Large Research Groups Research Articles

Looking at both sides: how specific characteristics of academic research groups and firms affect the geographical distance of university–industry linkages

This paper examines factors that affect the geographical distance of university–industry linkages by analysing specific characteristics of both sides of the collaboration – firms and universities. Previous studies have provided important evidence related to this issue; however, they have used data from either firms or universities. Therefore, this paper contributes to existing research on this issue by using information on both collaboration partners. For this purpose, data from the Directory of Research Groups in Brazil are used to estimate an empirical model. The main results indicate that firms with higher absorptive capacity and larger firms tend to collaborate with research groups that are more geographically distant. Further, on the university side, high-performance and larger research groups tend to attract firms that are more geographically distant as collaboration partners. Long-distance collaborations therefore usually occur when firms require high absorptive capacity and when they cannot find high-quality local universities.

Project management in health and medical research

A project manager is an individual who is able to apply knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to a broad range of activities in order to meet the requirements of a particular project, according to PMBOK (2008)1 project manager is the person assigned by the performing organization to achieve the project objectives. However, within the area of health and medical research today (mainly in Brazil), it has become strikingly apparent that there is a lack of professional project management in the management of scientific projects. Despite the many requests that funding agencies and research institutions receive for research projects, the manner in which the projects are organized still need improvement. Payne et al. (2011)2 published a study about the experience of researchers with project management in health and medical research. The authors started that project management is widely used to deliver projects on time, within budget and of defined quality; however, there is little published information describing its use in managing health projects. Despite a paucity of information about project management in health research, two factors must be presented and considered: (1) assessing performance, which includes cost, time, functionality and quality remain the important criteria for assessing performance of projects (Papke-Shields et al., 2010)3; (2) considering and properly using the various stages of a project, such as: analysis of logic; estimation of durations; calculation of project times; impact of resource limitations; adjustments to achieve project target; preparation of a working plan of action and updating during progress of the project (Woodward,1983)4. It is difficult to say whether researchers in health care have the training and the knowledge of the criteria and project management stages, and that this knowledge is the major difference in scientific production. Thus, what is different of those researchers who can participate in large research groups and provide high productivity? The answer is likely not in the knowledge of project management, but in the characteristics of these researchers as potential project managers. Hartman (2008)5 conducted an interesting study identifying project managers that were regarded highly by peers, clients and other project stakeholders. These project managers were identified and were met with over a period of about 15 years. During that period, through discussion, a pattern emerged that supported a common set of attributes of these managers. These attributes, presented below, also appear to be the major difference between researchers with extensive scientific production and others. 1. All were able to instantly identify problems and their impact, could predict issues and challenges and be ready to deal with them Journal of Human Growth and Development 2014; 24(3): 239-242 EDITORIAL

Preclinical and clinical issues in Alzheimer's disease drug research and development.

Preclinical and clinical issues in Alzheimer's disease drug research and development.

Editorial introductions

Editorial introductions

‘She's not good with crying’: the effect of gender expectations on graduate students' assessments of their principal investigators

This paper explores how gender influences the way that faculty members are held accountable to gendered societal expectations related to scientists, faculty members, and leaders. In particular, women faculty members in the sciences, particularly those who lead large research groups, may be at a triple disadvantage: they must act in ways that contradict ideals of femininity in these multiple aspects of their professional lives. The data for this inductive, largely exploratory analysis come from a mixed-methods qualitative study of five chemistry research groups at a research-intensive US university. I find that gendered expectations do impact the way that men and women faculty are evaluated by their students, particularly the way that women faculty are judged.

An analysis of the effects of the characteristics of research groups on their interactions with firms

The main aim of this paper is to analyse how the characteristics of academic research groups affect their interactions with firms. Using data from a survey conducted in Brazilian research groups, an empirical model was estimated to evaluate how the characteristics of the research groups impact their interactions with firms. Main results show that research groups with higher academic performance, larger research groups and groups affiliated with larger departments tend to present higher numbers of interactions. Furthermore, engineering and agricultural sciences research groups interact more. Given these findings, the main contribution of the paper is that it furthers understanding of the factors that shape university–industry linkages and how characteristics of research groups affect interactions.

