FTA 2011 Conference contributions for this Special Issue.Findings |!|#8211; FTA approaches create spaces where an effective dialogue between key players in different policy domains facilitates vision-building and consensus-building for engineering major processes of transformation. Therefore, sound approaches of futures thinking will help to better address the grand challenges.Research limitations/implications |!|#8211; From a large set of excellent papers presented at the FTA 2011 Conference, only a restricted number of papers could be included in this Special Issue highlighting the broad diversity of FTA application fields in response to grand challenges.Practical implications |!|#8211; FTA can contribute not only to the steering of diverse innovation systems, but also to their adjustment, adaptability and ability to shape responses to grand challenges.Social implications |!|#8211; The papers of this Special Issue point to the need for FTA to take into account user perspectives and to shape the social context.Originality/value |!|#8211; This Special Issue brings together papers that explore not only the opportunities and limitations of implementing FTA methods in a variety of policy domains, but also their benefits in enabling a better understanding of complex systems that interact in each situation and in defining effective policy responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent paper in Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy by Sara King presented an overview of the role of social influence in modern military affairs. The current article comments on King's paper by focusing on the limitations of implementing social science theory on wartime affairs. Specifically, the author addresses these limitations within an effect size framework, and suggests that a cautious attitude is needed when utilizing social-science theories in wartime affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We review the nature of interdisciplinary research in relation to One Health, a perspective on human-animal health which would appear to merit close interdisciplinary cooperation to inform public health policy. We discuss the relationship between biological sciences, epidemiology and the social sciences and note that interdisciplinary work demands attention be given to a range of often neglected epistemological and methodological issues. Epidemiologists may sometimes adopt social science techniques as "bolt-ons" 1 1 A few words in this paper are placed in quotation marks "...". This is to indicate that such words are problematic, disputed, colloquial or may require clarification as between different epistemic communities. to their research without having a complete understanding of how the social sciences work. The paper introduces a range of social science concepts and applies them to the challenges of understanding and practicing participatory and local epidemiology. We consider the problem of co-production of knowledge about One Health and zoonotic diseases in relation to funding structures, working in large international teams and explore some of the often-neglected realities of working across disciplines and cultures. We do this in part by applying the concept of value-chain to the research process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose · The paper tries to explore the possibility of developing a theory of science that is compatible with the non-dualizing way of speaking. Problem · The difficulty of developing a non-dualism-compatible theory of science consists in the difference of the perspectives of the theory of science and the non-dualizing way of speaking. The nondualizing way of speaking deals with descriptions as results of inquiries, whereas science theory thematizes the process of gaining descriptions in empirical research. If we want to reach compatibility between these different perspectives, we are led to the question of what kind of relationship exists between inquiry and description and what is the source of attaining knowledge. In respect of social sciences, there is the additional problem that a great deal of their objects are text; therefore the relationship between text and interpretation is relevant for the empirical research process of social sciences. Findings · George Herbert Mead's theory of action and communication allows a productive approach to the above-mentioned problem to be found. Mead conceives of speaking as potential acting, as action that is initiated but not carried out. In this way, describing and inquiring can be connected non-dualistically. The source of gaining knowledge and descriptions is, however, according to Mead's action theory, practical activities. Objects are not presupposed, but are results from action. New experiences and descriptions come from inquiries that are stimulated by action problems and action inhibition and the endeavor to overcome the inhibition. Implications · The result of the argumentation is that Mead's conception of action and language can serve to develop a theory of science that is compatible with non-dualizing thinking. The reason for this is that in Mead's conception, acting and speaking, experiencing and describing are not conceived of as categorical differences but are related to each other as executed and initiated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are different types of collaborative relationships in academic settings: some between supervisors and students and others with peers or colleagues. There is also collaboration involving genuine participation and others with only minimal involvement. In this paper, we explore some common queries and doubts in the academic collaboration by documenting our experience of collaboration in one research project. We reflect on how we were being questioned about the co-authorship, what we gained throughout our collaboration over the years and the obstacles we need to tackle in the process. We share our puzzles on sensitive issues as authorship and ethical practices, with an intention to invite further reflections and discussions by other collaborative researchers and to deepen our understanding of the experiences and implications in collaborative research relationships among peer researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reads disabled childhoods in a number of distinct ways in order to stimulate debate around the kinds of stories that researchers and practitioners