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The Earth BioGenome Project (EBP) is an audacious endeavor to obtain whole-genome sequences of representatives from all eukaryotic species on Earth. In addition to the project’s technical and organizational challenges, it also faces complicated ethical, legal, and social issues. This paper, from members of the EBP’s Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues (ELSI) Committee, catalogs these ELSI concerns arising from EBP. These include legal issues, such as sample collection and permitting; the applicability of international treaties, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol; intellectual property; sample accessioning; and biosecurity and ethical issues, such as sampling from the territories of Indigenous peoples and local communities, the protection of endangered species, and cross-border collections, among several others. We also comment on the intersection of digital sequence information and data rights. More broadly, this list of ethical, legal, and social issues for large-scale genomic sequencing projects may be useful in the consideration of ethical frameworks for future projects. While we do not—and cannot—provide simple, overarching solutions for all the issues raised here, we conclude our perspective by beginning to chart a path forward for EBP’s work.

This paper presents a framework to understand the impact of scientific knowledge on the policy-making process, focusing on the conceptual impact. We note the continuing dissatisfaction with the quality and effects of science-policy interactions in both theory and practice. We critique the current literature’s emphasis on the efforts of scientists to generate policy impact, because it neglects the role of ‘user’ policymaking organisations. The framework offered in the paper develops an argument about the essential role of institutional conditions of policy ‘users’ for scientific knowledge to achieve impact. The framework is informed by the reflexive institutionalist and the neo-institutionalist theoretical approaches. Its main contribution is in outlining the intra- and inter-organisational conditions of policymaking organisations, along with personal characteristics of individual policy officials that influence the likelihood of scientific knowledge to generate conceptual impact. We also offer an operationalisation of the framework. The wider relevance of the paper is in moving the focus from the activities of scientists and the incentive structure in scientific organisations to the policy user side.

The Global Genome Initiative has sequenced and released 1961 DNA barcodes for genetic samples obtained as part of the Global Genome Initiative for Gardens Program. The dataset includes barcodes for 29 plant families and 309 genera that did not have sequences flagged as barcodes in GenBank and sequences from officially recognized barcoding genetic markers meet the data standard of the Consortium for the Barcode of Life. The genetic samples were deposited in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History Biorepository and their records were made public through the Global Genome Biodiversity Network’s portal. The DNA barcodes are now available on GenBank.

The fashion industry is plagued with complications regarding garment sizing and inadequate fit. Inconsistent sizing systems, coupled with the lack of attention by industry in understanding deviations in female body shapes, not only impose severe implications upon the consumer decision-making process but also inflict issues regarding sustainability. As a result of recent advancements in technology, three-dimensional (3D) body scanning has been argued to be the solution to these issues, by providing a more sustainable method of clothing production and distribution, as well as enhancing apparel fit. Indeed, 3D body scanning technology has the ability to capture replicable and more consistent data sets than manual measurement collection. However, this chapter challenges the current application of 3D body scanning in apparel production by addressing two vital limitations. The first challenge explored is the incompatibility of 3D body scan measurements with manual product practices. Second, consumer fit preferences are often overlooked by body shape and measurement. Hence, this chapter reasons that only when these key limitations are addressed can 3D body scanning help facilitate sustainable practice and provide retailers with enough information to develop well-fitted apparel.