Alternative to faith-based science

Finding myself in the company of a large group of researchers labeled as particularistic, atheoretical, and nonscientific by Gremillion et al. (1), I take issue with many of the assertions in their recent defense of the application of optimal foraging theory (OFT) to origins of agriculture (OA) research. First is the premise that regional-scale analyses can only identify more general evolutionary processes if they are explicitly situated with an “overarching framework for explaining the diversity of life,” which, according to Gremillion et al., is provided by OFT, held to be virtually synonymous with the larger disciplinary categories of human behavioral ecology (HBE) and evolutionary ecology (EE). In …

Commentary

Mika Kivimaki initiated the Individual Participant Data (IPD) Meta-Analysis Consortium, which currently has 50 members. The Consortium recently published several research reports on the relationship between job strain (high psychological demands and low decision latitude at work), on the one hand, and cardiovascular disease and its risk factors, on the other hand. Since IPD repre- sents a novel way to conduct epidemiological research collaboration and as some of the findings from the IPD Consortium have been criticized, this commentary aims to address the rationales behind the approach and discuss some of the main criticisms of the Consortium.Researchers must tackle many problems when inter- preting associations between a psychosocial work envi- ronment factor and a health outcome. First of all, work environment factors belong to a "distal" rather than a "proximal" group. In other words, the closer one gets to a biological mechanism relevant for disease development, the more likely it is that a relevant association will be strong. For instance, small samples are needed to establish an individual "brain" factor associated with depression or emotional exhaustion - simply because the brain factor is more or less depression. Factors related to work orga- nization, on the other hand, are more "distal" since there are many factors that influence the relationship between the environment and the body's organs. Accordingly, it is sometimes difficult to obtain sufficient statistical power for the establishment of an undisputable association. For instance, the long "distance" between job strain and the outcome, myocardial infarction (MI), explains why we should expect a weaker association than in the study of "proximal" factors, for instance myocardial metabolism in relation to MI. Nevertheless, on a societal level, job strain is very important since it affects many working people, with a prevalence in the working population (in the IPD Consortium study's operational definition) of around 15%. Accordingly, if an unequivocal association is established, it is of major importance to those respon- sible for work organization and interventions designed to improve working conditions. However, large samples are needed to establish unequivocal proof.Since Karasek introduced his demand-control model (1), there have been many studies of the association between job strain and risk of MI. These studies have become increasingly sophisticated over the years. In addi- tion, there is accumulated indirect evidence from longitu- dinal studies of the relationship between job strain, on the one hand, and blood pressure variations and endocrine, metabolic, and immunological parameters, on the other hand. The results from these studies give us a plausible physiological explanation of the assumed relationship between job strain and MI risk.A reason why this research field has attracted strong attention is that MI is an undisputable illness outcome. The study of MI risk, therefore, serves as a good scientific model for studying the relationship between job strain and adverse health outcomes in general.Establishment of and rationale behind the IPD ConsortiumThere have been divided opinions about the relationship between job strain and risk of MI. The main reason for the controversy has been that, despite the relatively large size of several of the published cohort studies with number of observation years often in the range of 50 000, the statistical power has been too small for an unequivocal establishment of an association. As a result, Mika Kivimaki invited a number researchers, who had included psychosocial job factors in their study protocols and had or had not published results on the relationship between job strain and MI risk, to establish the IPD Consortium. Including unpublished cohorts was important as this provided a possibility to address the problem of publication bias - the tendency of research- ers and journals to publish only positive findings that can lead to inflated associations. …

