Public Research Organizations Research Articles

Promoting Planetary Health at Regional Level: A Qualitative Analysis of a Multisectoral Health and Environment Program

Abstract The central idea of planetary health is a strong interdependency between human health and the environment. Thus far, practical initiatives often focus on a few narrow sectors at a time. We are lacking knowledge on the efficacy of broader interorganizational collaborations at the city or regional level. Nature Step to Health – Lahti Regional Health and Environment Programme 2022–2032 in Finland is a planetary health program. It provides a practical example of regional collaboration between various organizations such as public healthcare, municipalities, and educational and research organizations in order to achieve tangible results in striving for more sustainable futures. The program facilitates collaboration and communicates to actors that can initiate projects and implement planetary health in their everyday work. This case study aims to find out how the program has succeeded in coordinating initiatives that could support different organizations to enhance sustainability and planetary health. We conducted six semi-structured interviews about the experiences of practical actors participating in projects that relate to Nature Step to Health. The goal was to find out strengths as well as potential challenges or barriers in implementing planetary health in their organizations. The participants were generally positive about the measures, collaboration, and networking. The organization’s comprehensive approach to health promotion was considered a strength. Challenges raised by the participants were related to the difficulty to uptake the concept of combining health and sustainability in their work. There were also shortcomings in, for example, communication of the project, and lack of time and expertise. Information © The Authors 2024

Barriers to immaterial property rights development in research organizations: an explorative study from Finland

AbstractThis study analyses immaterial property rights related organizational processes in public research organizations. The study investigates the structural barriers limiting intellectual property rights development and commercialization. In addition, the study focuses on how different types of public research organizations, namely universities, research and technology organizations, and polytechnics, differ in this respect. The study was implemented as a survey with 493 respondents. The study found that lack of awareness and questions around the impact IPR are the main barriers to immaterial property rights development. The study also found differences in organizational practices between RTOs and universities.

Entrepreneurship development in photovoltaic technological innovation system: a case study in Iran

Purpose This paper aims to develop a causal feedback structure that explains the dynamics of entrepreneurship development in Iran’s photovoltaic (PV) technological innovation system (TIS) to design effective policy interventions for fostering PV innovation. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts the system dynamics approach to develop the causal structure model. The methodology follows a systematic method to elicit the causal structure from qualitative data gathered by interviewing several stakeholders with extensive knowledge about different aspects of Iran’s PV TIS. Findings Lack of technological knowledge and financial resources within Iranian PV panel-producing firms are the main barriers to entrepreneurship development in Iran’s PV TIS. This study proposes two policy enforcement mechanisms to tackle these problems. The proposed feedback mechanisms contribute to the domestic PV market size and knowledge transfer from public research organizations to the PV industry. Practical implications The proposed policy mechanisms aid Iranian policymakers in designing effective policy interventions stimulating innovation in Iran’s PV industry. Originality/value The main contributions of this study include conceptualizing the causal structure capturing entrepreneurship dynamics in emerging PV TIS and proposing policy mechanisms fostering entrepreneurship and innovation in PV sectors.

The challenges and opportunities of commercialisation

​Government is challenging New Zealand public research organisations to increase the rate of commercialisation of intellectual property (IP) and research findings. It is generally accepted that a high-tech economy offers the potential to increase GDP through exports of high-value products, and this view is well supported within universities. However, in practice, academic staff face conflicting incentives and pressures to invest their time and succeed in the university environment. Commercialisation managers work at the interface of the university culture and the external business world, and manage the conflicting philosophies and drivers of each side. Unlike ‘translators,’ these individuals add value by creating opportunities and proactively managing the supply and demand of early-stage, high-risk ideas. Viclink, the commercialisation arm of Victoria University of Wellington, has been in turnaround mode for the past 24 months in an aim to deliver increased value from its research and IP, and has seen first-hand the challenges of working in the market for innovation. New Zealand universities have approached and scoped their roles quite differently. Around the world different models and priorities exist for commercialisation and tech transfer of university IP. A recent case study on a clean tech start-up company highlights several of the observations and opportunities in commercialising publicly funded research, and on the relationships between inventors, commercialisation companies, incubators and investors. This discussion provides a summary of current challenges and opportunities in commercialisation, as observed by practitioners in a university setting.

