Changing Struggles for Relevance in Eight Fields of Natural Science

Hessels, Laurens K.; Lente, Harro van; Grin, John; Smits, Ruud

doi:10.5367/ihe.2011.0056

Cited by 13 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 26 publications

(23 reference statements)

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“…For example, Chavarro et al [ 55 ] found that locally relevant knowledge in a developing country such as Colombia tends to be associated with distal IDR (higher balance and disparity, lower variety) rather than with proximal IDR. Hessels et al [ 66 , 67 ] have empirically documented across various fields the tensions that researchers focused on societal issues experience against when subject to bibliometric evaluations. One can thus speculate of a lack of alignment between reward incentives in academia (citations) and societal needs or demands [ 68 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Interdisciplinary Research Lead to Higher Citation Impact? The Different Effect of Proximal and Distal Interdisciplinarity

2015

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This article analyses the effect of degree of interdisciplinarity on the citation impact of individual publications for four different scientific fields. We operationalise interdisciplinarity as disciplinary diversity in the references of a publication, and rather than treating interdisciplinarity as a monodimensional property, we investigate the separate effect of different aspects of diversity on citation impact: i.e. variety, balance and disparity. We use a Tobit regression model to examine the effect of these properties of interdisciplinarity on citation impact, controlling for a range of variables associated with the characteristics of publications. We find that variety has a positive effect on impact, whereas balance and disparity have a negative effect. Our results further qualify the separate effect of these three aspects of diversity by pointing out that all three dimensions of interdisciplinarity display a curvilinear (inverted U-shape) relationship with citation impact. These findings can be interpreted in two different ways. On the one hand, they are consistent with the view that, while combining multiple fields has a positive effect in knowledge creation, successful research is better achieved through research efforts that draw on a relatively proximal range of fields, as distal interdisciplinary research might be too risky and more likely to fail. On the other hand, these results may be interpreted as suggesting that scientific audiences are reluctant to cite heterodox papers that mix highly disparate bodies of knowledge—thus giving less credit to publications that are too groundbreaking or challenging.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Interdisciplinary Research Lead to Higher Citation Impact? The Different Effect of Proximal and Distal Interdisciplinarity

2015

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“…While universities (still) dominate the performer side of publicly funded research systems (Frank & Gabler, 2006), mobility and inter-institutional collaborative efforts appear to have increased (Heinze & Kuhlmann, 2008); universities have complemented traditional organizational structures with new cross-departmental entities (Musselin, 2007); funding systems have grown increasingly complex and stimulated both truncation of research efforts in time-limited projects and the formation of new collaborative entities, sometimes with private sector involvement (Braun, 1998; Geiger & Sa, 2008). Academic science has increased its output in terms of growth in the number of publications, and research efforts have become subject to more administration and strategic planning of, for example, grant applications, publishing, outreach, collaboration, and anchoring in various organizational segments and sectors of this increasingly complex system (Deem et al, 2007; Hessels et al, 2011; Leišytė, 2007; Radder, 2010). Generally, it seems individual scientists are exposed to greater complexity and uncertainty and that a significant share of their work is today about strategic maneuvering in complex bureaucracies and fragmented disciplinary landscapes, and (partial) compliance with structures and norms alien to their professional identities (Elzinga, 2012; Schimank, 2005; Weingart, 2005; Ziman, 1994).…”

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confidence: 99%

How scientists may ‘benefit from the mess’: A resource dependence perspective on individual organizing in contemporary science

Hallonsten

2014

Social Science Information

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There is general consensus in the study of science, and especially research policy studies, that a wave of profound change has struck academic science in the past decades. Central parts of this change are increased competition, growing demands of relevance and excellence, and managerialism reforms in institutions and policy systems. The underpinning thesis of this article is that, if seen from the perspective of individual scientists, these changes are exogenous and lead to greater environmental complexity and uncertainty, which in turn induces or forces individuals towards strategic planning and organizing in order to maintain control over their own research programs. Recent empirical studies have made various worthy contributions to the understanding of the macro-level (institutions, policy and funding systems, and broader epistemic developments) and the micro-level (individual and group behavior) developments of the social system of science, but there is a lack of comprehensive conceptual tools for analysis of change and its effect on individual scientists. This article takes the first steps towards developing a conceptual scheme for use in empirical studies of the (strategic) response of individual scientists to exogenous change, based on an adaptation of Resource Dependence Theory (RDT). The intended theoretical contribution builds on conceptualization of the individual researcher as crucially able to act rationally and strategically in the face of potentially conflicting demands from a growingly unpredictable environment. Defining a basic framework for a broad future research program, the article adds to the knowledge about the recent changes to the academic research system and calls for renewed interest in organizing in science and an analysis of the complex social system of science from the perspective of its smallest performing units: individuals.

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“…In particular, researchers mention the benefits of testing the applicability of their research which helps to fine-tune their theories and technologies. In line with this finding, studies have also found that researchers engage with industrial partners to access new or specific forms of (practical) knowledge and expertise (Hessels et al, 2011; Meyer-Krahmer and Schmoch, 1998).…”

Section: Theoretical and Analytical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 66%

What can research organizations learn from their spin-off companies? Six case studies in the water sector

Hessels

Mooren²,

Bergsma

2020

Industry and Higher Education

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Spin-off companies are generally considered a promising vehicle for developing academic knowledge into products that are ready for the market. In this paper the authors explore under what circumstances spin-off companies can serve as a source of knowledge for the research organization from which they originate. The paper brings together literature from different academic fields to construct an analytical framework for investigating knowledge feedback mechanisms between spin-off companies and their parent research organizations. The authors illustrate the application of this framework in six case studies of parent–spin-off couples in the water technology sector. These case studies show that the interaction with spin-off companies can yield important cognitive benefits for the academic research process, such as an improvement of the research agenda and new insights about the practical operation of theoretical models and technologies. These benefits were facilitated mainly by staff exchange, collaborative research and personal contacts.

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Changing Struggles for Relevance in Eight Fields of Natural Science

Cited by 13 publications

References 26 publications

Does Interdisciplinary Research Lead to Higher Citation Impact? The Different Effect of Proximal and Distal Interdisciplinarity

Does Interdisciplinary Research Lead to Higher Citation Impact? The Different Effect of Proximal and Distal Interdisciplinarity

How scientists may ‘benefit from the mess’: A resource dependence perspective on individual organizing in contemporary science

What can research organizations learn from their spin-off companies? Six case studies in the water sector

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