Connection, Connection, Connection…

[Read the Introduction to this Special Section][1] ![Figure][2] CREDIT: VAN J. WEDEEN, AAPO NUMMENMAA, RUOPENG WANG, AND LAWRENCE L. WALD/MARTINOS CENTER FOR BIOMEDICAL IMAGING, MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL There are approximately 86 billion neurons in the human brain. Over the past decades, we have made enormous progress in understanding their molecular, genetic, and structural makeup as well as their function. However, the real power of the central nervous system lies in the smooth coordination of large numbers of neurons. Neurons are thus organized on many different scales, from small microcircuits and assemblies all the way to regional brain networks. To interact effectively on all these levels, neurons, nuclei, cortical columns, and larger areas need to be connected. The study of neuronal connectivity has expanded rapidly in past years. Large research groups have recently joined forces and formed consortia to tackle the difficult problems of how to experimentally investigate connections in the brain and how to analyze and make sense of the enormous amount of data that arises in the process. This year's neuroscience special issue is devoted to general and also several more specific aspects of research on connectivity in the brain. We invited researchers to review the most recent progress in their fields and to provide us with an outlook on what the future may hold in store. To make sense of larger structures, we first have to understand the composition of their basic building blocks. Markov et al. (p. 578) describe how interareal connectivity at the single-cell level, revealed by quantitative anatomical tract tracing, is relevant to our understanding of large-scale cortical networks and their hierarchical organization. A different but also rapidly growing research direction deals with the use of connectivity measures to link brain structure and cognition. From the perspective of network theory, Park and Friston (p. 579) review our current understanding of structure-function relationships in large-scale brain networks and their underlying mechanisms. One of the biggest breakthroughs in understanding the heavily connected brain has been the development of noninvasive brain-scanning methods, especially functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Turk-Browne (p. 580) provides an overview of recent exciting developments in large-scale fMRI data analysis, with a focus on unbiased approaches for examining whole-brain functional connectivity during cognitive tasks. Increased computational power now allows investigation of the whole-brain correlation matrix, the temporal correlation of every voxel with every other voxel throughout the brain, and the application of multivariate pattern analysis to these correlational data. A sophisticated system that depends on the astonishingly precise interaction of a large number of cortical areas is the human ability to produce and understand language and music. Zatorre (p. 585) discusses how brain plasticity in the music and speech domains can be affected by predisposing factors that relate to brain structure and function. [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6158/577 [2]: pending:yes

Proteome Informatics Research Group (iPRG)_2012: A Study on Detecting Modified Peptides in a Complex Mixture

The proteome informatics research group of the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities conducted a study to assess the community's ability to detect and characterize peptides bearing a range of biologically occurring post-translational modifications when present in a complex peptide background. A data set derived from a mixture of synthetic peptides with biologically occurring modifications combined with a yeast whole cell lysate as background was distributed to a large group of researchers and their results were collectively analyzed. The results from the twenty-four participants, who represented a broad spectrum of experience levels with this type of data analysis, produced several important observations. First, there is significantly more variability in the ability to assess whether a results is significant than there is to determine the correct answer. Second, labile post-translational modifications, particularly tyrosine sulfation, present a challenge for most researchers. Finally, for modification site localization there are many tools being employed, but researchers are currently unsure of the reliability of the results these programs are producing.

Editorial introductions

Editorial introductions

The Physics of Liposuction: From Poiseuille to Starling

Liposuction has become a field all to itself. There are dedicated fellowships in body contouring, and large research groups around the world are investigating new techniques and methods. The science of lipoplasty has grown exponentially in the last several decades. Similarly, with the advent of new techniques, more and more patients are requesting liposuction procedures. It has become the most sought after cosmetic surgery procedure in the United States. Furthermore, there is no indication that this increased demand will stop in the near future. In order to accommodate this increased demand, the liposculptor must become efficient with the liposuction techniques. Knowledge of the physics behind effective liposuction has several advantages. Knowing how the Starling forces act on the adipose tissue can help the liposculptor manipulate these forces and can improve efficiency. Similarly, knowing the effect of the Law of Poiseuille can help the liposculptor choose the proper cannula dimensions for the desired area. Additionally, a better understanding of the basic science behind liposuction can lead to further research contributions related to this technique.

The Global Burden of Disease survey 2010, Lifting The Burden and thinking outside-the-box on headache disorders