Resource orchestration capability for innovation: towards an empirically validated measurement framework

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to conceptualize, define and measure resource orchestration capabilities of R&D teams pursuing advanced scientific research and technological innovation at public-funded R&D organizations in India.Design/methodology/approachA series of five mutually exclusive studies were designed over two years to develop and validate the ROCI scale within public research and development (R&D) organizations pursuing advanced scientific research and technological development in India. The first three studies address the refinement, reduction and rationalization of items for measuring the ROCI construct. The next study explores the factor structure underlying the ROCI construct whereas the subsequent one confirms the three-factor structure within empirical settings.FindingsThe resource orchestration capability towards innovation (ROCI) construct reflected through three sub-dimensions namely – adaptive structuring capability (ASC), synergistic leveraging capability (SLC) and decentralized decision-making capability (DDC), each loaded with their respective items can be used for capability measurement in public-funded R&D organizations.Practical implicationsR&D managers can use this ROCI scale to measure, monitor and improve the innovation-oriented resource orchestration capabilities of their R&D teams and help them improve their innovation performance.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the extant literature on resource orchestration for innovation management in three unique and original ways – theoretically-grounded conceptualization, empirical measurement and rigorous validation through multiple studies conducted in public-funded R&D organizations in India.

Understanding career transitions of applied researchers to universities: evidence from Germany

Abstract This paper analyses the conditions and factors influencing non-university researchers’ career transitions back into academia. Using affiliation data in publications of German researchers, their cross-sector career transitions from the public research organisation Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and industry to universities are analysed. Although the rate of transitions is small, there are distinctive windows of opportunity at a junior career stage, especially for Fraunhofer researchers. Researchers who publish more and in more acclaimed journals, Fraunhofer researchers who co-publish with universities, and women are more likely to gain a university affiliation over the course of their career. These results indicate the influence of institutional proximity for cross-domain career transitions. The quality and impact of academic knowledge could be improved if the higher education sector was more open to recruitment of researchers from other sectors. Policy needs to target the barriers that preclude applied researchers from pursuing university careers.

Location Choice of Academic Entrepreneurs: The Case of Spinoffs from Public Research Organizations

Location Choice of Academic Entrepreneurs: The Case of Spinoffs from Public Research Organizations

The effects of sustainability orientation on research and teaching efficiency in German universities

Academic research increasingly focuses on environmental sustainability as a specific societal mission to be addressed. However, the effects of the increasing sustainability orientation on output generation in public research organizations are largely unexplored. In this paper, we analyse the effects of the increasing importance of sustainability-oriented research topics on research and teaching efficiency in German universities in 2018. Our results are mixed. On the one hand, we find that a higher share of publications related to sustainability increases research efficiency. On the other hand, it decreases teaching efficiency. The latter negative effect seems to relate primarily to a notion of teaching efficiency associated with quantity rather than the quality of teaching output. We conclude that the tendency to focus academic research on challenge-driven sustainability orientation can have non-trivial effects on the efficiency of output generation and therefore needs to be considered ex-ante by policy-makers, administrators and university managers.

A model of privately funded public research

We present a simple model of research, in which it is possible to compare the cost of private versus public research activity. The principal aim is to find conditions under which private firms might decide to provide funding, partially or fully, for research carried out by public research organizations. Since the underlying research problem is given, differences in cost depend mainly on the contracts between the firm or the public organization on one side and the researchers employed in the project on the other, together with the incentives which are implied by these contracts. We find that under suitable assumptions it is advantageous for the private firm to outsource its research to a public organization. The free access for the general public to research results obtained by public research organizations may however be an obstacle to outsourcing, unless some public funding is forthcoming.

