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Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues > Science funding & policy
An examination of power paradigm controls, peer review and scholarly communication. It covers issues such as: silencing scholars within totalitarian and democratic forms of government; intellectual freedom, intellectual suppression, the big lie and the freedom to lie; and rhetoric versus reality.
British science has undergone radical transformation during the past 20 years. This is less a result of scientific discoveries per se, but rather the structure of funding and institutions. Science used to occupy a discrete socio-economic space. Scientists enjoyed the privileges of status and funding in return for the generation of knowledge. This knowledge is now regarded as a commodified product or a set of commercialized relationships. This book aims to explain the transformation of science in the UK public sector through detailed analysis of the main Government Research establishments since 1979.
This book had its genesis in Dr. Davis' remarkable editorial in the "New England Journal of Medicine" that sharply criticized medical schools for lowering their standards of admission to fill minority quotas and ultimately risking the lives of patients. Davis' position (widely held, but seldom articulated) is that the standard of medical care is an even higher ideal than the redress of past racial injustice. A passionate battle is now being fought in our universities over the freedom to pursue ideals of objectivity and intellectual freedom that are incompatible with the mandates of a pragmatic social policy."Storm Over Biology" examines many of the areas where scientific and social interests intersect and often conflict, such as genetic engineering and sociobiology. The essays are grouped under six headings: genetics, racism and affirmative action; objectivity and science; evolution - sociobiology, ethics, and molecular genetics; medical education and affirmative action; public concern over science; and genetic engineering.
This book argues that a New Deal for research in Europe is needed. This New Deal would involve the mobilisation of policy actors across all levels--regional, national and European--and their commitment to develop a more effective research system based on actions where they have the greatest impact. The book presents, from a viewpoint inside the European Commission, the nuts and bolts of how EU research policy is actually designed. It also provides a comprehensive analysis, on the basis of factual evidence, not only of the positive impacts of European research, but of the various criticisms that have been made of the Framework Programme.
This superb collection by the eminent physicist and critic John Ziman, opens with an album of portraits of scientists at work and at play, in which "plaster saints" are turned charmingly and thoughtfully into "living people." You'll find deft sketches of some of the more striking figures in the gallery of modern physics - Albert Einstein, Freeman Dyson, Lev Landau, Mark Azbel, Andrei Sakharov. We then take a journey through the world depicted by contemporary scientists, how physicists make discoveries, and how they test each other's claims. Ziman says that what we know about the physical world - the product of the vast collective effort of scientists everywhere - is no more than a human representation of an accessible reality. The basic lesson of these essays, "that you and I and the rest of us act on the understanding that we are all living in the same world" is a key to a general theory of scientific knowledge. Ziman then travels with us on an even more delicate odyssey, into the personal as well as the professional minds and performances of scientists as they are pulled into competing directions. We discover that the path of discovery is strewn with complex human needs, the demands of the state, the desire for profits, the exercise of technical virtuosity. Today, scientists are no longer lonely seekers after truth, but have emerged with multiple obligations as technical and military experts, entrepreneurs, managers, political advisers, publicists, and educators, as well as ordinary citizens. The personal preferences of scientists are now transformed and often under the control of mammoth institutions - great universities, a tangle of granting agencies, huge defense establishments, and global corporations. Rarely do scientists work alone in isolated laboratories. They are linked together in intricate networks, busy with delicate instruments requiring armies of technicians and collaborators. This is an essential guide for the initiated and the novice over the terrain of modern science and what it means to be a scientist today.
An in-depth analysis of why COVID-19 warnings failed and how to avert the next disaster Epidemiologists and national security agencies warned for years about the potential for a deadly pandemic, but in the end global surveillance and warning systems were not enough to avert the COVID-19 disaster. In The COVID-19 Intelligence Failure, Erik J. Dahl demonstrates that understanding how intelligence warnings work—and how they fail—shows why the years of predictions were not enough. In the first in-depth analysis of the topic, Dahl examines the roles that both traditional intelligence services and medical intelligence and surveillance systems play in providing advance warning against public health threats—and how these systems must be improved for the future. For intelligence to effectively mitigate threats, specific, tactical-level warnings must be collected and shared in real time with receptive decision makers who will take appropriate action. Dahl shows how a combination of late and insufficient warnings about COVID-19, the Trump administration’s political aversion to scientific advice, and decentralized public health systems all exacerbated the pandemic in the United States. Dahl’s analysis draws parallels to other warning failures that preceded major catastrophes from Pearl Harbor to 9/11, placing current events in context. The COVID-19 Intelligence Failure is a wake-up call for the United States and the international community to improve their national security, medical, and public health intelligence systems and capabilities.