Editorial The perception of a disease in the collective imaginations of people affected by it, of the general public, of healthcare providers and of health policy-makers depends, undoubtedly, on a multiplicity of diverse factors: its effects on mortality, its consequences in terms of ill health and disability, its economic impact, its implications for health services and health-resource consumption, the availability of treatments, the potential for the development of new pharmacological agents and interest aroused by the media. Chronic diseases also raise the question of patients’ reduced productive capacity over a long period – perhaps a life-time. Furthermore, it is evident that, in the face of concrete reductions in economic global resources, public health care must confront increasing demands. Increased expenditure on health cannot necessarily be expected; neither may it always lead to the anticipated or desired outcomes. In the past decade, headache has acquired a social dimension never previously recognized. It has always been part of people’s daily lives, as a very prevalent symptom of a multitude of disorders (but only a few of public-health importance), but scarcely has it appeared of pressing importance or deserving of high priority. Therefore, if it has received attention at all, this has been scant and grudging. All this may have changed, through the years, for a series of reasons: a better knowledge has been gained of the mechanisms of headache, and has been followed by the invention, development and marketing of specific drugs at least for migraine; there are better academic initiatives to educate in the field; but, most of all, there is now a large, and growing, body of work to attest the societal impact of headache disorders, their epidemiology, their cost and the humanitarian necessity (and economic wisdom) of creating and supporting structured health care dedicated to their mitigation [1-7]. We see increasing requests for medical education in the field of headache [8]. Yet it cannot be said that other research in this field is going through a period of innovation: with a dearth of new ideas and decreasing resources, few large research groups and fewer pharmaceutical companies see headache as a fertile area for their endeavours. The recent publication of the Global Burden of Disease survey 2010 (GBD 2010) [9] overturns all the prejudices, by demonstrating, with great clarity for those willing to see, where headache stands among the many causes of disability worldwide. Tension-type headache and migraine are the second and third most prevalent disorders in the world (after dental caries); migraine is the seventh highest cause of disability in the world. Is the world willing to see? Will it now take steps to remedy the past neglect of headache disorders and the inadequacies of its responses to them [7]? GBD 2010 is proof that it must. We have the basis on which to start again, to rethink the approach to headache as a major factor in public illhealth, with huge implications for health care and great impact on the global economy [10]. Health policy is focusing more and more on chronic non-communicable diseases. This evidence of the high place among these of headache disorders must stimulate a new renaissance in academic clinical research and call for new approaches for industrial strategies, moving their interests from serendipity to true, planned innovation. Lifting The Burden, through its unprecedented ten years of action, has traced a new way, working side by side with supranational organizations, with prestigious international academies, with Patients’ Associations and with many, many individuals. This long path has spread new ideas, created new structures from previously separated components, consolidated the actions – transforming

How the quality of GWAS of human lifespan and health span can be improved

Most connections between phenotype and genetic variants detected in genome wide association studies (GWAS) of human longevity-related traits did not reach the genome-wide level of statistical significance. These estimates also suffer from the lack of replication of research findings in studies of independent populations (Deelen et al., 2011; Nebel et al., 2011). Critical analysis of these studies reveals underused reserves in the data that may improve the accuracy of genetic estimates. One such reserve deals with the proper use of genetic information contained in the age structure of study participants at the time of bio-specimen collection. As we will see later, this information has been ignored in genetic analyses of follow-up data. In this paper, we explain how such information can be used in analyses of follow up data and elucidate the benefits of joint analyses of both types of data. The proposed approach exploits the fact that participants in prospective studies often have different ages at baseline. The bio-specimen collection is often (but not always) done at baseline. Studies included in the CHARGE Consortium [except for the Original cohort of the Framingham Heart Study (FHS) where the bio-specimen collection was done some time after baseline] are typical examples. Since data on lifespan or other durations are often incomplete (e.g., censored), the Cox's type regression models is usually implemented in GWAS of these data (where, in addition to other covariates, conditioning on age at baseline is used). Note that using follow up data alone and conditioning on age at baseline may be required by the goal of the study (e.g., in the search for genes responsible for longest survival after reaching certain age, e.g., after 95 or 100 years). However, conditioning on the ages at bio-specimen collection when some of these ages are high enough may diminish or even totally exclude a substantial part of the genetic variation in longevity, i.e., eliminate the effects we are looking for. This is because the oldest old individuals participating in bio-specimen collection are precisely those who passed the process of mortality selection in the genetically heterogeneous population, and, therefore, are likely to carry genetic variants linked with “longevity” alleles (assuming that such alleles exist). Thus conditioning on the age at genotyping, especially when the oldest old study participants are in the sample, may leave little hope that associations of remaining genetic variants with human longevity will reach genome-wide significance. Such conditioning, however, seems to be a common practice in GWAS of human longevity-related traits dealing with prospective data. For example, a large group of researchers performed comprehensive genetic analyses of human lifespan and free of major diseases lifespan using data from nine studies of the CHARGE Consortium (Walter et al., 2011). The authors “conducted a survival analysis, adjusted for age at baseline and sex, to model continuous time to death or end of follow-up” [Walter et al. (2011), section “Methods”]. The Cox proportional hazards model was used to describe the connections between genetic variants and time to event. Note that, in addition to eliminating useful associations, adjusting for age at baseline may produce a bias in the analyses if the bio-specimen collection has been performed well after the time of the first examination (baseline). Such a situation characterizes the FHS data, which is the part of the CHARGE Consortium. It turns out, however, that in cases when the ages at bio-specimen collection include young adults and the oldest old individuals, the additional information about the role of genetic variants in lifespan can be obtained from the age patterns of genetic frequencies evaluated for any genetic variant even without using the follow up data. The approach based on comparison of genetic frequencies among individuals of different age categories is typically used in genetic studies of centenarians (Weir, 1996; Yashin et al., 1999, 2000; Tan et al., 2004). A monotonic increase in genetic frequency with age indicates that the corresponding variant is associated with lifespan increase (“longevity” allele). A monotonic decline in such frequency indicates that this variant contributes to shortening lifespan (deleterious, or “frailty” allele). In cases when genotyping involves individuals from a large spectrum of ages including young adults, old, and oldest old ages, there is an additional opportunity to improve the quality of genetic analyses which typically is not used in genetic association studies of follow up data. To realize such potential, new methods of association analyses are required.

