Global discussions are ongoing on how to stimulate antibiotic research and development in order to provide patients with new antibiotics able to address the challenges of antimicrobial resistance. In this supplement, we present nine articles derived from the research performed as part of the Innovative Medicine Initiative-funded DRIVE-AB project and others. These publications provide new evidence and arguments in the debate around economic incentives to stimulate antibiotic innovation, including characteristics, implementation and governance.

Nanomaterials have attracted much interest in the medical field and related applications as their distinct properties in the nanorange enable new and improved diagnosis and therapies. Owing to these properties and their potential interactions with the human body and the environment, the impact of nanomaterials on humans and their potential toxicity have been regarded a very significant issue. Consequently, nanomaterials are the subject of a wide range of cutting-edge research efforts in the medical and related fields to thoroughly probe (...) their potential beneficial utilizations and their more negative effects. We posit that the lack of standardization in the field is a serious shortcoming as it has led to the establishment of methods and results that do not ensure sufficient consistency and thus in our view can possibly result in research outputs that are not as robust as they should be. The main aim of this article is to present how NanoDiaRA, a large FP7 European multidisciplinary project that seeks to investigate and develop nanotechnology-based diagnostic systems, has developed and implemented robust, standardized methods to support research practices involving the engineering and manipulation of nanomaterials. First, to contextualize this research, an overview of the measures defined by different regulatory bodies concerning nanosafety is presented. Although these authorities have been very active in the past several years, many questions remain unanswered in our view. Second, a number of national and international projects that attempted to ensure more reliable exchanges of methods and results are discussed. However, the frequent lack of publication of procedures and protocols in research can often be a hindrance for sharing those good practices. Subsequently, the efforts made through NanoDiaRA to introduce standardized methods and techniques to support the development and utilization of nanomaterials are discussed in depth. A series of semi-structured interviews were conducted with the partners of this project, and the interviews were analyzed thematically to highlight the determined efforts of the researchers to standardize their methods. Finally, some recommendations are made toward the setting up of well-defined methods to support the high-quality work of collaborative nanoparticle-based research and development projects and to enhance standardization processes. (shrink)

NCMRD initiated the Women in Management Research Program in January 1988. One of the objectives of the program is to help managers and policy makers deal with issues arising from women's increased participation in managerial and professional jobs backing research to help arrive at solutions to the problems being encountered both by institutions and by women themselves. Significant research funds have been raised from the private sector and ten projects have been funded to date. This article describes (...) the early development of the Program and its research mandate. (shrink)

Today there are multiple implantable medical devices on the market. The type of implants that interface the body’s tissues has been considered to have particular strong ethical implications. This article describes a development of a novel practice for ethical assessment and reflection within medical device research and development of non-CE marked medical devices, taking the perspective of both the ethicist and the researcher. The research case was an EU funded project where the aim was to develop (...) and compare the efficiency of invasive and non-invasive technological medical devices to create meaningful sensations as a novel therapy for phantom limb pain. An Independent Ethical Advisor with a regulatory and advisory role was assigned to the project, allowing us to investigate the projects deliberate incorporation of ethics. In the article we suggest and applied a novel framework based on action research for combining ethical assessment with building ethical reflection. The case analyse five different activities / elements: 1) the use of informed consent; 2) a survey amongst the research partners; 3) a workshop session; 4) observation of consortium meetings; and 5) an interview with a participating patient. (shrink)

This lecture attempts to outline the fact that development projects around the world are still based on too little actual field work research. In this presentation, Graham Mytton, who has been involved in several development projects in countries as diverse as Tanzania, the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, East Timor and Nigeria, is convinced that performance of projects could be much improved through better and targeted research. Using the example of a project in Tanzania in 2000, where (...) a promotional campaign of messages to encourage people to use simple ways to avoid the blinding disease trachoma made many elementary mistakes and that, if a better and more focused research programme had been used prior to the project it would have been more successful. The presentation showed how focused research could make such projects more likely to achieve success through appropriate research before such projects were instigated. Some websites that provide useful information are provided. (shrink)

Smart farming has largely been driven by productivity and efficiency aims, but there is an increasing awareness of potential socio-ethical challenges. The responsible research and innovation approach aims to address such challenges but has had limited application in smart farming contexts. Using smart dairying research and development in New Zealand as a case study, we examine the extent to which principles of RRI have been applied in NZ smart dairying development and assess the broader lessons for (...) RRI application in smart farming. We draw on insights from: a review of research on dairy technology use in NZ; interviews with smart dairying stakeholders; and the application of an analytical framework based on RRI dimensions. We conclude that smart dairying R&D and innovation activities have focused on technology development and on-farm use without considering socio-ethical implications and have excluded certain actors such as citizens and consumers. This indicates that readiness to enact RRI in this context is not yet optimal, and future RRI efforts require leadership by government or dairy sector organisations to fully embed RRI principles in the guidelines for large R&D project design. More broadly, enacting RRI in smart farming requires initial identification of RRI readiness in a given sector or country and devising a roadmap and coherent project portfolio to support capacity building for enacting RRI. Additionally, methods for operationalising RRI must be adapted to the context of the national or sectoral innovation system in which smart farming is being developed. (shrink)

This article applies reflexive and dialogue oriented approaches to municipal planning. Experience from the dialogical development process in Vennesla is discussed, highlighting the potential of collaborative work in a development coalition. Dialogue and democracy in the coalition are discussed, emphasising the social construction of meaning and knowledge.