Steering the Direction of Research through Organizational Identity Formation

Public research organizations respond to external pressures from national research evaluation systems, performance-based funding systems and university rankings by translating them into internal goals, rules and regulations and by developing organizational identities, profiles and missions. Organizational responses have primarily been studied at the central organizational level, and research on the steering of research has primarily focused on the impacts of performance-based funding systems. However, research evaluation exercises may also have a formative impact, especially below the central organizational level. This paper uses a case study of a research unit of a biomedical research school in the Netherlands to explore the organizational response to a relatively critical external assessment report. It shows that the participation in the Dutch research evaluation cycle legitimated the formation of a new organizational identity for the research unit, which functions as a frame that suggests to staff members a new interpretation of the type of research that is at the core of what the research unit does. We identify three additional steering mechanisms that support the enactment of the organizational identity: steering by resource allocation, by suggesting and by re-organizing. We, furthermore, explore the epistemic effects – the direction and conduct of research – of the organizational response, through interview data in combination with a bibliometric analysis.

Public research organizations’ interactions with firms: Factors driving the perceived benefits

This paper investigates which factors are more effective when taking advantage of benefits perceived by firms in their collaborations with public research organizations (PROs). The empirical study is based on a survey of firms that have collaborated with the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the largest PRO in Spain. We performed an ordinal probit regression, where the dependent variables reflect the importance of benefits from the interaction. We add to previous literature by considering benefits beyond innovation results and by studying the firm´s absorptive capacity and knowledge search strategy as determinants of such benefits. Our results show that firms need to have a certain level of absorptive capacity to take advantage of the collaboration with PROs, but that R&D is not the only antecedent that must be considered. Prior collaborative experience with PROs appears as an important factor to exploit these interactions, in particular as a way to develop internal capabilities and obtain long-term benefits. The study also outlined the firm´s external search strategy as a relevant factor in determining the benefits obtained from interactions with PROs.

Green innovation and the stock market value of heavily polluting firms: The role of environmental compliance costs and technological collaboration

AbstractThis paper introduces a moderated‐mediation model to investigate the relationship between green innovation, as measured by green patent stocks, and firms' stock market value, as measured by Tobin's Q. Using longitudinal data drawn from 351 heavily polluting firms in China's A‐share market from 2007 to 2018, we find that green innovation is likely to affect firms' stock market value positively. A 1% increase in the green innovation over assets index will enhance by 0.18% the Tobin's Q at the firm level. Environmental compliance costs significantly mediate the green innovation‐firms' stock market value association by 8.5%. We also emphasize the positive moderating role of technological collaboration with public research organizations on green innovation‐environmental compliance costs linkage. Our results emphasize that the recurrent question in the extant literature “does it pay to be green?” should be substituted by “how and under what conditions does it pay to be green for firms?” and further stress how firms obtain sustainable development in the environment and economy through green innovation. Implications for firms and investors are also proposed.

Evaluation of Transborder Crimes in Nigeria

Transborder crimes are criminal activities that transverse borders of two or more countries. Notable crimes that flourish across Nigerian’s borders are illicit drug trafficking, Terrorism, proliferation of small arms and light weapons ( SALWs), Human trafficking, internet fraud, oil theft, smuggling of goods among others. All these activities have precipitated security and economic complications across West Africa sub region. The 2022 Global peace Index ranked Nigeria 143 among 163 independent Nations and Territories according to the level of peacefulness while Cato Institute a Washington DC based public policy research organization rated Nigeria as the most unsafe place on earth after Iraq. This phenomenal rise of criminal ratings of Nigeria had attracted local and international attentions of scholars, policy makers and governments. Thus, this study investigates Transborders crimes in Nigeria using qualitative research methodology by reviewing the existing literature and conducting in-depth interviews of 85 informants selected randomly from government establishments and among stakeholders in Nigeria. The study relied on rational choice theory and behavioural theory as theoretical frameworks. The study revealed that Transborder crimes thrive across the West African nations because of many factors which include but not limited to the implementation of ECOWAS protocol on free movement of persons and goods, porous borders, youth unemployment, poverty, poorly trained and ill-equipped security personnel, corruption, poor inter-agency coordination and collaboration. The study concluded that despite various measures by the Nigerian government and International organizations like ECOWAS, UNO, AU to checkmate the scourge, the desired results have not been achieved. The study therefore recommended effective border monitoring and management, job creation, community policing initiative, increased military actions and surveillance, among others as panacea to Transborder crimes detection, reduction and prevention.