Investigación y restauración en el Alcázar de Sevilla

The interventions that have been accomplished in the last years at the Alcazar of Seville, coordinated by the School of Arabic Studies (CSIC), are an interesting case that shows the relations among restoration, historic research, application of analytic techniques and diffusion of the results. Interdisciplinary actions carried out with the constant reference to historical values of the monument by a large and varied group of researchers and professionals have allowed not only important results regarding its physical conservation but also significant advances in the knowledge of its history and meaning. Using always rigorous photogrammetric plans as a basis, important original remains have been recuperated, some significative parts have been consolidated and restored and virtual reconstruction have been produced as the result of the historic research.

Students' evaluations of university teaching: a structural equation modeling analysis

In this paper a Student Satisfaction survey was conducted. The used questionnaire was proposed by a very large Research Group in 2010. The collected data was elaborated by a full reflective Structural Equation Model using PLS path model estimation. The first results showed that the influence of the Organization and Infrastructure on the Student Satisfaction were not statistically significant. Therefore a more complex model was supposed, the end results showed that the influence of Organization and Infrastructure on the SS was indirect, that is the Organization and the Infrastructures exert an influence upon the SS through the Didactics.

StaR Child Health: Developing Evidence-Based Guidance for the Design, Conduct, and Reporting of Pediatric Trials

* Abbreviations: DMC — : data monitoring committee SDG — : standard development group StaR Child Health — : Standards for Research in Child Health WHO — : World Health Organization “Lack of research, poor research, and poorly reported research are violations of children’s human rights,” declared Dr Richard Horton in his plenary address to the audience of the first summit of Standards for Research in (StaR) Child Health. StaR Child Health was founded in 2009 to address the paucity and shortcomings of pediatric clinical trials. This initiative involves international experts who are dedicated to developing practical, evidence-based standards to enhance the reliability and relevance of pediatric clinical research. Through a systematic “knowledge to action” plan, StaR Child Health will make efforts to improve and expand the evidence-base for child health across the world. This article introduces the StaR Child Health agenda, the 11 initial priority topics that have been identified, and methods used to address these issues. Approximately 180 participants, including representatives from the World Health Organization (WHO), the US Food and Drug Administration, and the European Medicines Agency, gathered in Amsterdam for the first StaR Child Health summit in October 2009 (Table 1). The summit was held on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which recognizes the right of all children “to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health.”1 One impediment to achieving this universal right is the paucity and well documented shortcomings of pediatric research and more specifically clinical trials.2 It is recognized that the quantity, quality, and relevance of data involving children are substantially lower than for adults,3–5 despite data demonstrating that inadequate testing of interventions in children can result in ineffective or harmful treatments being offered or beneficial treatments being withheld.6 View this table: TABLE 1 Chronology of Key Events for StaR Child Health The mission of StaR Child Health is to improve the design, conduct, and reporting of … Address correspondence to Martin Offringa, MD, PhD, Senior Scientist and Program Head Child Health Evaluative Sciences, Research Institute, The Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Ave, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 1X8. E-mail: martin.offringa{at}sickkids.ca