For the last 15 years, Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) has recognized two competing standards for organism occurrence data, ABCD (Access to Biological Collections Data; Holetschek et al. 2012) and DarwinCore (Wieczorek et al. 2012). These two representations emerged from contrasting strategies for mobilizing information about organism occurrences (also commonly called species occurrence data). ABCD was capable of representing details of more kinds of information, but was necessarily more complicated. DarwinCore, on the other hand, was simpler but more limited in its ability to represent data of different kinds and formats. TDWG endorsed both standards because the different projects and communities that generated them remained dedicated to their different strategies and tool sets, and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) developed the ability to integrate data published in either standard. Since their inceptions, DarwinCore and ABCD have become more similar. DarwinCore has gotten more complicated through the addition of terms and has begun to assign terms to classes. ABCD is now expressed in RDF (Resource Description Framework), potentially enabling re-use of terms with alternative structures among classes. At the same time, methodologies for conceptual modeling and representing complex scientific data have continued to evolve. In particular, a suite of modeling and data representation methods related to linked data and the semantic web, i.e., RDF, SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System), and OWL (web Ontology Language), promise to make it easier for us to reconcile shared concepts among different representations or schemas. A mapping between ABCD 2.1 and DarwinCore has existed since before 2005.*1 ABCD 3.0 and DarwinCore are both now represented in RDF. In addition, the BioCollections Ontology (BCO) covers many of the shared concepts and is derived from the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), an upper level ontology that has oriented many other biomedical ontologies. Reconciling ABCD and DarwinCore through alignment with BCO (in the OBO Foundry; Smith et al. 2007) would better connect TDWG standards to other domains in biology. We appreciate that many working scientists and data managers perceive ontologies as overly complicated. To mitigate the steep learning curve associated with ontologies, we expect to create simpler application profiles or schemas to guide and serve narrower communities of practice within the wider biodiversity domain. We also plan to integrate the current work of the Taxonomic Names and Concepts Interest Group and thereby eliminate the redundancy between DarwinCore and Taxonomic Concepts Transfer Schema (TCS; Kennedy et al. 2006). At the time of this writing, we have only agreements from the authors (i.e., conveners of relevant TDWG Interest Groups and other key stakeholders) to collaborate in pursuit of these common goals. In this presentation we will give a more detailed description of our objectives and products, the methods we are using to achieve them, and our progress to date.

Genomic science is revolutionizing and accelerating biodiversity research. For collections-based institutions to continue to lead and support biodiversity research, they must adapt to this new reality. Simultaneously, “big data” is accumulating so rapidly that we have unprecedented capacity to plan strategically to use genomics to advance basic and applied science on multiple fronts. For example, seven “big data” sources have the following numbers of records (2018 data): Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), ~1B; Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), ~3.6M; National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), ~220M; Open Tree of Life (OToL), 1.9M; Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD), ~6.3M; Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), ~99K; Global Genome Biodiversity Network (GGBN), ~2M. Collectively, they offer more than 1.2B records on biodiversity. At the scale of species (~2M described, multiple millions undescribed), these data are still too sparse to permit comprehensive conclusions. At the scale of families (i.e. deeper clades of life), the situation is far more promising: about 9,911 families are known, and relatively few are discovered each year. This suggests that at the family rank (and above), our knowledge of life on Earth is reasonably complete. Approximately 160,000 valid and accepted genera exist, but certainly many new genera await discovery and description. Genomics is the fastest way to group species into more inclusive lineages such as genera and families, and is certainly faster than traditional alpha taxonomy. Synergistically, these “big data” answer four important questions at deeper clade levels: What is it? Where is it? What do we know about it? What do we know about its genome? Approximately 4,500 eukaryotic genomes have been sequenced. The converse of what we know is what we do not know, another meaning of “dark taxa.” We can use the distribution and density of big data at deeper clade levels (families, genera) to quantitatively analyze “dark taxa” and therefore to strategically optimize knowledge and preservation of biodiversity at a global scale. Technicalities of the quantitative prioritization scheme are debatable, but some initial, simple scoring systems can help to prioritize lineages for collection and genetic research so as to most efficiently illuminate regions in the tree of life that that are neither preserved, imaged, geo-located, studied, nor known genomically. This analysis presents criteria and goals for collaborating to build a global genomic collection to maximize efficient acquisition of biodiversity genomic knowledge, and identifies the most valuable and highest priority taxa for genomic research.

GGBN, the Global Genome Biodiversity Network, is a consortium of virtually linked biodiversity biobanks that provide unified open access to their sample data through a web portal (www.ggbn.org), together improve best practices and develop standards. Since its inception in 2011, GGBN has largely been supported by external grants and in-kind support from its members. Starting with representatives from thirteen organizations across Africa, Australia, Europe, North, Central, and South America, preliminary plans for an international coordinating mechanism for biodiversity biobanks was developed. In 2013, an interim executive committee was established and an MOU (memorandum of understanding) was distributed to 17 potential collaborators for signature. Subsequently a governance and business model were developed based on input from across the collections and research communities. As the network grew, the interim executive committee solicited letters of intent to transition GGBN into a formal member-driven organization. In 2016 with 12 biodiversity collections online through GGBN’s data portal, the organization was launched and the business model implemented. This included a general and a technical secretariat, an executive committee and general assembly of its, at that time, 41 members. Having grown to encompass 87 general assembly members and 22 collections online in two years, GGBN is assessing its current business model, with focus on increasing revenue, and marketing strategy. Results of this assessment and associated next steps for GGBN are presented and discussed.