tell about the children that they work with. Narratives of bio-power - discourses of the self - have expanded as knowledge from the human and social sciences grow and institutions of society become more pronounced. Nowhere is this growth of bio-power more evident than in the lives of disabled children. It is becoming increasingly apparent that distinct bio-political discourses are building up around disabled children at the same time as these children have become the focus of participation, policy and service provision. Consequently, we believe the time is ripe to step back from the current discursive context to question how we as researchers and practitioners understand the disabled children whom we work with. Our aim, then, is to deliberately and self-consciously read the story of Rosie - a disabled child we have worked with in our research - guided by four disability discourses, with an emphasis on making this reading useful to practitioners in the area of childhood and disability. The first reading attends to the teachings of what we describe below as the autism canon, the second reading is located in an orthodox social model approach to disability, the third draws on a Nordic relational model of disability, and the fourth is filtered through what we term a socio-cultural lens. In narrating Rosie from different discursive repertoires, our aim is to explicate different understandings of disability and child that emerge and to warn against the dominance of readings which threaten to pathologise, other and separate disabled children from their peers, their families and the wider community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research is not a luxury but an essential need that no nation can afford to ignore. The purpose of this paper is to develop and suggest a Research Proposal template for the students of social and behavioral sciences that might help them in setting out their research proposals. The template and the attached guidelines fit the proposal requirements of most study programs all over the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recurring question of successful group work is how to maintain high task motivation of the individual members. This paper reviews research on one well documented group motivation gain phenomenon, where group members are more highly motivated than comparable individual performers - the Köhler motivation gain effect. The basic effect is attributed to two psychological mechanisms, one involving upward social comparisons and a second involving the indispensability of group members' efforts. In addition to summarizing research on the discovery and causes of the basic effect, this review identifies probable moderators of each contributing causal mechanism. Moreover, promising topics for future research as well as implications for the application of the Köhler effect in real group work are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can a participatory approach to research promote environmental learning and enhance social-ecological systems resilience? Participatory action research (PAR) is an approach to research that its' supporters claim can foster new knowledge, learning, and action to support positive social and environmental change through reorienting the standard process of knowledge production. PAR is posited as being particularly suitable for use with historically disadvantaged groups. As such it may be a useful tool for environmental learning which would enable a social-ecological system to better respond to change as theorized by resilience thinkers. In this paper, we examine a PAR project to determine how PAR fostered environmental learning and, in turn, how the learning influenced resilience. The project partnered an ecologist, federal and state forest managers, and harvesters of salal (Gaultheria shallon), a non-timber forest product gathered and sold for use in the floral industry in the forests of the Olympic Peninsula, Washington, USA. Based on interviews with each group of partners during and after the PAR project, we found that the PAR approach did indeed generate environmental learning, defined here as ecological literacy, civic literacy, values awareness, and self-efficacy, and contributed to resiliency through promoting greater diversity, memory, redundancy, and adaptive capacity. However, the political vulnerability of the salal harvesters, who were largely undocumented Latino workers, inhibited the extent to which adaptive measures could be taken to revise permitting procedures and additional collaborative research. We conclude that the PAR approach is a valuable tool for environmental learning but the extent to which learning can actually promote system change and greater resilience must also be understood within the underlying context, especially political realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the journey of a collaborative research project that was guided by the knowledge, skills, and values of social work training. The learning resulting from this multidisciplinary collaboration emphasizes the importance of the core principle of having a client-centered approach to all aspects of the research process. As the purpose of research in the social science fields is to glean knowledge that can be used to build a more evidenced-based practice model, the authors contend that multidisciplinary alliance and the meaningful involvement of clients in the process can greatly inform and assist the practice of the clinicians involved in research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Narrative inquiry is a rapidly developing social sciences and humanities research methodology. In this paper we provide a brief history of this development, indicate some of the distinguishing features of different lines of narrative inquiry, and describe a practical line of work which explicitly addresses school-based research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explanatory accounts of the emergence, spread, storage, persistence, and transformation of knowledge face numerous theoretical and methodological challenges. This paper argues that although anthropologists are uniquely positioned to address some of these challenges, joint engagement with relevant research in neighbouring disciplines holds considerable promise for advancement in the area. Researchers across the human and social sciences are increasingly recognizing the importance of conjointly operative and mutually contingent bodily, cognitive, neural, and social mechanisms informing the generation and communication of knowledge. Selected cognitive scientific work, in particular, is reviewed here and used to illustrate how anthropology may potentially richly contribute not only to descriptive and interpretive endeavours, but to the development and substantiation of explanatory accounts also. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In moving health and social service programs from planning into action, it is essential to understand the extent to which the knowledge gained from research should influence the actions taken by organizations and agencies that provide services (e.g., government, nongovernment organizations [NGOs]). The complexity of the challenges in translating lessons learned from science into different service settings, as well as into public policy, requires a multifaceted approach to accelerate the integration of research with practice. In this paper, the relationship between science and service is examined within the contexts of the scientific, health practice, and policy communities largely from a public sector perspective within the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current studies on the borderland territories suggest insufficiency of research tools, which, if applied, would improve the theoretical level of the conducted studies, particularly if that research would cover the borderlands of civilizations. Until now, the research on borderlands in Poland and elsewhere were dominated by the concepts of borderlands and trans-borderness. In my opinion, to cover the full scope of social phenomena and processes, which appear on borderland and trans-border territories, the new terms should be introduced: "borderlandness" together with the existing "borderland" and the "trans-borderland" to complement with the "trans-borderlandness". In this paper I intend to present shortly the conception of the borderland applied in my research and, on this basis, I try to develop the concept of borderlandness as well as to stress its utility in the studies of borderlands, including the borders of civilizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional history of the predominant, research-based model of business education (RBM) traces its origins to programs initiated by the Ford Foundation after World War II. This paper maps the elite network responsible for developing behavioral science and the Ford Foundation agenda. Archival records of the actions taken by central nodes in the network permit identification of the original vision statement for the model. Analysis also permits tracking progress toward realizing that vision over several decades. Behavioral science was married to business education from the earliest stages of development. The RBM was a fundamental promise made by advocates for social science funding. Appraisals of the model and recommendations for reform must address its full history, not the partial, distorted view that is the conventional account. Implications of this more complete history for business education and for behavioral theory are considered. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses one of the weaknesses of many rankings - the exclusion of the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS) from university and discipline cluster ranking systems and examines some ways in which this situation can be corrected. In particular, it traces the development of indicators such as 'target expanded' citation analysis and tiering or ranking of outlets, including books and conferences as well as journals. It draws on experience in Australia, especially with the attempt to construct consensually derived tiered outlets for numerous disciplines including those in HASS in the context of the introduction of a new Research Quality Framework along the lines of similar exercises in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compared the Croatian research output with the neighboring countries and the Croatian universities with the largest Slovenian, Hungarian, and Serbian universities. As far as papers listed by Social Science Citation Index are concerned, since 2000 the University of Zagreb exhibits best results in social sciences compared to the competing universities, that is not the case in "hard" sciences. For the last 12 years, only the University of Ljubljana has shown better results in total research output than the University of Zagreb. The difference in research output between the University of Zagreb and the rest of the Croatian universities has been constantly decreasing. As a case study we compare research output at Faculty of Civil Engineering on different Croatian universities. By analyzing European countries, we show a functional dependence between the gross domestic product (GDP) and the research output. From this fit we conclude that the Croatian science exhibits research output as expected for the given level of GDP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Natsume Soseki's 1912 novel, Until the Spring Equinox and Beyond, as a continuation of Soseki's experimental project to produce a scientific theory of literature. It looks in particular at Soseki's encounter with Western sociology and the role that private property systems played in it. It argues that Soseki's theory and practice of literature can be understand as attempts to formulate a critique of sociological knowledge from the stance of literature, including a critique of the ideologies of possessive individualism. In particular, it examines parallels between Soseki's novel and Mauss's theory of the gift, as well as Derrida's critique of Mauss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to establish what foresight is, to review past usages and definitions of foresight and to synthesize them into one generic definition, in order to make the concept measurable. Design/methodology/approach - A discussion on how to classify variables in the social sciences serves as the starting-point. Next, a review of past definitions and usages of the concept foresight is followed by further analysis and then synthesizing of the generic definition. The generic definition is finally compared and contrasted with the related concepts of forecasting, strategic analysis, and intuition. Findings - Foresight is defined as behavior along three dimensions: degree of analyzing