Abstract LB-410: Targeted resequencing of genes frequently mutated in esophageal adenocarcinoma using highly multiplexed Ion Torrent AmpliSeqTM technology and semiconductor sequencing

Abstract Introduction: Whole genome and whole exome sequencing by large collaborative research groups is providing us with an unprecedented view of the mutations that occur in cancer. Identifying clinically-relevant and actionable mutations however remains a challenge that will most likely be met by individual groups focused on specific clinical questions and scenarios. Such studies will rely on targeted resequencing of selected genes in large numbers of well-annotated clinical specimens. These specimens are most often formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE) and some of the most valuable samples are small biopsies or fine needle aspirates (FNA's). Translational and clinical researchers require rapid and flexible resequencing approaches that are compatible with the small amounts of highly degraded nucleic acids derived from these challenging samples. Materials & Methods: Using Illumina whole exome sequence data from >60 esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) specimens, we identified a set of 20 genes that are frequently mutated in this tumor. PCR amplicons no larger than 140bp were designed to cover all exons from these genes, using the Ion Torrent AmpliSeqTM Designer pipeline. Primers were pooled for a 1285-plex multiplex PCR preamplification step starting with 1-20ng of input DNA from both FFPE and frozen tissue and the resulting amplicon products were used to generate sequencing libraries. Semiconductor sequencing was performed on the Ion Personal Genome MachineTM (PGMTM) sequencer. Metrics evaluated included reads on target, base accuracy, uniform coverage of bases and sequencing base read depth. Mutations detected in EAC samples were compared between the two sequencing platforms. Data from dysplastic and metaplastic esophageal biopsies are now being generated to identify mutations that occur in the development of EAC. Results: 1285 PCR primer pairs were designed that covered 66103bp of the coding region of the 20 target genes. Sequencing data covered >99% with at least 100 reads indicating minimal drop-out during preamplification. Average base read depth was >1900X and no significant differences were observed between FFPE and frozen tissue derived DNA. Initial studies demonstrate 100% concordance of mutations (n=42) detected in the 20 target genes and mutant allele frequencies are highly correlated between the two sequencing approaches (slope =0.96; R2 =0.85; range 4-78%). Conclusion: We have used the Ion Torrent AmpliSeqTM technology to detect mutations in EAC specimens and precursor lesions with high sensitivity and accuracy. The flexible primer design pipeline combined with AmpliSeqTM technology provides a fast and easy approach to targeted resequencing in particularly challenging clinical specimens including FFPE biopsies. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr LB-410. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-LB-410

An Evaluation of the Current State of Cancer-Related Palliative and Supportive Care Research in the UK

The aim of this study was to establish the current state of the research environment in the UK in relation to cancer supportive and palliative care. Three approaches were used to evaluate the current research environment in supportive and palliative care. A) A bibliometric analysiswas conducted on published research output between 2005 and 2010. B) An analysis of the UKCRN portfolio of trials was undertaken to establish the current research environment. C) A questionnaire survey was distributed to research groups in the field with the purpose of mapping the workforce, exploring funding/funding sources and gauging opinions about challenges in supportive and palliative care research. 586 papers met inclusion criteria for the bibliometric analysis, 76 studies were included in the UKCRN portfolio analysis and 36 questionnaires (overall response rate 74.5%) were received from UK research groups. An expansion in research activity is reflected by an increased trend in research output (57% over 5 years) and an increased proportion of studies registered with the NCRN portfolio of trials. Study designs were dominated by observational methods, however, a trend towards increased interventional methods was identified. In the workforce, an aging researcher population was identified and an increased tendency to work in few but large research groups was evident. Group opinions included increased collaboration in the field over the past 5 years, however, the withdrawal of a major funding partner from the field is currently a major challenge for the majority.

The End of an Era: Shall We Move Forward?

The End of an Era: Shall We Move Forward?