The variety of molecular methods used to analyze biosamples is continuously increasing, as is the need for the standardized deposition, documentation and citation of both the samples as well as the methods applied to them. Global initiatives such as the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC, http://www.insdc.org), Barcode of Life Data System (BOLD, http://www.boldsystems.org), the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF, http://www.gbif.org) and the Global Genome Biodiversity Network (GGBN, http://www.ggbn.org), in addition to many others, have been working towards standardized access to biological data for many years. Collectively, these biodiversity data management platforms provide a considerable and indispensable infrastructure to the research community. However, cross-linking the massive amounts of protein and DNA sequence data submitted to these databases every year with standardized records of the underlying biological material remains challenging. Best practices for standardized data submissions and data citations are urgently needed. In the long run, two goals should be achieved above all else: all sequence data should be linked to natural history collections, and biological material that was used for molecular research, especially DNA sequencing, should be deposited and, thus, made accessible in public, well curated collections. all sequence data should be linked to natural history collections, and biological material that was used for molecular research, especially DNA sequencing, should be deposited and, thus, made accessible in public, well curated collections. Here we will provide recommendations both for researchers and collections how to cite underlying biological material at INSDC and in publications in a standardized way towards Linked Open Data. We will also address how the global infrastructures and publishers can improve their interoperability.

Most successful research programs depend on easily accessible and standardized research infrastructures. Until recently, access to tissue or DNA samples with standardized metadata and of a sufficiently high quality, has been a major bottleneck for genomic research. The Global Geonome Biodiversity Network (GGBN) fills this critical gap by offering standardized, legal access to samples. Presently, GGBN’s core activity is enabling access to searchable DNA and tissue collections across natural history museums and botanic gardens. Activities are gradually being expanded to encompass all kinds of biodiversity biobanks such as culture collections, zoological gardens, aquaria, arboreta, and environmental biobanks. Broadly speaking, these collections all provide long-term storage and standardized public access to samples useful for molecular research. GGBN facilitates sample search and discovery for its distributed member collections through a single entry point. It stores standardized information on mostly geo-referenced, vouchered samples, their physical location, availability, quality, and the necessary legal information on over 50,000 species of Earth’s biodiversity, from unicellular to multicellular organisms. The GGBN Data Portal and the GGBN Data Standard are complementary to existing infrastructures such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and International Nucleotide Sequence Database (INSDC). Today, many well-known open-source collection management databases such as Arctos, Specify, and Symbiota, are implementing the GGBN data standard. GGBN continues to increase its collections strategically, based on the needs of the research community, adding over 1.3 million online records in 2018 alone, and today two million sample data are available through GGBN. Together with Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF), Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC), Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG), and Synthesis of Systematic Resources (SYNTHESYS+), GGBN provides best practices for biorepositories on meeting the requirements of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS). By collaboration with the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), GGBN is exploring options for tagging publications that reference GGBN collections and associated specimens, made searchable through GGBN’s document library. Through its collaborative efforts, standards, and best practices GGBN aims at facilitating trust and transparency in the use of genetic resources.

The aim of the Global Genome Biodiversity Network (GGBN, http://www.ggbn.org) is to foster collaboration among biodiversity biobanks on a global scale in order to further compliance with standards, best practices, and to secure interoperability and exchange of material in accordance with national and international legislation and conventions. Thus, key aspects of GGBN’s mission are to develop a network of trusted collections, establishing standards, and identifying best practices by reaching out to other communities. This is especially critical in the light of new international legislation such as the recent Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS). Biological repositories such as but not limited to natural history collections, botanic gardens, culture collections and zoos are facing a series of challenges triggered by the rapid acceleration in sequencing technology that has put added pressure on the use of samples, which just a few years ago were considered inaccessible for sequencing. ABS legislation applies to nearly all collection types, and with biodiversity biobanks increasing in number worldwide, there is an urgent need to streamline procedures and to ensure legislative compliance. Within Europe it is necessary to 1) reach common standards for biodiversity and environmental biobanks; 2) define best practices for the use of molecular collections; and 3) try to ease exchange of samples and related information, while staying compliant with legislation and conventions. Within the EU funded SYNTHESYS+ project (http://www.synthesys.info), GGBN is leading Network Activity 3 (NA3). An overview of planned activities and tasks will be given here with special emphasis on linkages within and beyond SYNTHESYS+.