The World Bank is no stranger to criticism of its projects, especially in respect of its privatization and private sector development projects. Critics point to the environmental, social and cultural damage that certain projects have caused, which for some appears not just to be a product of the individual projects themselves, but symptomatic of a broader policy failure within the Bank to engage with the social consequences of its actions. In fact, and somewhat surprisingly, both the Bank's critics and (...) its defenders seldom employ human rights language in their reasoning and rhetoric, and where they do, it is only fleetingly and often lacking in any real substance. This is surprising because of so much of what the Bank does can be, and is, supportive of the objects of international human rights standards, especially in respect of economic, social and cultural rights. It is a central theme of this Discussion Paper that for the Bank to embrace this fact alone would be a very significant step towards it being better able not only to respond to its critics, but also, crucially, to deliver upon its own objectives as most recently expressed in the Millennium Development Goals. This Discussion Paper was commissioned by the World Bank. The brief was to provide an account of the major criticisms directed at the World Bank's private sector-oriented projects, and to determine what, if any, consequences for the protection of human rights are revealed by those criticisms. The approach adopted in this paper is first to identify key criticisms through empirical research and then to subject them to human rights analysis. This provides the basis for a clear account of the legal and programmatic implications for the Bank, today and in the future, of those human rights obligations and duties raised, directly or indirectly, by the critics of the Bank. (shrink)

This open access book provides the first systematic overview of existing challenges and opportunities for responsible data linkage, and a cutting-edge assessment of which steps need to be taken to ensure that plant data are ethically shared and used for the benefit of ensuring global food security – one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The volume focuses on the contemporary contours of such challenges through sustained engagement with current and historical initiatives and discussion of best practices and prospective (...) future directions for ensuring responsible plant data linkage. The volume is divided into four sections that include case studies of plant data use and linkage in the context of particular research projects, breeding programs, and historical research. It address technical challenges of data linkage in developing key tools, standards and infrastructures, and examines governance challenges of data linkage in relation to socioeconomic and environmental research and data collection. Finally, the last section addresses issues raised by new data production and linkage methods for the inclusion of agriculture’s diverse stakeholders. This book brings together leading experts in data curation, data governance and data studies from a variety of fields, including data science, plant science, agricultural research, science policy, data ethics and the philosophy, history and social studies of plant science. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to illustrate the role of sociology in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR). It presents a case study conducted by a research group consisting of two University partners in association with a Swiss SME. This project attempted to draw conclusions from a specific sociological consultancy research project on the general possibilities and opportunities of sociology in applied research and operational sustainability consulting. On the basis of the project findings, the article (...) reflects on the extent to which sociology could profitably intervene, on the limitations for sociological research and consultations in this field and on the conclusions that can be drawn for future analyses. (shrink)

Responding to the Special Issue's call for “new thinking” on gender and governance in developing societies, we introduce our research on the social organization of development knowledge and its ethical implications. Our feminist‐based approach, institutional ethnography, analyses the ruling relations of development and the standpoints represented in knowledge about development and its governance. Our paper offers an alternative to what we see as “the institutional standpoint” prevailing, but taken for granted, in business and society scholarship addressing (...) development. Instead of theorizing development relationships between institutions and their “stakeholders,” we illustrate what can be learned about the social relations of development beginning from the experiences of local subjects. Our analysis of an environmental research and development project in Uzbekistan shows that being missed is knowledge about development subjects that could have revealed what is locally relevant and needed. Instead, we discover gender inequality being constituted, unknowingly, within this project's institutionally generated knowledge and the activities it authorizes. (shrink)

Transplantation research on samples and organs from deceased donors in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is under threat. The key problems relate to difficulties encountered in gaining consent for research projects, as distinct from consent to donation for clinical transplantation. They are due partly to the terms of the Human Tissue Act 2004 (the 2004 Act), and partly to its interpretation by the Human Tissue Authority (HTA). They include excessive interaction with donor representatives regarding ‘informed consent’ to (...) class='Hi'>research projects, uncertainty as to the scope and duration of a donor's ‘authority’ over an organ, and restrictions caused by the apparent need for licensing of transplantation research under the 2004 Act, combined with lack of certainty, or guidance, as to the distinction between ‘research’, which requires a licence, and ‘service development’, which does not. In our view this confusion hinders and deters Specialist Nurses for Organ Donation in approaching donor representatives and discussing possible research projects with them. It has also, as we have reported elsewhere, led to abandonment of research projects for fear of liability, despite both Research Ethics Committee (REC) approval and donor consent. Such problems do not seem to occur under the transplant laws of most other comparable jurisdictions. The Transplantation Ethics Symposium, ‘The ethics of organ retrieval: goals, rights and responsibilities’, hosted by the MRC Centre for Transplantation at King's College London in December 2010, revealed that many senior clinicians and researchers, administrators, and lawyers are both unclear and in disagreement concerning the effects of the 2004 Act and the extent to which it is adhered to or ignored in practice. In this paper we examine the difficulties encountered and suggest solutions based on a less restrictive interpretation of the 2004 Act, or, more probably, a regulatory change under its authority. We propose that, in the long term, a law which includes consent for REC-approved research within the general consent for organ donation and transplantation seems preferable to the present system, both ethically and in practical terms. (shrink)

Objectives The study uses a qualitative empirical method to define Health Research for Development. This project explores the perspectives of stakeholders in an international health research partnership operating in Ghana and Tanzania. Methods We conducted 52 key informant interviews with major stakeholders in an international multicenter partnership between GlaxoSmithKline and the global health nonprofit organisation PATH and its Malaria Vaccine Initiative program,. The respondents included teams from four clinical research centres and various collaborating partners. This paper (...) analyses responses to the question: What is Health Research for Development? Results Based on the stakeholders’ experience the respondents offered many ways of defining Health Research for Development. The responses fell into four broad themes: i) Equitable Partnerships; ii) System Sustainability; iii) Addressing Local Health Targets, and iv) Regional Commitment to Benefit Sharing. Conclusion Through defining Health Research for Development six key learning points were generated from the four result themes: 1) Ensure there is local research leadership working with the collaborative partnership, and local healthcare system, to align the project agenda and activities with local research and health priorities; 2) Know the country-specific context - map the social, health, legislative and political setting; 3) Define an explicit development component and plan of action in a research project; 4) Address the barriers and opportunities to sustain system capacity. 5) Support decentralised health system decision-making to facilitate the translation pathway; 6) Govern, monitor and evaluate the development components of health research partnerships. Overall, equity and unity between partners are required to deliver health research for development. (shrink)