This book examines the politics of technology, and provides a detailed analysis of developments and debates within the European Union, international trade and governance. An important empirical contribution to the literature on the relations between politics and technology, this volume contains empirical statistical studies based on a wide variety of different types of data, and includes expert contributions from different academic disciplines. With a selection of detailed case studies, this book is divided into three main sections: The first part presents contributions on the role of domestic national policies for innovation and idea diffusion, including studies on Japan and the European Union. The second part takes a critical look at how the international system of intellectual property rights access to knowledge, opportunities for development and health improvement, examining the TRIPS agreement and the European patent system. The third part focuses on the role of foreign direct investment in innovation and idea diffusion, with studies on a wide range of cases using different, novel data material. Governance and Knowledge will be of interest to students, scholars and policy-makers of European politics, political economy, international trade, governance and economics.
Dramatic and controversial changes in the funding of science over the past two decades, towards its increasing commercialization, have stimulated a huge literature trying to set out an "economics of science". Whether broadly in favour or against these changes, the vast majority of these frameworks employ ahistorical analyses that cannot conceptualise, let alone address, the questions of "why have these changes occurred?" and "why now?" Nor, therefore, can they offer much insight into the crucial question of future trends. Given the growing importance of science and innovation in an age of both a globalizing knowledge-based economy (itself in crisis) and enormous challenges that demand scientific and technological responses, these are significant gaps in our understanding of important contemporary social processes. This book argues that the fundamental underlying problem in all cases is the ontological shallowness of these theories, which can only be remedied by attention to ontological presuppositions. Conversely, a critical realist approach affords the integration of a realist political economy into the analysis of the economics of science that does afford explicit attention to these crucial questions; a 'cultural political economy of research and innovation' (CPERI). Accordingly, the book sets out an introduction to the existing literature on the economics of science together with novel discussion of the field from a critical realist perspective. In arguing thus across levels of abstraction, however, the book also explores how concerted engagement with substantive social enquiry and theoretical debate develops and strengthens critical realism as a philosophical project, rather than simply 'applying' it. While the first of these two volumes argues how mainstream economics is inadequate to the task of an explanatory and critical 'economics of science', the challenge in this second volume is to examine the strengths and weaknesses of disciplines offering more promising starting points. Two social scientific disciplines are particularly promising candidates, starting from 'economy' or 'science', namely heterodox political economy and science & technology studies respectively. Synthesising these into an 'economics of science', however, still encounters considerable hurdles, in that there remain some fundamental and mutual philosophical incompatibilities. Formulating an 'economics of science' thus demands that both 'economics' and 'science' be redefined. The book explores how a critical realist approach affords some common ground upon which this productive synthesis may be pursued, in the form of a cultural political economy of research and innovation (CPERI).
How can the sociology of science relate to issues of science policy? And how can both attend to new institutional and cultural shifts in the character of science itself? These two questions lie at the heart of this new introduction to the sociology of science and technology. Balancing an analysis of contemporary debates in the field with an exploration of science policy questions the book provides a fresh approach to today's key issues.
Pandemics, Science and Policy analyses the World Health Organisation's (WHO) management of the 2009 H1N1 Pandemic. Abeysinghe illustrates the ways in which the WHO's account was vulnerable to contestation, and ultimately how uncertain risks can affect policy and action on the global level.
The Future of Open Data flows from a multi-year Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Grant project that set out to explore open government geospatial data from an interdisciplinary perspective. Researchers on the grant adopted a critical social science perspective grounded in the imperative that the research should be relevant to government and civil society partners in the field. This book builds on the knowledge developed during the course of the grant and asks the question, "What is the future of open data?" The contributors' insights into the future of open data combine observations from five years of research about the Canadian open data community with a critical perspective on what could and should happen as open data efforts evolve. Each of the chapters in this book addresses different issues and each is grounded in distinct disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspectives. The opening chapter reflects on the origins of open data in Canada and how it has progressed to the present date, taking into account how the Indigenous data sovereignty movement intersects with open data. A series of chapters address some of the pitfalls and opportunities of open data and consider how the changing data context may impact sources of open data, limits on open data, and even liability for open data. Another group of chapters considers new landscapes for open data, including open data in the global South, the data priorities of local governments, and the emerging context for rural open data.
A collection of essays by a Nobel Prize Laureate on a wide range of problems facing the world, and the role of scientists in solving them. Kendall was one of a group of physicists who founded the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and is currently chairman of its board of directors. UCS is today a voice of authority in US government science policy, particularly with regard to environment issues. Together, these essays represent both the successes and failures of science to impact public policy, and offer practical guidelines for involvement in science policy. They are roughly chronological, organised by subject with introductions, beginning with the controversies on nuclear power safety and Three Mile Island, then followed by sections on national security issues, global environmental and resource problems, and radioactive cleanup. Kendall's Nobel Prize lecture is also included (and is the only really technical material in the book), while the photos are from a 1992 exhibition of his work.
The Management of Science contains essays from nine internationally-known experts in the rapidly-developing field of science studies. These contributions deal both with the broader issues such as government intervention and with detailed problems such as advances in biotechnology. They will be of interest to politicians, civil servants, academics, research-planners and other members of the community who want to see administered science the obedient but enterprising servant of a democratic society.