present contingencies and degree of moving the analysis of present contingencies across time; degree of analyzing a desired future state or states a degree ahead in time with regard to contingencies under control; and degree of analyzing courses of action a degree ahead in time to arrive at the desired future state. Research limitations/implications - The article makes foresight quantitatively measurable, which in turn makes it possible to empirically measure the existence of foresight among managers and to test the relationship between foresight and organizational performance. Practical implications - Practical foresight tools and programs, etc. can now be assessed and compared by both practitioners and researchers. Originality/value - In identifying three fundamental behavioral dimensions of foresight, the article conceives and advances foresight as a distinct concept that can be related to several research areas, both on individual (e.g. managerial) and organizational levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on the paper concerning the history of diplomacy in medieval and early modern Europe. It has been noted that diplomacy contributed to the development of multiple other discourses that structured in the country during the medieval and early modern periods. The history brought out a consciousness of diplomatic agency to develop on other areas of cultural and political practice in the country. Furthermore, several investigations and studies have been established beyond the national histories that continue to dominate most treatments of premodernity.

This paper focuses on whether running away from adolescent residential care facilities is related to having off grounds passes with an adult resource. It was hypothesized that as off grounds passes increased in frequency and duration, runaway behavior would decrease in frequency and duration. Data were collected from two hundred closed client files. Spearman's rho correlation and linear regression were used to analyze the data. Results show a weak negative relationship exists between number of passes and both number of runaway occurrences and hours spent on the run. The data were collected from a single agency, suggesting that caution be used when attempting to generalize to the entire population. The results, however, are very useful to inform future research and guide the development of future hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Conducting anthropological research into situations where public health interventions are ongoing raises a number of complex ethical issues. This paper addresses this by focusing on recent debate around questions of informed consent in research situations into health care in the ‘developing’ world. Two issues are developed: firstly, that of anthropological engagement with medical research trials; and secondly, how medical ethics debates have impinged upon and influenced anthropological ideas of ethics. Drawing on personal anthropological research into the implementation of the WHO prescribed tuberculosis control programme (DOTS) in the context of Nepal, I outline a number of ethical dilemmas and issues that arose. This research context included other ongoing research into DOTS implementation, as well as the local culture of health care provision. It involved moving between a number of sites and subject positions while interacting with heath professionals and patients. In conclusion, rather than prescribing ethical norms for researchers in such situations, I argue that we need more ethnographic examples and case studies as a means of thinking through the issues. I suggest that we need to reflect on both the ethical issues that arise when undertaking research into multifaceted public health interventions and into the situations where ethical guidelines and stipulations are formulated. The best place for this may be the Internet, where we increasingly see the conditions emerging for open dialogue. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper explores the concepts of knowledge culture and epistemic culture against the background of contemporary transformations in global society. Studies of knowledge culture came to prominence in the 1970s, with the trend towards laboratory fieldwork and direct observation in the new sociology of science. If the focus in such early studies was on knowledge construction, the focus in an epistemic culture approach by contrast is on the construction of the machineries of knowledge construction, relocating culture in the micropractices of laboratories and other bounded habitats of knowledge practice. Not all places of knowledge, however, are bounded spaces, and there is a case to be made for including in the empirical agenda more distributed locations. This is done here by introducing the concept of 'macro-epistemics', to describe wider networks of knowledge generation such as what is often known as 'the global financial architecture'. The discussion concludes by moving out from macro-epistemic circuits to questions of the cultural environment of epistemic settings, and of the more general knowledge culture in which specific knowledge processes are embedded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This framework for multi-level evaluation of scientific research is a bridge between social science theory and the provision of effective feedbacks to governments so they can overcome systemic blockages to innovation and successful outcomes of research policy. Starting with the idea of innovation network theory and organizational theory involved in the research environment survey, a small set of indicators is suggested at micro, meso, and macro levels. Data from this integrated set of indicators can identify the blockages and suggest corrections. This paper concentrates on the macro-level indicators. Three familiar kinds of government policy lever — capital, capabilities, and coordination modes — are discussed. However, the discussion of ways in which these interventions can correct blockages is far more complex than has previously been acknowledged in the evaluation literature. The proposed framework is an important step for evaluators and policy-makers to develop research, technology and development investment portfolios and strategies more effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Goodley & Lawthom discussed the role of a community psychology approach in conducting emancipatory