A project manager’s emotional intelligence (EI) is essential to project success. However, the mechanism in this cause and effect remains a black box in extant literature. China is now the world’s largest construction market, and figuring out the mechanism of construction project manager’s (CPM’s) EI on project success is meaningful for developing the global construction market. This study conducted an in-depth interview with 24 CPMs with more than 5-year experience in construction project management. The grounded theory was employed to profile (...) the application of CPM’s EI and to build the multilevel mechanism that explains the influence of CPM’s EI on project success. The mechanism framework conforms to the existed input–process–output (IPO) theory. It consists of a team-level mechanism (including the positive team atmosphere, shared vision, and team cohesion) and an individual-level mechanism (i.e., organizational citizenship behavior directed at the organization, perceived supervisor support, trust in leader, and subordinate’s psychological and emotional health). This study further proposed that the effect of this mechanism does not work immediately but develops with time passing. Implications for further research and project management practice are discussed in the end. (shrink)

Workplace learning and competence development in work are frequently used concepts. A wide spread notion is that societal, institutional, and organizational changes require the development of knowledge, methods and strategies for learning at workplaces, in both public and private enterprises. In research on learning and competence development at work, the organizational learning and development as well as individual accomplishments are investigated from various perspectives and in different contexts. The theoretical base for research projects can, (...) accordingly, be focused at a number of organizational and system levels. This paper describes a research project called "Workplace development and learning in elder care" in which learning and knowledge were key issues and where Activity Theory was used as the theoretical base. The project was joint project between two research and development field units. These were UFFE, a municipal social services’ field research unit, and Äldrecentrum Västerbotten, a county council field research unit which aims to serve the interests of the elderly. The project was launched in the fall of 2000 and ended in the summer of 2003. I was employed part-time as a research leader at the municipal research unit and became the research leader for this particular project. A number of students, as well as employees from the county council geriatric care services and the municipal elder care participated in the project. The general aims of the project were to: a) investigate the prerequisites for development and learning; b) test and evaluate interventions at a workgroup level; and c) identify the need for new knowledge. The results were expected to be useful for the field research units as well as for the municipal and county eldercare services in their research and development work. I start with a presentation of the theoretical concepts and apply them in order to form a tentative hypothesis on the status of learning and knowledge in elder care. The next section contains a short description of the different parts of the project and the main results are presented. Finally, the results are discussed and related to the conditions and impact of workplace interventions. (shrink)

This paper offers an overview of the philosophical work on epistemic injustices as it relates to psychiatry. After describing the development of epistemic injustice studies, we survey the existing literature on its application to psychiatry. We describe how the concept of epistemic injustice has been taken up into a range of debates in philosophy of psychiatry, including the nature of psychiatric conditions, psychiatric practices and research, and ameliorative projects. The final section of the paper indicates future directions for (...) philosophical research of epistemic injustices and psychiatry, concerning neurocognitive disorders, identity prejudices in psychiatric illness, concepts of epistemic privilege in psychiatry, and the prospects for combining phenomenological psychopathology and epistemic justice. We argue that much remains to be done in the conceptualization of these epistemic injustices and suggest that this future work should be multidisciplinary in character and sensitive to the phenomenology of psychiatric conditions. (shrink)

The author traces the ways in which various patients and collective associations of patients come to regard themselves as the users of future stem cell technologies. The author uses Althusser’s notion of interpellation, whereby an identity is the result of the situated encounter of a subject and an authority, to analyze the ways in which patient associations’ current involvement with basic research is related to the enactment of science as a series of technology development projects. The author argues (...) that this ‘‘project-ness’’ forms a certain privileged logic that interpellates patients and their associations in specific ways. Through the listings of illnesses circulated in the mass media, which are hoped to be treatable or curable with stem cell therapies, patients come to recognize themselves as the projected users of stem cell technologies. The author fleshes out the process of this userfication and the various responses made by patients and their associations when hailed by the entrepreneurial projects of stem cell research. (shrink)

Using interviews and group discussions, researchers and students from the Free University of Berlin and psychological practitioners work together in a project called 'The Analysis of Psychological Practice', theoretically based on 'Critical Psychology'. The aim is to find out whether and how practitioners deal with the contradictions between experimental-statistical orientation of traditional academic psychology and the single-case-orientation of psychological practice. Can practitioners relate to 'scientific' psychology at all? How do they deal with the contradiction that psychological practitioners are expected to (...) cure psychological problems without having the possibility to change objective conditions with reference to which alone psychological problems are understandable? How are 'official' academic or clinical theories and individual or team-related experiences combined? What can we learn from the explication and development of a 'social-subjective knowledge of the context and contradictions' of professional practitioners of psychology? We discuss theoretical foundations and problems in the empirical development of the project, and resent - from our workshop - three examples or dimensions of our work: life problems, problems of and alternatives to traditional diagnostics, and common sense normative ideas in the guise of psychological theories. (shrink)

Modern science is increasingly focused on research that solves specific technological problems. In the world literature there are different, but generally similar, names for such studies. For example, German and Russian researchers use the term «problem-oriented research», the names «mission-oriented research», research as a response to «great challenges» and «frontier research», «science mode 2» are also used. In Ukraine, particularly in the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the name «targeted research programs» and «targeted (...) scientific (scientific and technical) projects» are used. The article analyzes features of targeted research and the status of the obtained knowledge. It emphasizes their direct involvement in the social sphere — economic, political, social relations in general, because they are the basis of modern technology and their development is interested in the general public — producers and consumers of material goods. The knowledge obtained in these studies is knowledge «to order», which requires a solution to the relationship between basic and applied research, the principles of professional activity of scientists, «academic freedoms», changes in epistemological, socio-humanitarian principles of science as a social institution. In the professional activity of a scientist, the praxeologization of science requires an orientation on the humanity of the produced knowledge, which, in fact, is a combination of knowledge about nature with knowledge about human. In this case, the scientist must be an expert in related disciplines. The organizers of targeted research solve this situation through the collective implementation of research, or, as expressed by R. Florida, the use of «social intelligence». At the same time, the latter requires from the scientist, as a specialist, not only purely professional competencies but also individual psychological skills of work (creativity) in an interdisciplinary team (mutual assistance, tolerance, empathy, etc.) and interaction with the transdisciplinary community. Otherwise, the profession of a scientist becomes socially engaged in terms of competencies and activities, and the leader in the research team performs moderative rather than directive functions. Although targeted research programs are becoming widespread, leading in solving urgent practical problems, but in the scientific field, a balance must be maintained between research «to order» and research that will be the basis for future development of science and society. (shrink)