ARTICULAÇÕES INTERORGANIZACIONAIS EM ORGANIZAÇÕES PÚBLICAS DE PESQUISA: O COMPLEXO TECNOLÓGICO EDUCACIONAL – CTE

The research analyzed the governance of networks in public organizations through the case of the Educational Technological Complex - CTE in Campinas/SP. The creation of the CTE confirms the trend in recent decades of public research organizations intensifying their inter-organizational articulations as a strategy to deal with budget constraints, staff replacement, and the creation of opportunities from partnerships with different actors to better meet social demands. To analyze this case, we conducted a document analysis and interviews with CTE professionals. The analytical approach is structured in two parts: (a) institutional, focused on the formation of inter-organizational relationships, and (b) articulations and interdependencies, dedicated to the "links" between organizations. The creation of the CTE had a strong hierarchical component, low level of formalization, and failures in alignment and governance, leading to its non-institutionalization as a network and limiting the achievement of the desired results.

The role of organizations in the public communication of science – Early research, recent studies, and open questions

Organizational science communication of higher education institutions (and research institutes outside the university sector) came into view of scholars of “science journalism” soon after the begin of systematic studies of the scientist-journalist relationship. While the pioneering French study of scientists’ relationship with the mass media by Boltanski and Maldidier (1970) focused on implications of the norms of the scientific community for public communication by scientists, early surveys of scientists in the United States (Dunwoody & Ryan, 1982, 1983) and – peripherally – also in Germany (Krüger, 1985; Peters & Krüger, 1985) considered both the scientific community and the university (or other public research organizations) as relevant contexts of the scientist-journalist relationship. The issue of organizational science public relations (PR) was also addressed by scholars and practitioners in publications and workshops in Europe (see, e.g., Peters, 1984; Ruß-Mohl, 1990; Zerges & Becker, 1992) in the 1980s and early 1990s. While researchers were not oblivious of self-interests’ influence in public communication activities of universities and other research institutions, the dominant perspective on science communication was that of the relationship of science and the media, and PR officers at science organizations were largely conceptualized as “mediators between scientists and journalists” (Dunwoody & Ryan, 1983) or as “practitioner in the middle” (Rogers, 1988).

Multistakeholder Collaboration to Enhance the Scalability of Jarwo Super Technology: An Innovation Platform Perspective

<p align="justify">The process of accelerating the diffusion of research and development (R&D) results in an agricultural innovation system (AIS) can be realized through an innovation platform approach. This study examines the collaboration of multi-stakeholders in the process of development and diffusion of the Jajar Legowo (Jarwo) Super technology through the perspective of innovation platform. There have been few studies in the area to look at the structure of technology diffusion process to achieve a scalability of impact. This study will fill the gap by looking at the structure of multi-stakeholders’ network and the working mechanism of the platform to get understanding on the delivery process of Public Research Organization (PRO)’s research result at a systemic level.  The analysis of this research is equipped with the application of a co-word analysis. This tool is used to map issues based on the actor's function, namely the role in the development and diffusion of Jarwo Super technology. The results of the study will contribute to the theoretical development of innovation platform in AIS. It also provides a basis for policy makers and related stakeholders on how innovation platform can strengthen agricultural development programs in a wider organizational context.</p>

CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE INNOVATION SYSTEM IN THE PRC

The article is devoted to the process of transition of the People’s Republic of China from the position of a country successfully adapting and using modern foreign technologies to the state of a country with a domestic innovation system capable of independently creating its own breakthrough technologies and generating impulses of global development. The author shows a radical change in the position of science in the country over the past decade. The number of people employed in R&D has more than doubled with a 3.5-fold increase in research and development funding. The prestige and demand for researches and engineers have significantly increased in the Chinese society.
 