disability research. While their aims are entirely laudable, they portrayed mainstream psychology as 'pathologising, voyeuristic, individualising, [and] impairment-obsessed'. This paper presents a reply to Goodley and Lawthom's somewhat outdated arguments for the dismissal of mainstream psychology and argues that the focus on a single 'best' method of researching disability does not serve the best interests of disabled people within society. It is argued that to create a 'new' psychology distinct from the 'mainstream' is unnecessary, undesirable and counter-productive. Mainstream psychology has much to offer disabled people and to dismiss it is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I am a social work doctorate student at the Tavistock Centre & UEL researching the nature and impact of projective processes in front line social work settings and management via the close study of a Children & Families Resource Centre. This paper forms part of a fuller thesis and focuses on two fragments of data from an interview with the project managers, who share material about a black male service user who had regular supervised contact sessions with his daughter at the centre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I draw on Piaget and Habermas to underline the importance of the theoretical distinction between social relations of constraint and social relations of cooperation for reflecting upon inter-institutional projects. I argue that the socio-cultural approach to collaboration has some important limitations that restrict ideological critic and emancipatory research. The limitations of this approach can be located in its epistemological assumptions, a homogenized notion of culture and a weakness in articulating the intrapersonal, inter-personal, inter-group/positional and social representational/ideological levels of analysis. As an empirical example of this I discuss the Sloan centres for family research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I suggest that to better understand knowledge construction in science, and the role of social processes and collaboration in it, it is useful to distinguish between “elaborative knowledge” and “emergent knowledge.” Elaborative knowledge is constructed for solving clearly defined problems in established theoretical frameworks, and emergent knowledge refers to the knowledge constructed to reach a hierarchically higher and more complex level of scientific understanding. There are also two types of collaboration. On the one hand there is “dialogical collaboration” in which team members contribute to reaching the common clearly defined objective so that a team as a whole becomes qualitatively more complex than its members alone. On the other hand there is “unidirectional collaboration” where the result of collaboration is determined by one person, should be distinguished. There is evidence from multiple perspectives indicating that “elaborative knowledge” can be developed in both kinds of collaboration and sometimes ‘dialogical collaboration” is necessary for knowledge construction. However, for building “emergent knowledge,” it is argued, only individual or “unidirectional collaboration” is productive, and “dialogical collaboration” can hinder or even prevent the construction of this kind of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have used 19.9 million papers over 5 decades and 2.1 million patents to demonstrate that teams increasingly dominate solo authors in the production of knowledge. Research is increasingly done in teams across nearly art fields. Teams typically produce more frequently cited research than individuals do, and this advantage has been increasing over time. Teams now also produce the exceptionally high-impact research, even where that distinction was once the domain of solo authors. These results are detailed for sciences and engineering, social sciences, arts and humanities, and patents, suggesting that the process of knowledge creation has fundamentally changed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

June 2000 saw the triumphal announcement of the completion of the human genome 'working draft'. This attracted extensive, peak and vivid coverage. While several studies have explored media coverage of the announcement, there has been little discussion of the production process: the overall aims, values and structures which underpinned this staged event. This article redresses this gap and draws on ten interviews with UK journalists and their sources to show how reporting was influenced by a number of factors, including news values, organisational identity, the history of reporting and editorial interest. This paper thus gives valuable insights into how science stories are 'made' and presented in terms of the dynamics of coverage. It reveals the ways in which political and economic factors may drive a science story and provides crucial insights into the key relationships which influence and shape media reporting of scientific research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although, the process of the capitalization of academic scientific knowledge is not benign across university campuses, recent acceleration of the process have sparked debates in many circles. This debate mirrors two sets of issues-public versus private interests. While the discourse has shed some light on the socio-economic and political forces at work, it is not devoid of problems. The paper argues that the understanding of the university as a catalyst for the science-based knowledge economy should be built around the framework that the university like industry and government is responding to a wide range of socio-economic and political demands that cannot be delinked from each other. It contends that, in a period of an ever-increasing demand for science and technology, universities' as citadels of knowledge have through the capitalization of academic scientific knowledge become a catalyst for the science-based knowledge economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces the topic of modelling as a way for researchers to discover aspects of educational psychology that they would have otherwise missed. Researchers in the social science fields must consider various variables that may be pertinent to the topic that they are investigating. A strong connection between theories and analytical methods may enhance the research paper as a whole.