_Radical Research_ explores the view that research is not a neutral tool to be employed without bias in the search for truth. Rather the radical roots of research are to be seen in the focus on freedom and emancipation from blind allegiance to tradition, ‘common sense’, religion, or powerful individuals and organisations. _Radical Research_ introduces and draws upon leading contemporary debates and data gathered from a diversity of funded projects in; health, education, police training, youth and community, schools, (...) business, and the use of information technology. This book presents a radical view of research in a way that enables both beginner and the experienced professional researcher to explore its approaches in the formation of their own views and practices. It progressively leads the reader from discussions of case studies to critical explorations of the philosophical and methodological concepts, theories and arguments that are central to contemporary debates. In essence, this book shows how to design, develop and write radical research under conditions where ‘normal’ research rules apply and it offers a ground-breaking and proven alternative to traditional research techniques. (shrink)

We are living in an era of development and innovation through research and learning. The nation that has achieved its development goals, has done through education reforms and a keen focus on strengthening its National Innovation System. In Pakistan, this role has fallen to the Higher Education Commission, commonly known as HEC. The Higher Education Commission has attempted various activities for ceaseless improvement of the nature of advanced education as per the worldwide norms and to patch up (...) post-auxiliary instruction to improve the instructive guidelines at the alumni level. Public Academy for Higher Education has been built up with the mean to plan and convey nonexclusive and need-based limit building and preparing programs in instructing and exploration for personnel just as a spotlight on scholastic administration and authority for the workforce and the board. Education Testing Council has additionally been modified to normalize passage tests for the universities of Pakistan. The study focuses on the different programs run by HEC to develop the country’s formal learning program and education sector. Since its commencement, we investigate various projects created by HEC to encourage Higher Education Institutions and build up a superior staff for this reason. (shrink)

This paper explores influential factors for research and development project success as a result of knowledge flows rising from a trust‐based mechanism within and outside the project. Project success is herein defined in terms of results obtained and partner commitment. A sample of 85 organizations involved in 17 European research and development projects under the fifth Framework Programme focused on fuel cell technology projects is used to test the hypotheses. Results provide several insights. First, organizations should (...) take care of trust as the mechanism supporting internal knowledge flows arising from projects in which they are directly involved; second, external R&D ties arise from a kind of interlocking partner mechanism, but the latter does not contribute to the focal project success. (shrink)

Intersemiotic projection is one of the most common configurations in the knowledge construction process of academic comics. Although previous studies address some general features of intersemiotic projection, further research on interdependency relations of intersemiotic projection is needed in order to map out the whole system. This study, based on the social-semiotic approach to multimodal studies, proposes a systemic framework of image-text paratactic and hypotactic projection in academic comics. This framework identifies three sub-categories of paratactic projection and hypotactic projection, respectively: (...) Emergent, Adjoined, Sequential, Compound, Subsumed, and Fused. The use of these projection configurations contributes to the realization of the communicative purposes of academic comics to evidence, exemplify, emphasize, explain, elaborate, and visualize the discussed knowledge. This research attempts not only to contribute to the theoretical development of multimodality from the social-semiotic perspective by refining and enlarging the multimodal hypotactic projection framework but also to provide an effective and applicable tool for comics analysis. (shrink)

This Teacher Education Project is an intervention research aimed at creating new school roles for educating students as readers and writers as well as citizens. The methodological framework was based on Vygotsky’s discussions of method as praxis, as well as on both the Marxist practical–materialistic–revolutionary activity and Engeström’s extensions of Cultural Historical Activity Theory. The work at school was motivated by students’ limited awareness of reading and writing. The goal was to involve the school as a community in understanding (...) and transforming the ways in which reading and writing were addressed in classrooms. The methodology used for organizing and carrying out the project was devised so as to allow for three activity systems that partially interact with their objects – that is, reading and writing as tools for teaching-learning in different areas in order to constitute students as citizens. However, for this paper, we will focus solely on the Teacher Education Activity System, which we termed Teacher Support Team. Three episodes are discussed in this paper: Two video sessions with the Teacher Support Team, the first of which took place in 2010, and the second in 2011; and a classroom reading class session that was videotaped in 2011 as part of the Teacher Support Team work. The theoretical and practical work developed was targeted at creating a mutual Zone of Proximal Development that supported teachers, coordinators, and the principal, through the appropriation of reading and writing as processes. The results show that the organization of the project as interrelated activity systems enhanced the entire school’s prospects of appropriating the reading and writing teaching-learning processes, by focusing on the same object, in the diverse systems that framed the project. (shrink)

Researchers and others involved in the research enterprise from 12 African countries met with those working in ethics and oversight in the United States as part of an effort to develop research ethics capacity. Drawing on a wealth of experience among participants, discussions at the meeting revealed five categories of issues that warrant careful attention by those engaged in similar efforts as well as international policymakers and those charged with oversight of research. (1) Principal investigators should build (...) ‘true research teams’ where members of the team are meaningfully involved in decisions regarding the protocol and its implementation. (2)There should be explicit discussion about the ‘standard of care’ at the outset of project planning that includes clarification of the terminology that is being used. (3) While internationally collaborative research may involve populations that have inherent vulnerabilities, it is important to recognize the limitations of host country solutions (such as elaborated consent processes) and look for means to negotiate appropriate protections for those willing to participate. (4) In conducting research involving biological materials it would be prudent to develop material transfer agreements at the outset of the study to clarify expectations and to minimize the likelihood of harm. (5) Those engaged in internationally collaborative research need to be alert to the potential conflicts of interests of host country ethics committees during the approval process and to take measures to manage them if they indeed exist. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pathogen led to a fast expanding pandemic because it proved lethal in certain populations but could be transmitted by persons who appeared healthy. As a result, researchers came under unprecedented time pressure to develop a vaccine. This case study focuses on the first COVID-19 vaccine, which was approved for use in humans, known as Comirnaty, the BioNTech-Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine or Vaccine BNT162b2. With the benefit of hindsight, we show how close collaboration with regulators and trust-based decisions meant that (...) the race for a COVID-19 vaccine was won without purposefully infecting healthy participants with an infectious agent that can cause severe illness or death and for which no rescue therapy had existed. (shrink)