Genomic research depends upon access to DNA or tissue collected and preserved according to high-quality standards. At present, the collections in most natural history museums do not sufficiently address these standards. In response to these challenges, natural history museums, culture collections, herbaria, botanical gardens and others have started to build high-quality biodiversity biobanks. Unfortunately, information about these collections remains fragmented, scattered and largely inaccessible. Without a central registry of relevant institutions, it is difficult and time-consuming to locate the needed samples. The Global Genome Biodiversity Network (GGBN) was created to fill this gap by establishing a central access point for locating samples meeting quality standards for genome-scale applications, while complying with national and international legislations and conventions (e.g. the Nagoya Protocol). The GGBN is rapidly growing and currently has 70 members and works closely together with GBIF, SPNHC, CETAF, INSDC, BOLD, ESBB, ISBER, GSC and others to reach its goals. Knowledge of biodiversity biobank content is urgently needed to enable concerted efforts and strategies in collecting and sampling new material and making ABS a reality. GGBN provides an infrastructure for making genomic samples discoverable and accessible. While respecting national law, GGBN requires that its members comply with the provisions of the Nagoya-protocol. Thus researchers, collection-holding institutions, and networks should adopt a common Best Practice approach to manage ABS, as has been developed by GGBN. A Code of Conduct; recommendations for implementing the Code of Conduct (the Best Practices), and implementation tools, such as standard Material Transfer Agreements (MTA) and mandatory and recommended data fields in collection databases, are tools which will aid compliance. This talk provides an overview of GGBN and comprises updates on GGBN’s best practices on ABS and the Nagoya Protocol, with examples of their use and applicability.

Genome sequencing initiatives like the Arthropod i5k project and other biodiversity genomics research rely on access to high quality DNA and/or tissue. Global collection initiatives such as the Smithsonian Global Genome Initiative (GGI) and its partner network, the Global Genome Biodiversity Network (GGBN) aim to provide access to these resources at high-quality standards. Here, we review progress toward providing genomic resources (tissues, DNA, genomes) for terrestrial arthropods, a megadiverse animal group, and compare progress in genome sequencing to all other animals.

Universities are increasingly expected to fulfill a third mission in addition to those of research and education. Universities must demonstrate engagement with society through the application and exploitation of knowledge. As societal impact of research is uncertain, long term and always dependent on other factors, we argue here that evaluation should focus on the conditions under which societal impact is generated rather than on the impact itself. Here we focus on a specific set of those conditions: the interactions between academic researchers and societal actors. Instead of speculating about potential impacts of research, we argue that current productive interactions of researchers with societal stakeholders improve the probability that future societal impact will occur. This article supports this idea by examining in detail several, mainly retrospective examples. As productive interactions are field specific, we restrict ourselves to ?professional adhocracy fields?, especially to information and communication technologies (ICT) research. We address the patterns of productive interactions that result in societal impact within this field and we discuss whether differences are observed in contrast to other fields, such as social sciences and humanities (fragmented adhocracies). We end by discussing the implications that these patterns have for societal impact assessment. Shifting the focus to interactions allows assessment of short-term knowledge transfer and other collaborative efforts with stakeholders that contribute to long-term societal impact.

BACKGROUND The burden of tuberculosis (TB) in the estimated 370 million indigenous peoples worldwide is unknown. OBJECTIVE To conduct a literature review to summarize the TB burden in indigenous peoples, identify gaps in current knowledge, and provide the foundation for a research agenda prioritizing indigenous health within TB control. METHODS A systematic literature review identified articles published between January 1990 and November 2011 quantifying TB disease burden in indigenous populations worldwide. RESULTS Among the 91 articles from 19 countries included in the review, only 56 were from outside Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. The majority of the studies showed higher TB rates among indigenous groups than non-indigenous groups. Studies from the Amazon generally reported the highest TB prevalence and incidence, but select populations from South-East Asia and Africa were found to have similarly high rates of TB. In North America, the Inuit had the highest reported TB incidence (156/100000), whereas the Metis of Canada and American Indians/Alaska Natives experienced rates of