 Solving the above-mentioned tasks has required serious institutional innovations, including the implementation of numerous state R&D programs, the redistribution of functions and responsibilities between various participants in the innovation process (e.g. public research organizations, colleges and universities, state-owned and private companies), strengthening the role of the business sector in financing, development and commercialization of new technologies, the comprehensive development of international scientific and technological cooperation etc. Both direct and indirect sources of R&D financing as well as different forms of implementing investment projects in the field of R&D are considered in detail. Cases of the most successful innovative companies and projects are presented.
 
 Special attention is paid to the analysis of China’s success in creating a post-industrial knowledge society, including the country’s rising position in various international rankings reflecting innovative development in whole and its particularities. The problems and difficulties on this path are also characterized with a special accent on improving the quality and efficiency of scientific research, as well as a more effective protection of intellectual property rights in the country.

Examining Factor Structure and Validity of Psychological Capital and Its Relationship with Learning Orientation

This study aims to empirically examine the factor structure and validity of psychological capital in the Indian context. Further, it also examines the linkage of psychological capital with learning orientation. A quantitative methodology was adopted, and data were collected using a questionnaire from 700 employees of public sector research organisations, information and communication technology companies, and academic universities and colleges in India. The findings reveal that psychological capital construct has a four-factor second-order structure and a synergetic effect on outcomes, and its four factors are related but distinct constructs. The findings also confirm that psychological capital has significant positive influence on the learning orientation of members of the organisation. Further, the level of psychological capital was found to vary across gender, age, work experience and executive level but not with qualification. This research will add into theory a detailed understanding about psychological capital and its relationship with learning orientation. The findings suggest that management should emphasise on preparing psychological capital interventions and trainings based on specific target groups in order to gain sustainable competitive advantage.

Disruption disrupted? Reflecting on the relationship between responsible innovation and digital agriculture research and development at multiple levels in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand

CONTEXTNew forms of digital information and communication technologies have the potential to provide a “next generation” of agricultural technologies, which can drive improvements in productivity and efficiency while reducing risks and negative impacts. However, such digital transformation brings with it significant socio-ethical challenges. Responsible innovation provides insights and approaches to help guide digital transformation in socially beneficial and equitable directions. OBJECTIVEDrawing on the authors' involvement in digital agriculture programmes in two public research organisations in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, we reflect on our collective experiences and consider who is responsible for being responsible and how public research organisations can enable more responsible digital agriculture research and innovation programmes. METHODSThis short communication is informed by a synthesis of: (i) insights from our research on socio-technical dimensions of digital agriculture programmes; (ii) critical reflections as social scientists participating in these programmes; and (iii) workshop synthesis that draws out reflections from wider programme participants about responsible innovation, developed through four collaborative workshops held virtually between May and August 2020. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONSOur experiences show that responsible innovation in Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand public digital agriculture research and development so far tends to be only partially operationalised, with a mismatch between aspirations, rhetoric, and practice. Successful responsible innovation requires systemic and organisational changes to research and development practices across multiple levels to enable and enhance the ‘response-ability’ of project teams, including changes to the performance measures and reward mechanisms that encourage more responsible research and development outcomes. SIGNIFICANCEOur synthesis and reflections raise broader questions about the productively disruptive potential of responsible innovation. By challenging techno-centric framings of digital agriculture and encouraging more socially responsible processes and outcomes, this ‘disruption’ by responsible innovation can ultimately add value to digital agriculture research and development programmes and innovation systems.

Intrinsic and strategic complementarity of research and knowledge transfer activities as determinants of knowledge transfer management: evidence from public research organisations

Intrinsic and strategic complementarity of research and knowledge transfer activities as determinants of knowledge transfer management: evidence from public research organisations