BackgroundCommunities’ engagement in priority-setting is a key means for setting research topics and questions of relevance and benefit to them. However, without attention to dynamics of power and diversity, their engagement can be tokenistic. So far, there remains limited ethical guidance on how to share power with communities, particularly those considered disadvantaged and marginalised, in global health research priority-setting. This paper generates a comprehensive, empirically-based “ethical toolkit” to provide such guidance, further strengthening a previously proposed checklist version of (...) the toolkit. The toolkit places community engagement and power-sharing at the heart of priority-setting for global health research projects.MethodsA two part method was used to generate a revised toolkit. Part one was conceptual, consisting of novel analysis of empirical data (previously collected as part of the same overall project) to identify additional concepts relevant to power-sharing between researchers and communities in global health research priority-setting. Part two was empirical, seeking feedback on the initial checklist version of the toolkit in interviews with researchers, ethicists, community engagement practitioners, and community organisation staff.ResultsThe conceptual process identified two additional components of engagement and six additional features that affect who defines, who participates, and who is heard in research priority-setting. New ethical considerations related to sharing power in global health research priority-setting are articulated in relation to those components and features. Interviewees provided suggestions for revising the toolkit’s content and language. The implications of these suggestions and the analytic process for the toolkit are described.ConclusionsThe resultant toolkit is a reflective project planning aid for researchers and their community partners to employ before priority-setting is undertaken for global health research projects. It consists of three worksheets (to be completed collectively) and a companion document detailing how to use them. It is more comprehensive than the initial toolkit, as worksheet questions for discussion cover all phases of priority-setting. (shrink)

This project is based on the unique ‘Shared ethical debate’ between NHS RECs in the UK in which one research application is reviewed by several research ethics committees. This programme is now in its 6th cycle. In the fifth cycle a prison- based research project was reviewed by each of three NHS RECs that are ‘ flagged’ for such research and their debate and discussions were observed directly by one researcher who recorded the committee processes and (...) the issues raised in committee. Subsequently a focus group of REC members from all three committees was constituted to consider the ethical importance of these issues. The three RECs were consistent in both process and identifying ethical issues. The focus group formulated a basic framework that will further contribute to ensuring a consistent and balanced approach to ethical review within this area of research. (shrink)

In Anthropology in the Making, Laurent Vidal takes the reader into the world of research in the fields of health and development, providing a fresh and provocative perspective on the practice of anthropology. This volume investigates the "science of otherness" across four multi-disciplinary research projects in Africa, examining the practices of health workers, the behaviors of patients, and the organization and management of health systems struggling with AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Balancing epistemological considerations with the practical concerns (...) thrown up by real-life situations, Vidal explores the researcher's choices - of method, objective, and terrain. (shrink)

In this paper we recount several research projects conducted at ImaginationLancaster a Design-led research laboratory, all of which consider Object-Oriented Ontology. The role OOO plays in these projects is varied: as a generative mechanism contributing to ideation; as a framework for analysis; and as a constituent in developing new design theory. Each project’s focus is quite unique—an app, a board game, a set of Tarot cards, a kettle and a living room—however they are all concerned with developing new (...) understandings relating to the ubiquitous, networked, ‘smart’ technologies which are often referred to as the Internet of Things. Through our reflexive account of these research projects the aim of this paper is to provide insights into, and promote new discussion about, the relevance and scope for OOO in socio-technical Design Research, and beyond. (shrink)

This textbook describes and explains the fundamentals of applying empirical methods for theory building and theory testing in marketing research. The authors explain the foundations in philosophy of science and the various methodological approaches to readers who are working empirically with the purpose of developing and testing theories in marketing. The primary target group of the book are graduate students and PhD students who are preparing their empirical research projects, e.g. for a master thesis or a dissertation.

This dissertation articulates and defends a conception of philosophical anthropology by reading Martin Heidegger’s ‘analytic of Dasein’ as an exemplary case of it and developing its account of anxiety and boredom. I define philosophical anthropology in distinction to empirical anthropology, which I argue is concerned with specificity and difference. Anthropology investigates human beings and their societies in their historical specificity, situated in context, thereby contributing to the understanding of the differences between human beings and their societies across the world and (...) throughout history. Philosophical anthropology, however, concerns the commonality between human beings. It questions at a more abstract level, asking what being a human being is like in general, what structures every case of human existence, what is common to all instances of it. It attempts to account for the structures of human existence and generate conceptual frameworks and vocabularies for describing and analyzing human life. I claim philosophical anthropology and empirical anthropology can complement, make use of and relate productively to each other, two sides of the same coin in the investigation of human existence. After outlining my conception of philosophical anthropology, I show how Heidegger engages in it in Being and Time’s ‘analytic of Dasein’ and other texts of the late 1920s that followed shortly after and continue this sort of project. Heidegger himself, emphatically and repeatedly throughout his career, opposed this reading of his work, but I will show that his most significant arguments in support of this opposition are unconvincing. I then critically develop one aspect of his analysis: its account of what I call the ‘revelatory moods’ of anxiety and boredom. Heidegger theorizes a variety of these moods as involving intense, profound experiences of total meaninglessness, with the very significance of the world receding from us. These experiences convey important insights to us about what it means to exist as human beings. In a brief passage, without arguing for it, Heidegger claims that joy is also a revelatory mood in the same sense, despite its seeming very different from anxiety and boredom. I critically develop Heidegger’s account to theorize joy as a revelatory mood, supplementing his analysis and deepening its usefulness as a philosophical anthropology. Heidegger gives us a conceptual framework for analyzing important human affective phenomena, interpreting their existential significance and their function in the context of our lives. I conclude with a corollary investigation into the relevance that my conception of philosophical anthropology might have to Cognitive Science. I argue, drawing on the work of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Mark Rowlands, that philosophical anthropology could aid Cognitive Science in the construction of what Imre Lakatos called a ‘hard core’ – something that has recently been argued to be problematically missing in Cognitive Science. A ‘hard core’ is a set of refutationresistant principles, conceptions or theories around which a coherent scientific research program can take place. I show that the work of philosophical anthropologists could be useful in debating and deciding what needs to be included in Cognitive Science’s hard core. (shrink)