Advances in biodiversity genomic sequencing will increasingly depend on the availability of DNA samples—and their quantifiable metadata—preserved in large institutional biorepositories that are discoverable to the scientific community. Improvements in sequencing technology constantly provide longer reads, such that longer fragment length, higher molecular weight, and overall “genome-quality” DNA (gDNA) will be desirable. Ideally, biorepositories should publish numerical scale measurements of DNA quality useful to the user community. However, the most widely used technique to evaluate DNA quality, the classic agarose gel, has yet to be quantified. Here we propose a simple and economical method using open source image analysis software to make gDNA gel images quantifiable, and propose percentage of gDNA “greater than X kb” as a standard of comparison, where X is a band from any widely used DNA ladder with desirably large band sizes. We employ two metadata standards (“DNA Threshold” and “Percent above Threshold”) introduced as part of the Global Genome Biodiversity Network (GGBN) Darwin Core extension. We illustrate the method using the traditionally used HindIII ladder and the 9,416 base-pair (bp) band as a standard. We also present data, for two taxa, a vertebrate (fish) and an invertebrate (crab), on how gDNA quality varies with seven tissue preservation methods, time since death, preservation method (i.e. buffers vs. cold temperatures), and storage temperature of various buffers over time. Our results suggest that putting tissue into a buffer prior to freezing may be better than directly into ultra-cold conditions.

Background Genomic research depends upon access to DNA or tissue collected and preserved according to high-quality standards. At present, the collections in most natural history museums do not sufficiently address these standards, making them often hard or impossible to use for whole-genome sequencing or transcriptomics. In response to these challenges, natural history museums, herbaria, botanical gardens and other stakeholders have started to build high-quality biodiversity biobanks. Unfortunately, information about these collections remains fragmented, scattered and largely inaccessible. Without a central registry or even an overview of relevant institutions, it is difficult and time-consuming to locate the needed samples. Scope The Global Genome Biodiversity Network (GGBN) was created to fill this vacuum by establishing a one-stop access point for locating samples meeting quality standards for genome-scale applications, while complying with national and international legislations and conventions. Increased accessibility to genomic samples will further genomic research and development, conserve genetic resources, help train the next generation of genome researchers and raise the visibility of biodiversity collections. Additionally, the availability of a data-sharing platform will facilitate identification of gaps in the collections, thereby empowering targeted sampling efforts, increasing the breadth and depth of preservation of genetic diversity. The GGBN is rapidly growing and currently has 41 members. The GGBN covers all branches of the Tree of Life, except humans, but here the focus is on a pilot project with emphasis on ‘harvesting’ the Tree of Life for vascular plant taxa to enable genome-level studies. Conclusion While current efforts are centred on getting the existing samples of all GGBN members online, a pilot project, GGI-Gardens, has been launched as proof of concept. Over the next 6 years GGI-Gardens aims to add to the GGBN high-quality genetic material from at least one species from each of the approx. 460 vascular plant families and one species from half of the approx. 15 000 vascular plant genera.

This paper deals with the role of Research and Development (R&D) managers in shaping the landscape of public research in Europe. These R&D managers work in the sphere of public research within national government laboratory services. The case we present is of the re-configuration of metrology research. Metrology is the science of measurement. We examine why scientists and research managers in nationally embedded institutes, which are performing R&D in support of national policy and local industry needs, have chosen to co-operate in a shared research programme. This means giving up, in part, their national sovereignty over funds and decision making. Furthermore, we examine how they have achieved the shared programme, which was launched as a European Commission (EC) programme through the Article 185 initiative, which allows the EU to participate in research programmes undertaken jointly by several Member States.

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to describe and evaluate the use of a five‐step foresight process and the application of scenario methods to grasp the range of future alternatives that might confront researchers and research managers in European metrology research institutes. The sector is to be examined as a part of a larger study that aims to reflect on the potential future roles for the public research institutes, in several sectors (the other sectors in the study included civil space, plant science, geosurveys, and marine), towards the development of the European Research Area (ERA).Design/methodology/approachThe paper illustrates how scenario methods were used to, first, serve as a basis for policy recommendations for the field of European metrology research institutes and, second, help experts and stakeholders to network and actively discuss a shared vision of the future of the field.FindingsThis case demonstrates the need for proactive strategic management which goes well beyond the institutional boundary, into national policy and European decision making. As other areas of European research begin to think about the importance of European cooperation, lessons can be drawn from the experience of this particular sector. The process of looking forward took on board the political context and allowed participants and the researchers to think beyond these boundaries.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough this is a pioneering study, there is a danger that some inputs may not have been captured. The results build on the input of a limited number of experts only and on the literature available in the public domain. There were few participants discussing the future of a vast field of research and this may mean that important input has not been captured. Time limitations in the workshops necessarily limit the scope for experts and policy makers to engage with the concepts. Follow‐up activities based on the research outputs are required for the findings to go forward.Practical implicationsBringing together different stakeholders for shaping a shared vision through scenario workshops led to rich interactions and creative thinking. The workshops created a space for experts to consider policy options for reforming and making better use of the institutes in building the ERA.Originality/valueUsing scenario workshops for foresight research results as an opportunity for stakeholders to visualise different futures for metrology research within Europe. The public research institute sector tends to be more generally under‐studied as a component of modern innovation systems. We evaluate and show that the foresight process is an appropriate methodology to look at what is inherently a political process at the implementation level.