This special issue is special in two major dimensions: the papers range intentionally over a much wider spectrum of social and natural science approaches and disciplines than is normal for the Journal of Agricultural Economics; and, the articles relate to ongoing research rather than completed work. These reflections, perhaps peculiar to a practicing applied economist and policy analyst, concentrate on the lessons to be learned and messages to be heard from the RELU programme, both by those engaged on the programme's research portfolio, and by other researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a review of the literature about family centres and other examples of centre-based practice. The literature reflects a period of some 25 years in which practice has sought to integrate protection, support for families and local development in local centres. The literature shows great descriptive activity in the 1980s, and some Children Act (1989) sponsored studies, particularly of the voluntary sector, in the early 1990s, followed by inactivity before a new and more sophisticated literature emerges in the late 1990s and early 2000. While lacking experimental design, the strengths of the contemporary picture show in the appreciative voice of the user, including those at the very margins; studies of support programmes nurtured by centres; lessons about socially inclusive practice and the melding of formality and informality; theorization about centre-based practice as a containing space; and attempts to understand complexity and synergy and to develop a theory of change. This domain of practice appears to have much to offer the new UK child care strategy and inter-professional context if the opportunity is taken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I ask how educational researchers can believe the subjective perceptions of qualitative participant-observers given the concern for objectivity and generalisability of experimental research in the behavioural and social sciences. I critique the most common answer to this question within the educational research community, which posits the existence of two (or more) equally legitimate epistemological paradigms—positivism and constructivism—and offer an alternative that places a priority in educational research on understanding the purposes and meanings humans attribute to educational practices. Only within the context of what I call a transcendent view from somewhere—higher ideals that govern human activities—can we make sense of quantitative as well as qualitative research findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on a research project that investigated the experiences and perceptions of staff supervising final year social science undergraduates enrolled on a dissertation module in a post-1992 UK university. Using data from semi-structured interviews, the article explores staffs perspectives of the supervision process, the different approaches taken by staff to supervision and the challenges they face in supporting students through the dissertation journey. The paper offers a picture of the dissertation supervisors’ experiences and, it is hoped, will encourage other supervisors to interrogate their own supervision in light of the practice of colleagues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the symposium titled Educational Research and the Necessity of Theory." The papers in the symposium arose out of the concern that educational researchers in Great Britain have neglected, and continue to neglect, and even deliberately avoid, theory. There are two opposing groups when it comes to theory. There are those of found it scary and frightening and there are those who are excited by it and believes that "theory floated their boat." The author believes that theory is an essential aspect of educational research and other research in social sciences.