This paper reports on the design and implementation of a multi-phase interactive process among a set of scientists, policy makers, land managers, and community representatives, so as to facilitate communication, mutual understanding, and participative decision making. This was part of the Ecosystem Services Project in Australia. The project sought to broaden public understanding about the natural ecosystems in Australia. The study reported here pertains to one of the project sites--the Goulburn Broken catchment, a highly productive agricultural watershed in the south-east (...) of Australia. The paper demonstrates how, starting from a condition of diversity of ideas and interests among the participants, systematic dialogue and mutual learning could be generated, leading to identification of options for more sustainable land management practices. The concept of "ecosystem services" was used as an integrative tool across disciplines and community perspectives. The concept of scenarios was used to encourage future-focussed thinking among the participants. The idea of "stakeholder jury" was used to promote deliberation. A process of multi-criteria evaluation was used to facilitate convergence of viewpoints, through informed trade-offs and compromises. This experience led to the development of a process for integration research, which helped in harmonising across diverse understandings and values in a transparent and structured manner. (shrink)

The integration of a Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) approach to food systems can contribute to redirect research and innovation toward the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 - Zero hunger - as well as other intertwined SDGs. Even though the scientific literature bridging RRI and food systems has grown over the past years, no critical reviews of this scholarship are currently available. This paper fills this gap by producing a critical review of the scientific literature on RRI (...) in food systems that has been published between 2017 and 2023. Our search led to a selection of 47 research articles that were analysed for this review. Our findings show that studies in this scholarship have focused on the stages of inputs/agricultural production, with a focus on digital technologies for agriculture. When analysing the motivations for applying RRI, we found that this varied from reasons that are more market-related, such as increasing technologies’ societal acceptance, to a reorientation of food systems towards the tackling of societal challenges. Concerning the conceptualization of RRI in food systems, we found that scholars relied on a widely known definition, but its interpretation varied greatly among the studies. Finally, we analysed how RRI has been applied in this literature and found that while some scholars provided examples of responsible innovation, others applied it to analyse innovation governance, and others used RRI to analyze research projects or innovations to ‘improve’ their alignment with this concept. Overall, this literature review showed that there is a need to develop more collaborative and reflexive work to unlock RRI’s potential to inform policy and practice that can foster more responsive and inclusive food systems capable of achieving SDG2. (shrink)

RESUMEN Introducción: La dimensión ambiental constituye un proceso esencial en la formación de profesionales, de modo que en el desempeño de su profesión puedan educar hacia el desarrollo sostenible a las futuras generaciones. Objetivo: Representar en un modelo pedagógico la lógica de la dimensión ambiental en la formación laboral investigativa de los profesionales en la universidad. Materiales y métodos: Se utilizaron métodos teóricos, empíricos y matemáticos-estadísticos. Resultados: Elaboración del modelo pedagógico de dimensión ambiental en la formación laboral investigativa de los (...) profesionales en formación. El modelo está estructurado en tres subsistemas: uno teórico, se centra en la integración de saberes pedagógico ambientales a partir de las relaciones que se establecen entre sus componentes, otro metodológico, el cual resume la proyección ambiental de la formación laboral investigativa y un subsistema procedimental, que manifiesta la instrumentación transformadora ambiental que debe ocurrir en los estudiantes. El modelo aporta una cualidad sinérgica que le imprime identidad, totalidad y contribuye a su autodesarrollo. Conclusiones: Con la elaboración del modelo se revelan nuevas interpretaciones que se manifiestan como relaciones teóricas funcionales surgidas entre los componentes de los subsistemas que lo integran y a la vez, entre los subsistemas como macro componentes. La validación del modelo resultó estadísticamente significativa, mediante la instrumentación de una estrategia pedagógica para la dimensión ambiental en la formación laboral investigativa. ABSTRACT Introduction: The environmental component is an essential process in the training of professionals, that enables them to educate future generations towards sustainable development. Objective: To represent in a pedagogical model the logic of the environmental dimension in the research training of professionals. Materials and methods: Theoretical, empirical and mathematical-statistical methods were used. Findings: The development of the pedagogical model of environmental dimension in research and labor training of professionals. The model is structured in three subsystems: the first focuses on the integration of environmental pedagogical knowledge from the relationships established between its components; the second is of a methodological character and summarizes the environmental projection of research training; whereas the third one is procedural, expressing the environmental transformative instrumentation that must occur in students. The model provides a synergistic quality that consolidates identity, totality and contributes to its self-development. Conclusions: With the elaboration of the model new interpretations are revealed that are manifested as functional theoretical relations arising between the components of the subsystems that integrate it and at the same time, between the subsystems as macro components. The evaluation of the model was statistically significant, through the instrumentation of a pedagogical strategy for the environmental dimension in the research and labor training. (shrink)

Genomics is increasingly becoming an integral component of health research and clinical care. The perceived difficulties associated with genetic research involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people mean that they have largely been excluded as research participants. This limits the applicability of research findings for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients. Emergent use of genomic technologies and personalised medicine therefore risk contributing to an increase in existing health disparities unless urgent action is taken. To allow the (...) potential benefits of genomics to be more equitably distributed, and minimise potential harms, we recommend five actions: ensure diversity of participants by implementing appropriate protocols at the study design stage; target diseases that disproportionately affect disadvantaged groups; prioritise capacity building to promote Indigenous leadership across research professions; develop resources for consenting patients or participants from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds; and integrate awareness of issues relating to Indigenous people into the governance structures, formal reviews, data collection protocols and analytical pipelines of health services and research projects. (shrink)