Few studies have considered the impact of masculine role variables on outcome and adjustment to SCI among men. The present study examined the relations among SCI, views of masculinity, psychological adjustment, and rehabilitation outcomes among men with SCI.The sample included 20 men with SCI receiving inpatient rehabilitation, with a mean age of 45 years. Data included demographic variables as well as Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory (CMNI), Gender Role Conflict Scale (GRCS), Functional Independence Measure (FIM), and Satisfaction with Life Scale ratings, and change in marital status.The findings revealed that satisfaction with life was positively related to scores on the CMNI Violence scale, FIM change from admission to discharge was positively related to the CMNI Emotional Control scale and negatively related to the CMNI Dominance scale. Change in marital status was inversely related to the CMNI Emotional Control and Primacy of Work scales and the GRCS Restricted Emotionality and Power, Success, and Competition scales.The findings show that certain aspects of the traditional masculine role (i.e., ability to modulate strong emotions) may be adaptive in the rehabilitation process, whereas other aspects (i.e., a dominant interpersonal style) may present a barrier to effective rehabilitation.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a significant health problem disproportionately affecting men and is often associated with changes in masculine role functioning in life domains such as vocational functioning, sexual and inter-personal functioning and personal independence. These changes could have serious implications for men's adjustment following injury. The aim of this study was to examine the relations among traditional masculine role adherence, psychosocial adjustment and rehabilitation outcomes in men with TBI.A correlational design was chosen to examine the relations among variables. Spearman correlations and Wilcoxon Rank Sum tests were used to examine relationships between masculine role variables and outcome variables.The study included 33 men with TBI who had been discharged from inpatient rehabilitation within 5 years. Participants completed surveys on traditional masculine gender role adherence and gender role conflict and additional data, including measures of functional outcome, life satisfaction, psychosocial outcomes and earnings, were obtained through the TBI Model System longitudinal data collection system.The results revealed significant associations between masculine role adherence and satisfaction with life, follow-up earnings and FIM change from admission to discharge.In the current study, particular masculine role variables corresponded to different functional and psychological outcomes. Understanding these differences provides new directions for treatment and offers important information about aspects of traditional masculine roles that may enhance or hinder adjustment to injury.

The Global Genome Biodiversity Network (GGBN) was formed in 2011 with the principal aim of making high-quality well-documented and vouchered collections that store DNA or tissue samples of biodiversity, discoverable for research through a networked community of biodiversity repositories. This is achieved through the GGBN Data Portal (http://data.ggbn.org), which links globally distributed databases and bridges the gap between biodiversity repositories, sequence databases and research results. Advances in DNA extraction techniques combined with next-generation sequencing technologies provide new tools for genome sequencing. Many ambitious genome sequencing projects with the potential to revolutionize biodiversity research consider access to adequate samples to be a major bottleneck in their workflow. This is linked not only to accelerating biodiversity loss and demands to improve conservation efforts but also to a lack of standardized methods for providing access to genomic samples. Biodiversity biobank-holding institutions urgently need to set a standard of collaboration towards excellence in collections stewardship, information access and sharing and responsible and ethical use of such collections. GGBN meets these needs by enabling and supporting accessibility and the efficient coordinated expansion of biodiversity biobanks worldwide.

