Agile methods, initially used by cross-functional teams in software development projects, can also facilitate teamwork in collaborative research projects. For this, project management-related issues need to be addressed, including the challenge of finding practical means for coordinating scientific collaboration, while garnering commitment from…

Over the past decades, science funding shows a shift from recurrent block funding towards project funding mechanisms. However, our knowledge of how project funding arrangements influence the organizational and epistemic properties of research is limited. To study this relation, a bridge between science policy studies and science studies is…

Collaborative research aimed at building local capacity is a complex, contested, time-consuming, and at the same time immensely rewarding experience. The clash of different research cultures, managerial approaches, and values involved in conducting and delivering research is inevitable. Collaborative research requires support structures on…

This study investigates the relationship between the designated research project system independent variables of Labor, Travel, Equipment, and Contract total annual costs and the dependent variables of both the associated matching research project total annual academic publication output and thesis/dissertation number output. The Mahalanobis…

Far from allowing a governance of universities by the invisible hand of market forces, research performance assessments do not just measure differences in research quality, but yield themselves visible symptoms in terms of a stratification and standardization of disciplines. The article illustrates this with a case study of UK history departments…

Research project tutoring appears as a crucial element for teaching; it is a planned action based on the relationship between a tutor and a student. This paper presents the findings of a design and development research which has as its main aim to create an organization system for the tutoring of online research projects. That system seeks to…

Changes in higher education institutions characteristic of a knowledge society are strongly affecting academic life, scientists' working conditions and the social dynamics of scientific groups. In such situations, it is important to understand the different ways in which these groups are tackling the structural dilemmas posed by the changes…

This article begins by raising issues around the way in which ethical approval for research is managed in university settings, where committees often base their assumptions on a principlist approach making a number of assumptions that we consider to be contestable, such as a neat separation between researcher and researched. However, collaborative…

Federally sponsored research funding sources are not stagnant programs. Many things influence the nature of research, not all of them purely scientific. Historically significant events draw public attention to causes, and in the age of immediate information those events can have a powerful and lasting impact on research funding. September 11, 2001…

Multidisciplinary research institutes provide universities with an important vehicle to conduct research across traditional disciplines, and this can be an attractive capability for external funding bodies. However, there can be particular challenges, including managing different reporting lines, the need for effective research coordination, and…

Donald W. Compton, the first director of evaluation services at the National Home Office (Atlanta) of the American Cancer Society, tells the story of building the unit in conditions of high demand and a limited budget. Along the way, evaluation was brought to regional divisions and to local offices in part as a response to United Way and to his…

Undergraduate research in the sciences has been shown by numerous studies to enhance the educational experience. The Undergraduate Research Community (URC) founded in 2001 supports several initiatives that promote research in human sciences/family and consumer sciences including an online peer-reviewed journal specifically for undergraduate work,…

The authors tell about their heterogeneous 91 person research and evaluation unit at an operating foundation in St. Paul, Minnesota. They focus on evaluation for program improvement, one of several purposes of studies they work on. The three authors write from their different manager positions within the unit. Included are the context of the…

This booklet contains the proceedings of a conference designed to elicit discussion, reactions, comments, and recommendations with respect to the value, desirability, significance, and budgetary problems involved in carrying out scientific research programs at comprehensive universities (those having either no Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) programs…

The American Technological University's pursuit of external funding through grants and contracts is described, and recommendations for staffing, policy, and practice related to sponsored programs are made. (MSE)