Company–community agreements are widely considered to be a practical mechanism for recognising the rights, needs and priorities of peoples impacted by mining, for managing impacts and ensuring that mining-derived benefits are shared. The use and application of company–community agreements is increasing globally. Notwithstanding the utility of these agreements, the gender dimensions of agreement processes in mining have rarely been studied. Prior research on women and mining demonstrates that women are often more adversely impacted by mining than men, and face (...) greater challenges in accessing development opportunities that mining can bring. Nonetheless, there is currently little guidance for companies, government or communities in bringing a gender perspective to the fore in mining and agreement processes. It is undisputed in human development literature that investment in women and sensitivity to gender delivers long-term health, education and local development outcomes. In mining and development, a number of key factors remain unexplored. These include: women’s participation in agreement processes, the gendered distribution of agreement benefits, and the extent to which impacts and benefits influence women’s development and economic inclusion. This paper presents the results of the first phase of an applied research project undertaken by the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining at The University of Queensland and funded by the Minerals Council of Australia and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The project sought to connect with experienced practitioners who had been directly involved in mining and agreement processes to document and analyse grounded perspectives on gender dynamics and agreements, and connect those experiences with the broader literature. Findings from this study have implications for the role of mining companies and governments in promoting gender equality and empowerment as part of their commitments to sustainable development. They also have implications for community groups and their representatives in terms of how they might engage in agreement processes to maximise women’s participation and influence. In many social contexts, a key challenge will be navigating the territory of cultural norms and gender equality, particularly in cultures where women’s influence in the public sphere is not strong. The authors argue that without consideration of a gender perspective, including gender’s intersection with other factors such as class, race, poverty level, ethnic group and age, mining agreements will not be inclusive, may exacerbate gender inequalities, and fail to contribute to long-term sustainable development. (shrink)

A growing volume of research from global data demonstrates that institutional care under conditions of deprivation is profoundly damaging to children, particularly during the critical early years of development. However, how these individuals develop over a life course remains unclear. This study uses data from a survey on the health and development of 420 children mostly under the age of three, placed in 12 infant care institutions between 1958 and 1961 in Zurich, Switzerland. The children exhibited significant (...) delays in cognitive, social, and motor development in the first years of life. Moreover, a follow-up of a subsample of 143 children about 10 years later revealed persistent difficulties, including depression, school related-problems, and stereotypies. Between 2019 and 2021, these formerly institutionalized study participants were located through the Swiss population registry and invited to participate once again in the research project. Now in their early sixties, they are studied for their health, further development, and life-course trajectories. A mixed-methods approach using questionnaires, neuropsychological assessments, and narrative biographical interviews was implemented by a multidisciplinary team. Combining prospective and retrospective data with standardized quantitative and biographical qualitative data allows a rich reconstruction of life histories. The availability of a community sample from the same geographic location, the 1954–1961 cohort of the Zurich Longitudinal Studies, described in detail in a paper in this issue, enables comparison with an unaffected cohort. This article describes the study design and study participants in detail and discusses the potential and limitations of a comparison with a community sample. It outlines a set of challenges and solutions encountered in the process of a lifespan longitudinal study from early childhood into the cusp of old age with a potentially vulnerable sample and summarizes the lessons learned along the way. (shrink)

Current medical genetics research is dominated by a single theory that supports the Human Genome Project rationale. This thesis investigates this and several alternative hypotheses and the ethical context related to their development. Firstly, the hypotheses are discussed in detail followed by a subsection in which research evidence based on each hypothesis is cited. Secondly, these medical genetics hypotheses are situated within the contemporary medical paradigm. To conclude, the thesis examines in depth the ethical and practical implications (...) of medical genetics research. A framework of analysis of scientific responsibility is used to explore these implications. Scientific responsibility, as presented in this thesis, is a process consisting of three steps: scientific discourse; the development of the nature of scientific responsibility; and, effective criticism. Once scientific responsibility is defined, the term is applied specifically to the field of medical genetics research. (shrink)

We discuss the implementation of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) within a project for the development of an AI-supported exergame for assisted movement training, outline outcomes and reflect on methodological opportunities and limitations. We adopted the responsibility-by-design (RbD) standard (CEN CWA 17796:2021) supplemented by methods for collaborative, ethical reflection to foster and support a shift towards a culture of trustworthiness inherent to the entire development process. An embedded ethicist organised the procedure to instantiate a collaborative learning effort (...) and implement RRI in a translational context. Within the interdisciplinary setting of the collaboration and with the support of a technoethicist, we successfully identified relevant, project-specific challenges and developed a roadmap with derived actions, thus meaningfully integrating RRI into the development process. We discuss the methodological procedure in terms of its effectiveness and efficiency, the allocation of responsibilities and roles, particularly regarding potential frictions in the interdisciplinary context with embedded ethics, and the challenges of the translational context. We conclude that the responsibility-by-design standard effectively established a productive workflow for collaborative investigation and work on ethical challenges. We reflect on methodological difficulties and propose possible avenues to our approach. (shrink)

Three early 20th-century attempts at unifying separate areas of biology, in particular development, genetics, physiology, and evolution, are compared in regard to their success and fruitfulness for further research: Jacques Loeb’s reductionist project of unifying approaches by physico-chemical explanations; Richard Goldschmidt’s anti-reductionist attempts to unify by integration; and Sewall Wright’s combination of reductionist research and vision of hierarchical genetic systems. Loeb’s program, demanding that all aspects of biology, including evolution, be studied by the methods of the experimental (...) sciences, proved highly successful and indispensible for higher level investigations, even though evolutionary change and properties of biological systems up to now cannot be fully explained on the molecular level alone. Goldschmidt has been appraised as pioneer of physiological and developmental genetics and of a new evolutionary synthesis which transcended neo-Darwinism. However, this study concludes that his anti-reductionist attempts to integrate genetics, development and evolution have to be regarded as failures or dead ends. His grand speculations were based on the one hand on concepts and experimental systems that were too vague in order to stimulate further research, and on the other on experiments which in their core parts turned out not to be reproducible. In contrast, Sewall Wright, apart from being one of the architects of the neo-Darwinian synthesis of the 1930s, opened up new paths of testable quantitative developmental genetic investigations. He placed his research within a framework of logical reasoning, which resulted in the farsighted speculation that examinations of biological systems should be related to the regulation of hierarchical genetic subsystems, possibly providing a mechanism for development and evolution. I argue that his suggestion of basing the study of systems on clearly defined properties of the components has proved superior to Goldschmidt’s approach of studying systems as a whole, and that attempts to integrate different fields at a too early stage may prove futile or worse. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. (shrink)

The ethics of research projects has become a central aspect in the discussion of how research is conceived and planned in social work and the broader social sciences. Ethics committees play an impo...