There has been a steady and rapid growth of academic literature and policy debate on the broad ranging changes of the universities in the Western world. These are mostly founded on two problematic assumptions. One of these is the assumption of ‘unity of object’ whereby ‘the university’ has undergone an institutional dislocation and ‘fragmented’ into a plethora of quite different organizations. Interestingly, these organizations vary not only across national landscapes but also within the same funding landscape. The second problematic assumption is the one about the universality of the pressures for change. This reflects a failure to distinguish between ‘policies’ and ‘policy instruments’, on the one hand, and ‘pressures for change’ on the other. Policies can be possibly be construed as ‘universal’; ‘pressures for change’ are always specific for a social actor, or group of actors, since these are shaped by the policy as well as by the way in which it is interpreted depending on specific positioning and circumstances.. In this chapter these assumptions are challenged using information from a study of university change in the United Kingdom in two universities (a research intensive university and a teaching intensive university). Findings show that the pressures for change, as well as the manifestations of this change, are quite different. As a result these universities have positioned themselves entirely differently, thus leading for specific change in the nature of research and research practices.

Universities are increasingly expected to complement their traditional research and training missions with that of a third mission to reflect the engagement of universities with society, through the application and exploitation of knowledge. Previous research has resulted in limited knowledge on how field specific interactions between academic researchers and societal actors relate to the societal impact of academic research. This paper seeks to assess the impact on society of the work of university research, by examining in detail several case studies taken from the field of ICT research and to address what patterns of productive interactions result in societal impact within ‘fragmented adhocracy fields’ and what implications these patterns have for societal impact assessment of these fields. Our approach proves it is possible to identify how and what researchers have contributed to social impacts. Shifting focus to interactions allows short term knowledge transfer efforts contributing to societal impacts to be assessed.

“If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.” - Confucius, Analects, Book XIII, Chapter 3, verses 4-7, translated by James Legge Two workshops (hereafter described as “workshops”) were held in 2012, which brought together domain experts from genomic and biodiversity informatics, information modeling and biology, to clarify concepts and terms at the intersection of these domains. These workshops grew out of efforts sponsored by the NSF funded Resource Coordination Network (RCN) project for GSC [1] (RCN4GSC, hosted at UCSD, with John Wooley as PI) to reconcile terms from the Darwin Core (DwC) [2] vocabulary and with those in the MIxS family of checklists (Minimum Information about Any Type of Sequence) [3]. The original RCN4GSC meetings were able to align many terms between DwC and MIxS, finding both common and complementary terms. However, deciding exactly what constitutes the concept of a sample, a specimen, and an occurrence [4] to satisfy the needs of all use cases proved difficult, especially given the wide variety of sampling strategies employed within and between communities. Further, participants in the initial RCN4GSC workshops needed additional guidance on how to relate these entities to processes that act upon them and the environments in which organisms live. These issues provided the motivation for the workshops described below. The two workshops drew largely from experiences of the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) [5] and were led by Barry Smith, State University of New York at Buffalo. We chose to interact with Smith based on his successful interactions with the GSC in developing the Environment Ontology (EnvO) [6] and also, on the ability of BFO to unite previously disconnected ontologies in the medical domain [7]. The first workshop addressed term definitions in biodiversity informatics, working within the BFO framework, while the second workshop developed a prototype Bio-Collections Ontology, dealing with samples and processes acting on samples. Concurrent with these workshops were two ongoing efforts involving data acquisition, visualization, and analysis that rely on a solid conceptual understanding of samples, specimens, and occurrences. These implementations are included in this report to show practical applications of term clarification. Finally, this report provides a discussion of some of the next steps discussed during the workshops.

This paper describes findings on the management of collaboration arising from an evaluation of the participation of the UK in the EUREKA programme. The principle issues addressed in the paper are the origins and motivations for collabration, the roles played by participants of different types and the significance of collaboration for project outcomes. The paper concludes that complementarity between partners in the key motivation for collabration. Complementarity may lie in different dimensions, matching different types of technical expertise or technical and market expertise. Vertical relationships, between users and suppliers, energed as being particularly important in EUREKA projects and frequently formed the initial basis for the collaborative application. The most important overall finding was that partnerships were genuinely interpendent, in part because of their foundation in complementarity. Successful collaborative structures were those which were sufficiently robust to accommodate the inevitable...