Significant efforts have been invested in improving our understanding of how to accelerate and magnify the impact of research on clinical practice. While approaches to fostering translation of research into practice are numerous, none appears to be superior and the evidence for their effectiveness is mixed. Lessons learned from formative evaluation have given us a greater appreciation of the contribution of context to successful implementation of quality improvement interventions. While formative evaluation is a powerful tool for addressing context effects during implementation, lessons learned from the social sciences (including management and operations research, sociology, and public health) show us that there are also powerful preimplementation tools available to us. This paper discusses how we might integrate these tools into implementation research. We provide a theoretical framework for our need to understand organizational contexts and how organizational characteristics can alert us to situations where preimplementation tools will prove most valuable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although recent work on masculinities has emphasised the complex ways in which masculinities are produced, performed and interpreted in different contexts, to date these insights have been given little consideration in relation to the process of ethnographic research itself. In this paper, I explore the negotiation of masculinities during fieldwork, with an emphasis on issues confronting male researchers who fail to conform to dominant expectations of ‘manliness’ which have currency in a given setting. I review how male social scientists have written about their fieldwork experiences, and note that many of these accounts in some ways serve to reinscribe the hegemonic masculine positions of their authors. Through a discussion of my own fieldwork with young people in a British voluntary organisation, I address how my masculinity was critiqued and policed, particularly by young men. I conclude by calling for a wider discussion of masculinities and fieldwork. However, I also note my ambivalence about writing the gendered self into research, if this means that those who conform to hegemonic ideals will be validated in reaffirming these identities in print while others are asked to expose the ways in which they fail to do their gender ‘right’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental anthropology is an expanding field in Australia. Extensive research on Aboriginal relationships to land and natural resources has provided the foundation for growing anthropological interest in the interactions of other Australians with the biophysical environments they inhabit. Australian-based anthropologists also continue to contribute to research on environmental beliefs and practices in other parts of the world. This paper provides a brief overview of previously explored themes in this field as a precursor to introducing new research and proposing additional areas of research. It is suggested that these could be usefully developed to enhance anthropological contributions to debates about environmental change in Australia and surrounding regions. We argue that there are roles for anthropologists as 'cultural translators' in cross-disciplinary engagements with environmental scientists and natural resource managers; as cultural theorists skilled at documenting and interpreting changing environmental attitudes; and as environmental advocates pursuing the knowledge needed to create more ecologically sustainable human communities. We also suggest that Australian anthropologies of the environment can make valuable theoretical and ethnographic contributions to this important international field of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the US debate over science‐based educational research, experimentation is again coming to the fore as ideal for establishing an evidence base of what works in educational interventions thus contributing to the climate of accountability in educational research and practice. Mixed methods research is being positioned in this discussion as a reasonable alternative, a way of making it possible for both experimentalists and non‐experimentalists to join forces in the quest for accountability. This paper argues that mixed methods research is hardly something new; moreover, it is an epistemological response to what is basically a moral–political problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographers have been arguing recently that the idea of what is `international' in this field has been occupied by the hegemonic discourses of Anglo-American geography and journals. This paper takes this lively debate as an indicator of the global challenges facing higher education and research and provides an analysis of the changing conditions of knowledge production, characterised by internationalisation and competition. Knowledge production is governed to an increasing degree through practices based on market-like operations. The author argues that this may lead to the homogenisation of social science publication practices, which are known to be heterogeneous and context dependent. One indicator of this homogenisation is the demand for publishing in international journals that is arising in social sciences and humanities round the world. Both `international' and `quality' are increasingly being connected with the journals noted in the Institute of Scientific Information's (ISI) databases. Starting with an analysis of the changing conditions of knowledge production in general and in human geography in particular, the author scrutinises the spatial patterns of the international journal publishing spaces constituted by the ISI. The results show specific geographies: not only the manner in which the Anglo-American journals dominate the publishing space in science but also how the publishing spaces of the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities are very different. The publication space of social science journals is particularly limited to the English-speaking countries, and this is especially the case with human geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social scientists have expressed strong views on corporate influences over science, but most attention has been devoted to broad, Black/White arguments, rather than to actual mechanisms of influence. This paper summarizes an experience where involvement in a lawsuit led to the discovery of an unexpected mechanism: A large corporation facing a multibillion-dollar court judgment quietly provided generous funding to well-known scientists (including at least one Nobel prize winner) who would submit articles to “open,” peer-reviewed journals, so that their “unbiased science” could be cited in an appeal to the Supreme Court. On balance, the corporation’s most effective techniques of influence may have been provided not by overt pressure, but by encouraging scientists to continue thinking of themselves as independent and impartial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this