Non-university Organisations Research Articles

Resources to develop the research publication competencies of Russian researchers

Introduction. In the last decades, due to the increased number of international research collaborations, the role of auxiliary institutions which contribute to the development of research publication competencies has increased. Competencies are required for writing, preparing, publishing, and promoting scientific articles. The formation of such competencies is carried out at different levels of higher education as part of the current Federal State Educational Standard (FSES), including prorammes of additional professional education, as well as initiatives of auxiliary university departments and non-university organisations.Aim. This article aims to analyse the resources available for the development of research publication competencies in Russia in terms of the opportunities offered by different participants of the educational process.Methodology and research methods. The study compared and analysed open access regulatory documentation, reviewed and systematised data from the websites of auxiliary university departments and non-university organisations, and used data from in-depth interviews.Results. The article describes the prerequisites for the formation of research publication competencies in higher education in Russia. An overview of effective practices to develop such competencies is given, taking into account the national context and available higher education programmes. The article provides an overview of the functionality of auxiliary university departments and non-university organisations, whose activities support publication activity. The role of academic writing teachers, consultants, translators, editors, and reviewers in the development of the competencies of the authors of scientific publications is determined. The importance of the closer interaction of all participants in the publication process is substantiated: authors, translators, and editors of texts; and teachers of scientific writing courses with editors and reviewers of scientific journals.Scientific novelty. The scientific novelty of this article refers to a detailed description of the resources for the development of research publication competencies and their compliance with the requirements of the Federal State Educational Standard, which have not been investigated in such correlation before.Practical significance. The results can be used to develop a set of measures to systematise approaches to developing research publication competencies.

A new industry creation and originality: Insight from the funding sources of university patents

Scientific breakthroughs coming from universities can contribute to the emergence of new industries, such as in the case of biotechnology. Obviously, not all research conducted in universities leads to a radical change from existing technological trajectories. Patents and patent dynamics have long been recognized as critical in understanding the emergence of new technologies and industries. Specifically, patent citations provide insight into the originality of a discovery that has received patent protection. Yet while a large body of literature addresses the impact of patent originality on various firm performance measures, we address the question of what conditions drive patent originality in the process of knowledge creation within the university. Using data on patented cancer research, we examine how research context – as reflected by the funding source for each scientist – is associated with patent originality. We find that when university scientists are partly funded by their own university, they have a higher propensity to generate more original patents. By contrast, university scientists funded either by industry or other non-university organizations have a lower propensity to generate more original patents. The significance of our findings in the cancer research setting call for further research on this question in other research fields.

Addressing the challenges of sustainable agriculture research and extension at land-grant universities: Radially organized teams at Wisconsin

AbstractResearchers at land-grant universities are under pressure to widen their research objectives, which requires them to expand their inquiry from a disciplinary base to a systems level, to include farmers and nonuniversity organizations as research collaborators, and to communicate with broader sectors of the public, such as consumers and policy makers. However, there are few rewards for scientists who undertake long-term, systems based research. An approach that brings together multidisciplinary, multiprofession teams using a radial model of organization has successfully addressed these challenges in Wisconsin. A small “hub” manages the team, with the remaining participants linked to component taskforces or “satellite” projects. This enables research to be done on both multidisciplinary and related single-discipline questions. Radially organized teams can attract diverse people with different time commitments and reward incentives. The research meets the criteria of public and academic audiences alike. For innovative research and extension efforts like radial teams to reach their full potential, larger institutional changes are needed within the land-grant system and professional agricultural societies.