This paper uses the example of an evaluation of a UK Department of the Environment-funded research programme on environmental design and performance of non-domestic buildings to explore the issues surrounding the identification of research impacts at various levels. It offers a framework for the evaluation of the impacts of strategic research upon both government policy and industrial practice. The importance of integrating research and diffusion strategies is illustrated. The impacts of the research are understood partly through an assessment of the different networks in which researchers and their institutes participate, and by examining the forms in which the research results are offered to the various professionals to be reached. Finally there are some general lessons about the evaluation of strategic energy research programmes. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) proposed to reorient its evaluation function to move away from a programme-based, objectives-oriented system towards a more strategic approach looking at the wider and longer-term impacts. This study by the Programme of Policy Research in Engineering, Science and Technology (PREST) recommended a combination of the development of facilitating tools for evaluation which can be used at several levels, and strategic studies. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) represents one of the most institutionalised forms of research evaluation in the OECD economies. It has become a primary means of concentrating resources for research in a relatively small number of universities. Its main purpose is to inform funding decisions, and the indirect effects come from the public signalling of quality. The RAE seems to have reinforced the traditional ‘high science’ ideals of British universities, encouraging greater coordination of research around traditional disciplinary concerns and inhibiting applied research. Debates among universities and policy-makers have led to a reshaping of the exercise. Its evolution into a highly elaborate procedure combined with its failure as a strategic policy tool to steer university research towards socio-economic impacts have led to its abandonment in its present form. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

In Chapter 3 we discussed how privatisation to the maximum extent feasible and marketisation/commercialisation of the remaining public sector were themes central to NPM in the UK from 1979 to 1997. These themes have not been attenuated under subsequent Labour governments. In Chapter 4 we explored how NPM had prompted the development of new organisational forms for science and technology providers. But, as we explained in Chapter 1, change in science was characterised not just by organisational reform but also new visions of what ‘science’ was. In this chapter we will explicate what these new visions were and how they were synergistically related to and underpinning of policy-driven organisational change during this period. In Chapter 6, which follows, we demonstrate how new organisational forms and new visions of science have come together to generate new scientific knowledge production processes.

During the past 20 years, some of the UK public sector’s oldest and most idiosyncratic institutions — the GREs — have experienced fundamental and purposive change. That change has occurred at three intertwined levels: organisational forms, vision and knowledge production processes. The scale, and at times ferocity, of this reform programme could scarcely have been envisaged 20 years ago. Change started when the Conservatives came into power in 1979 and has been continuing, albeit with a slightly different ideological emphasis, under successive Labour governments ever since.

In Chapter 3 we explained the context of new public management within which UK government S&T service providers have been transformed. In this chapter we specifically address three issues related to the organisational reform consequent to these public management transformations.

In this chapter we turn our attention to the third of the principal dimensions of scientific change that has been in evidence in recent years — change in scientific knowledge production processes. Knowledge production processes are defined here as how the vision and organisation(s) of science combine together to actually produce scientific knowledge via some socio-economic process. That is, who produces the knowledge, for what purpose, who (if anyone) owns it and how is it used? Implicit in our argument is that the mode of production has repercussions for how science and its knowledge product are perceived, where power lies and the use that is made of the product. Here we will also pick up on the themes of organic and policy-driven change discussed in Chapter 1.

This book is about change and specifically, the wide-ranging changes experienced by Government Research Establishments (GREs) in the United Kingdom (UK). During the last two decades, the GREs in the UK have been subjected to a process of rapid policy initiated transformation, the dimensions and social consequences of which are still largely unclear. The concept of public administration driving this process of change has been New Public Management (NPM). The NPM underpinning this transformation reflects the fact that it is an integral part of a broader transformation process encompassing the nature and organisation of government, the institutions of science and their relationships with the state, and industry, the practices of scientists, the nature of scientific enquiry, and the concepts of what is science and what is deemed at particular points in time to be ‘good’ science.

The driving forces of the public sector reform processes to which GREs were subject from 1979 onwards are collectively and generically known as New Public Management (NPM). In Section 2 of this chapter we define, insofar as possible, NPM in general terms. In Section 3 we contextualise this general discussion by critically documenting and describing the manifestations of the NPM reform process in the UK generally. In Section 4, we detail how that process of reform was operationalised in the field of government funded scientific services.

This chapter examines the impact of administrative change in the 1980s and 1990s on the supply of science and technology services to British central government. Our concern is with the consequences of these changes for the operation of the supplying organisation, for its management for its customer department and for its relationship with its department. Hence, within our chosen policy domain, we explore the variety of organisational forms that have emerged during the late 1980s and 1990s. We seek to explain why they took the form that they did and we ask what effect these changes have had, in terms of the ostensible purposes of the reforms themselves.