module is to cover ground that was not covered in-depth in any of the other modules, including: scientific misconduct, issues concerning the publication and ownership of research results (authorship guidelines– who is eligible to be considered an author, or contributor to a scientific paper etc.), special problems occurring in social science and epidemiological research, and the problems pertaining to conflicts of interest the various players in biomedical research activities could encounter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identification of dimensions and structures underlying a set of measures is often of importance in research, and the method of factor analysis is frequently used for that purpose. While R-type factor analysis, which yields the factors present in the variables, is well known to many investigators, Q-type factor analysis, which describes the factors present in the persons, has been employed less frequently. In this paper, Q-type factor analysis is described and distinguished from R-type analysis. Then, three uses of person factors (derived from Q-tipe analysis) in research setting are discussed, to describe the score profiles of individuals, allow more options in conventional data analysis, and to investigate the properties of individual items on measuring instruments. It is argued that person factors can be used profitably for all of these purposes in research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research plays an important role in underpinning a country `s economic and social life. Universities are at the centre of the research and human capital generating process. The aim of this paper is to explore the links between research output, research income, academic and non-academic labour and some of the characteristics of Australian universities. The results indicate that research income, academic staff and postgraduates are all positively associated with research output. There are noticeable differences across different types of universities, with the newer universities lagging in research performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until recently, attempts to understand and explain criminal offending have been grounded in theories from sociological, legal, and psychological perspectives. In the preceding twenty years, or so, however, some research in the field has endeavored to look at offending from a psychobiological viewpoint. This research concerns the potential consequences of the effects of neurobiological influences on brain behavior and, consequently, human behavior. This paper discusses briefly some of the specific areas of neural research currently underway, including looking at the potential consequences for behavior, as it correlates with the age-crime curve, of the effects of neurotransmission. It also considers where the field of criminological research may be heading as a result of the insights into neurobiologically induced behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whenever the name Edmund Husserl appears in the context of nursing research, what correctly comes to mind is the phenomenological approach to qualitative methodology. Husserl is not only considered the founder of phenomenology, but his broad concept development also contributed to the demise of positivism and inspired fruitful approaches to the social sciences. In this spirit of inspiration, it must be expressed that Husserl's theory of wholes and parts, and particularly his differentiation of parts into ‘pieces’ and ‘moments’, is very helpful in guiding the selection of research methods across the board in nursing science. The purpose of this paper is to highlight a frame of reference for nursing researchers to use in examining the essential nature of that which is being studied. This frame of reference is the Husserlian philosophy of ‘pieces’ and ‘moments’ in relation to the whole. ‘Pieces’ are independent parts of the whole that are subject to isolability in study, whereas ‘moments’ are nonindependent parts, which cannot be detached, presented, or studied apart from the whole. The intent is to propose this frame of reference as a philosophical base from which nursing researchers may better select among paradigms and methodological approaches in regard to the essential nature (‘pieces’ or ‘moments’) of that which they are researching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creativity, innovation, and initiative are psychological processes that facilitate the transformation of individual work roles, teams, and organisations into desired future states. Therefore, the present paper focuses on potential research trends in this increasingly important area. Specifically, we identify three substantive gaps reflecting the needs for greater process differentiation, concept integration, and cross-cultural analysis. First, potential differential antecedents of specific creativity or innovation phases have received insufficient attention. Second, the creativity and innovation research domain may benefit from an integration of recently developed proactivity concepts such as personal initiative and voice behavior. Third, cross-cultural differences in values, motivational orientations, and leadership preferences may determine how creativity and innovation are enacted and cultivated across the globe. With respect to each of these future challenges, we provide suggestions for theoretical and empirical advancements and discuss potential practical and methodological developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the seven specially commissioned papers in this special issue of Ageing & Society from the projects funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council's Growing Older Programme. The ESRC Programme has been the largest single investment in social sciences research on ageing in the United Kingdom. It comprised 24 projects and, when operating at full capacity, 96 researchers. The article details the background to the Programme, its commissioning process, its eventual structure and how it operated. Then a selection is made of some of the ways in which the Programme has contributed new knowledge to social gerontology. No attempt is made to achieve comprehensive coverage of the Programme's topics but rather a selection is presented of the new insights generated under its six themes: defining and measuring quality of life, inequalities in quality of life, technology and the built environment, healthy and active ageing, family and support networks, and participation and activities in later life. The projects were spread unevenly across these themes but important new knowledge has been produced under each theme. The conclusion emphasises the scientific contribution of the Programme and especially the extent to which older people's own attitudes, aspirations and preferences have been at the forefront, but it questions whether or not policy makers and practitioners will use this major evidence base. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]