*Includes new chapters on Fellowship Grants and Career Development Awards designed for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and early-career faculty *Provides strategies to highlight the "overall impact" of the grant, one of the most important aspects determining NIH funding in a new chapter on Significance and Innovation *Provides step-by-step guidelines for grant structure and style alongside broader strategies for developing a research funding portfolio *Explains how to avoid common errors and pitfalls, supplying critical dos and don'ts that aid in writing solid grant proposals *Illustrates key concepts with extensive examples from successfully funded proposals
Science can be difficult and costly to conduct. Many aspects are explored from an economic viewpoint and the scientist is often treated as an economically rational individual. This study seeks to create an economics of science. It begins with economic models of misconduct in science and the legitimate practices of science. It moves on to market failure, the market place of ideas, self-correctiveness and the organizational and institutional structures of science and ends with and exploration of broader methodological themes raised by an economics of science.
The seventh edition of this classic handbook on the policy process is fully updated, featuring new material on policy making amid local and global disruption, the contestable nature of modern policy advice, commissioning and contracting, public engagement and policy success and failure. The Australian Policy Handbook shows how public policy permeates every aspect of our lives. It is the stuff of government, justifying taxes, driving legislation and shaping our social services. Public policy gives us roads, railways and airports, emergency services, justice, education and health services, defence, industry development and natural resource management. While politicians make the decisions, public servants provide analysis and support for those choices. This updated edition includes new visuals and introduces a series of case studies for the first time. These cases-covering family violence, behavioural economics, justice reinvestment, child protection and more-illustrate the personal and professional challenges of policymaking practice. Drawing on their extensive practical and academic experience, the authors outline the processes used in making public policy. They systematically explain the relationships between political decision makers, public service advisers, community participants and those charged with implementation. The Australian Policy Handbook remains the essential guide for students and practitioners of policy making in Australia.
This book is essential for anyone interested in knowing how science works nationally and internationally in the contemporary world. It offers a comprehensive analysis of scientific collaboration and its relation to development and the productivity of scientists, with specific reference to South Africa in both the past and the present.
This book provides a powerful diagnosis of why the global governance of science struggles in the face of emerging powers. Through unpacking critical events in China and India over the past twenty years, it demonstrates that the 'subversiveness' assumed in the two countries' rise in the life sciences reflects many of the regulatory challenges that are shared worldwide. It points to a decolonial imperative for science governance to be responsive and effective in a cosmopolitan world. By highlighting epistemic injustice within contemporary science, the book extends theories of decolonisation. -- .
Dreaming of a successful future in science? This practical guide for students, postdocs and professors offers a unique step-by-step approach to help you get the funding to start or consolidate your own research career. From preparing and writing effective career grant applications, to understanding how funding agencies will evaluate them, it provides guidance to enhance your skills and combine them with those of others who can support you on the road to success. Learn how to generate great original ideas for your application, strategically prepare and optimise your plan and resume, develop a convincing title and abstract, convert reviewers' comments to your advantage, and succeed at a selection interview. With numerous valuable tips, real-life stories and novel practical exercises, this must-read guide provides everything you need to optimise your funding opportunities and take responsibility for your own career in science.
The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intelligence for Democracy and Governance explores the concepts, methodologies, and implications of collective intelligence for democratic governance, in the first comprehensive survey of this field. Illustrated by a collection of inspiring case studies and edited by three pioneers in collective intelligence, this handbook serves as a unique primer on the science of collective intelligence applied to public challenges and will inspire public actors, academics, students, and activists across the world to apply collective intelligence in policymaking and administration to explore its potential, both to foster policy innovations and reinvent democracy. The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intelligence for Democracy and Governance is essential reading and an authoritative reference for scholars, students, researchers and practitioners of public policy, public administration, governance, public management, information technology and systems, innovation and democracy as well as more broadly for political science, psychology, management studies, public organizations and individual policy practitioners, public authorities, civil society activists and service providers.
An in-depth analysis of why COVID-19 warnings failed and how to avert the next disaster Epidemiologists and national security agencies warned for years about the potential for a deadly pandemic, but in the end global surveillance and warning systems were not enough to avert the COVID-19 disaster. In The COVID-19 Intelligence Failure, Erik J. Dahl demonstrates that understanding how intelligence warnings work-and how they fail-shows why the years of predictions were not enough. In the first in-depth analysis of the topic, Dahl examines the roles that both traditional intelligence services and medical intelligence and surveillance systems play in providing advance warning against public health threats-and how these systems must be improved for the future. For intelligence to effectively mitigate threats, specific, tactical-level warnings must be collected and shared in real time with receptive decision makers who will take appropriate action. Dahl shows how a combination of late and insufficient warnings about COVID-19, the Trump administration's political aversion to scientific advice, and decentralized public health systems all exacerbated the pandemic in the United States. Dahl's analysis draws parallels to other warning failures that preceded major catastrophes from Pearl Harbor to 9/11, placing current events in context. The COVID-19 Intelligence Failure is a wake-up call for the United States and the international community to improve their national security, medical, and public health intelligence systems and capabilities. |
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