Information and communication technologies are increasingly used for development in the Global South, and mHealth plays key role. This paper analyzes the particular relationship to science that characterizes a global maternal mHealth program deployed in Ghana and India. Using science and technology studies, this research relies on qualitative interviews conducted between 2014 and 2016 with funders, implementers, and beneficiaries of this mHealth program. This story begins with a randomized controlled trial, a biomedical experiment with a strong positioning regarding (...) science and the production of evidence. But rapidly the scientific stance disappears to give way to the testing and marketing of a product for the digital economy. From science to market, this paper offers to revisit a classical STS topic through the lens of mHealth. It shows how the various experimental forms taken by this project fundamentally diverge from scientific methods and evidence production and at the same time how it nurtures an ongoing instrumental relationship with science. Thus, from clinical research to product marketing, this paper highlights the tenuous link between evidence-based and market-based mHealth in the Global South. (shrink)

The subject of this study are the architectural and urban planning projects of the scientific town of Pushchino of the USSR Academy of Sciences, developed in the second half of the 20th century. It focuses on high-rise accents planned in the master plans from the 1950s to the 1980s, which, though never realized, played a crucial organizing role in the city's developmental compositions over the years. These "paper" projects significantly influenced the actual architectural ensemble of the city. Specific changes in (...) the creative concepts are correlated with personnel shifts within the team that developed the projects for Pushchino. The dynamics and direction of architectural searches are considered within the broad context of the history of Soviet architecture and are compared with global processes and the positions of architectural theorists and philosophers. The research employs a formal and comparative analysis method, structured historically to segment the creative process into periods that reflect both the subject of the research and the broader historical and architectural context of the era. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the comprehensive analysis of numerous urban planning and architectural projects, gathered through extensive research in state and personal archives. This allowed for the first time to consider the work of architects on the planning projects of Pushchino as a dynamic process, revealing changes that occurred at each of its stages. Through the analysis of the development of “paper” dominants, wandering from project to project, changes in the global urban planning concepts of the city were traced. Consequently, the article provides insights into the development of urban planning in Pushchino, viewed through the lens of high-rise accents. It also paves the way for further research into other aspects of the process, contributing to a more comprehensive and profound understanding of urban architectural development. (shrink)

In social and organizational research, theory is conventionally used to explain social phenomena. However, theory may be transformative in the sense that in using and testing the theory in a practical domain, researchers may attempt to help practitioners transform and improve their social practices and institutions. This idea is illustrated by a research-and-development project in Denmark, headed by the author, which used transformative theory to design professional conferences that are more conducive to participant learning and involvement than (...) is the conventional, lecture-based format. A number of learning techniques were derived from the theory and were tested as hypotheses: When implemented in thirty live conference experiments, did they contribute to learning, as specified by the theory? Used in this manner, transformative theory may supplement the aspirations motivating change agents by some of the well-known qualities of scientific research, including theoretical grounding, a coherent ontology, testable hypotheses, systematic evaluation, external validity, and theory–action consistency. (shrink)

The publication of this unique three-volume set represents the culmination of years of work by a large number of scholars, researchers, and professionals in the field of moral development. The literature on moral behavior and development has grown to the point where it is no longer possible to capture the “state of the art” in a single volume. This comprehensive multi-volume Handbook marks an important transition because it provides evidence that the field has emerged as an area of (...) scholarly activity in its own right. Spanning many professional domains, there is a striking variety of issues and topics surveyed: anthropology, biology, economics, education, philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, social work, and more. By bringing together work on diverse topics, the editors have fostered a mutually-beneficial exchange not only between alternative approaches and perspectives, but also between “applied” and “pure” research interests. The Theory volume presents current and ongoing theoretical advances focusing on new developments or substantive refinements and revisions to existing theoretical frameworks. The Research volume summarizes and interprets the findings of specific, theory-driven, research programs; reviews research in areas that have generated substantial empirical findings; describes recent developments in research methodology/techniques; and reports research on new and emerging issues. The Application volume describes a diverse array of intervention projects — educational, clinical, organizational, and the like. Each chapter includes a summary report of results and findings, conceptual developments, and emerging issues or topics. Since the contributors to this publication are active theorists, researchers, and practitioners, it may serve to define directions that will shape the emerging literature in the field. (shrink)

In order to fully implement the new development concept, bring into full play the potential of sports development, and maintain the resilience of China’s sports development. This paper studies the resilience evaluation and spatial correlation of Chinese sports development under the new development concept. First, we constructed Resilience Evaluation Indexes System for Sports Development in China based on the analysis of the resilience features of sports development and the DPSIR model, which is from (...) the five aspects of “driving force – pressure – state – influence – response.” Second, used Coefficient of Variation and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution Method to measure the resilience level of sports development in 31 provinces in China from 2013 to 2017. Then, we introduced the obstacle degree model to identify the obstacle factors that hinder the resilience of Chinese sports development in different periods. Finally, we used the global and local Moran indexes to analyze the spatial correlation of China sports regional development. The results showed that: overall, the development level of sports resilience in 31 provinces in China showed an upward trend from 2013 to 2017, while some provinces showed obvious fluctuations. The obstacles to the development of sports resilience in China mainly include sports scientific research equipment, the number of national fitness monitoring stations, the number of national fitness centers, the full-time equivalent of personnel, and the number of sports scientific research projects. The response subsystem is the main obstacle factor that affects the improvement of the resilience level of sports development in China. There is a positive spatial autocorrelation between the resilience level of sports development and regional spatial distribution, and the correlation shows a weakening trend, and the internal difference is significant. Finally, we concluded that we must take the new development philosophy as the guiding principle. First, we should stick to innovation-driven development to fully upgrade the resilience of China’s sports development. Second, we should adhere to the principle of coordinated development to promote the overall and balanced development of sports. Lastly, we should promote shared development so as to deliver benefits for all in an equal way. (shrink)