If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -This paper has a twofold aim. Firstly, to give some insight into competitive intelligence practices in a little-explored area in the field of competitive intelligence: the higher education sector. Secondly, to find out more about the factors influencing competitive intelligence practices, since little research on this subject has been published. Design/methodology/approach -The investigation used a mixed-methods approach, including face-to-face, semi structured interviews with 47 university managers (degree coordinators, deans and vice-rectors), followed by a semi-structured questionnaire carried out with 400 degree coordinators and deans and analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. The interviews informed the questionnaire design. Findings -The survey confirms the proposed framework's usefulness for analysing the enabler and inhibitor factors in an organisation for promoting efficient competitive intelligence practice and also gives some insight into which factors enable or inhibit the efficacy of competitive intelligence practices in Spanish universities.Research limitations/implications -The research focused on degree design adapted to the EHEA. A larger study designed to focus on other management areas in universities would provide a fuller picture of factors influencing competitive intelligence practices. Practical implications -The findings indicate the areas where universities could plan actions to optimise intelligence activities, make the most of them and stand out from the rest. Originality/value -This paper sets out a framework to describe factors related to intelligence function and cycle. In addition, the study reveals which indicators act as enablers or inhibitors for competitive intelligence practices and takes account of some of the particular features of the higher education sector. IntroductionCompetitive intelligence (CI) is a methodology for managing strategic information in order to create actionable knowledge (Brody, 2008;Bergeron and Hiller, 2002;

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to summarise previous studies to develop a theoretical framework useful to describe and classify competitive intelligence (CI) practices. It is applied to study CI practices developed by Spanish universities, comparing usual practices with those developed during the process of adaptation of degrees to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), with strong challenges. Design/methodology/approach – The research employs a mixed-methods approach (semi-structured interviews and questionnaires) developed in two phases. It has focused on the academic offer, which represents 46.35 per cent of the degrees presented in 2009, belonging to 90.16 per cent of Spanish universities. Findings – The results reveal predominance of incipient and reactive practices, oriented to the tactical level. During the adaptation process, these practices evolved due to the perception of the involvement of universities in the adaptation process. In addition, the proposed theoretical framework could be a tool to study CI both in other university management areas and other kind of organisations. Research limitations/implications – This research has been applied only to a critic incident: the design of university academic offer to be adapted to the EHEA. More studies about CI practices in other areas of universities should be done, using the same framework proposed in this study. Practical implications – This framework based on research done in business sector can be applied to any kind or organisations, including NGO and public sectors. Originality/value – Management tools used in the business sector, such as CI, have been adopted by Higher Educations Institutions, but while CI has been studied in depth in the business sector, it has scarcely been studied in higher education. This framework can be applied to any kind or organisations.

Cómo citar este artículo/Citation: Ortoll, E.; Canals, A.; Garcia, M. y Cobarsí, J. (2014). Principales parámetros para el estudio de la colaboración científica en big science. Revista Española de Documentación Científica, 37(4): e069. doi: http://dx.doi. org/10.3989/redc.2014.4.1142Resumen: En varias áreas de la ciencia se ha pasado de trabajar en experimentos reducidos a participar en grandes y complejas colaboraciones. Muchos de los grandes avances científicos recientes como la secuenciación del genoma humano o el descubrimiento del bosón de Higgs se enmarcan en el paradigma denominado big science. El estudio de la colaboración científica debe tener en cuenta los factores de todo tipo que influyen en dicha colaboración. Los experimentos de big science inciden especialmente en algunos de estos aspectos: volumen de instituciones implicadas, diferencias culturales, diversidad de espacios e infraestructuras o la propia conceptualización del problema de investigación. Atendiendo a estas particularidades, en este trabajo presentamos un conjunto de parámetros para el análisis de la colaboración científica en proyectos big science. Ilustramos la utilidad de esos parámetros mediante un estudio comparativo de dos grandes proyectos de big science: el experimento ATLAS y el Proyecto Genoma Humano.Palabras clave: colaboración científica; big science; cienciometria; redes científicas; organización científica; infraestructura científica; grandes experimentos. Main parameters for the study of scientific collaboration in big scienceAbstract: In several scientific disciplines research has shifted from experiments of a reduced scale to large and complex collaborations. Many recent scientific achievements like the human genome sequencing or the discovery of the Higgs boson have taken place within the "big science" paradigm. The study of scientific collaboration needs to take into account all the diverse factors that have an influence on it. In the case of big science experiments, some of those aspects are particularly important: number of institutions involved, cultural differences, diversity of spaces and infrastructures or the conceptualization of research problems. By considering these specific factors we present a set of parameters for the analysis of scientific collaboration in big science projects. The utility of these parameters is illustrated through a comparative study of two large big science projects: the ATLAS experiment and the Human Genome Project.

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