Research Mission Research Articles

Edukacja do równości i różnorodności na polskich uczelniach technicznych

Potrzeba włączania perspektywy równości i różnorodności do badań naukowych i programów kształcenia wykracza poza nauki społeczne czy humanistyczne i odnosi się także do nauk technicznych kształcenia inżynieryjnego. Jak polskie uczelnie techniczne radzą sobie z tym wymogiem? Czy jest w ich działalności miejsce na uświadamianie studentom wagi kompetencji społecznych? Spróbujmy zatem odpowiedzieć na pytania o miejsce równości i różnorodności w misjach uczelni, badaniach naukowych, programach kształcenia oraz projektach społecznych i edukacyjnych realizowanych na politechnikach, odnosząc się przy tym do światowych dobrych praktyk w tym obszarze.

Providing Value in Fracture Care: Academic Versus Private Setting.

Although the science of fracture care transcends the setting, the delivery of value may be dramatically different depending on the practice situation. Compared to our colleagues specializing in total joint arthroplasty, trauma surgeons have a greater challenge demonstrating increased quality relative to the cost of care. Although most orthopedic surgeons are in private practice, their individual practice settings vary significantly. Generally speaking, private groups with dynamic and forward-thinking leadership can seize opportunity to increase value in fracture care, and nimble action can improve value for the patient and the practice. Academic medical centers have synergies to enhance integrated medical care, and the tripartite mission of education, research and patient care lend themselves to increasing value. In either setting, leadership in orthopedic surgery can enhance value in fracture care.

Mentorship for Nurse Scientists: Strategies for Growth From the Oncology Nursing Society Research Mentorship Task Force.

To describe research mentorship strategies needed to strengthen oncology nursing science and ensure that a cadre of nurse scientists are available to carry out the research mission of the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS). Multimethod consensus-building approach by content experts of the ONS Research Mentorship Task Force and approval by the ONS Board of Directors was employed. Expert opinion, surveys, notes from an all-day research mentorship retreat, and literature review were used. Content analysis was used to synthesize notes from the research mentorship retreat. Various strategies were identified to strengthen the pipeline of oncology nurse scientists and promote development across the career trajectory. Mentorship is essential to advance the growth and impact of oncology nursing science and requires support throughout the career trajectory.

Scaffolding Self-direction with the ACRL Framework: A Reflection-Based Approach

This case study reports on the information literacy component of a pilot first-yearexperience course, U1X, at Concordia University. Based on the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, the information literacy component of U1X was designed to encourage self-direction.
 Through exploring the university’s larger research mission, the module aimed to shift the emphasis from “how to do research correctly” to viewing research as a personal endeavour in which the researcher cultivates the skills necessary to make a meaningful contribution. It encouraged students to reflect on what they could contribute and the skills they would need to do so.
 The design of this module aligned with the U1X syllabus, which included as learning outcomes that students gain an understanding “of the University’s research mission at its highest level” and “of the relationship between research and citizenship.” The module took a similarly “big picture” approach, while also looking at students’ personal development through reflection. This paper will explore the challenges and opportunities of this approach.
 

Public–Private Distinction Through the Prism of a Higher Education Law: A Comparison of Policy Postures and Realities

This study examines the legislative framework of the Ethiopian higher education sector in light of the corresponding roles and expectations it assigns to and the distinctions it draws between public and private institutions of higher learning. The findings reveal that public and private institutions are equally expected to deliver similar responsibilities that largely pertain to the three major missions of teaching, research and community services. However, despite ascribing similar missions and roles, government legislations provide greater leverage and privileges to the public and inadvertently marginalize the private sector. The manners in which public and private institutions exercise their broadly designated roles show significant divergences that can impinge on the proliferation of the private higher education sector that is expected to assist government policy goals of increasing access to higher education in Ethiopia. It is argued that unless mechanisms are sought to redress the existing dichotomy, the national goals of promoting economic and human resource development through the participation of private higher education institutions will continue to face challenges.

Promoting Inclusion, Diversity, Access, and Equity Through Enhanced Institutional Culture and Climate.

Advancing the health of all members of the global community remains core to the mission of the infectious diseases profession. Training, research, healthcare-delivery, and other infectious diseases-related institutions play a central role in meeting this goal. The promotion of inclusion, diversity, access, and equity (IDA&E) is critical to harnessing the full range of human creativity, innovation, and talent necessary to realizing the education, research, patient care, and service missions that constitute the principal objectives of such institutions. Strong and positive institutional cultures and climates are essential to achieving these IDA&E goals. We discuss opportunity gaps that exist in leveraging institutional culture and climate to optimize IDA&E. We further identify effective strategies to address these gaps and achieve excellence in education, research, patient care, and service in infectious diseases and the broader healthcare and biomedical space. We discuss the importance of both local and global context in conceptualizing IDA&E to best achieve these aims.

New mission and opportunity for mathematics researchers: cryptography in the quantum era

This article introduces the NIST post-quantum cryptography standardization process. We highlight the challenges, discuss the mathematical problems in the proposed post-quantum cryptographic algorithms and the opportunities for mathematics researchers to contribute.

Accounting for diverse missions: can classification systems contribute to meaningful assessments of institutional performance?

Although they have been developed for a variety of purposes, classification systems for tertiary or postsecondary education institutions offer a foundation for recognizing diverse institutional missions in policy, research, and practice. Diverse missions, in turn, are important to achieving broad societal goals of educating an increasingly diverse array of learners, contributing to scientific, technological and professional development, and addressing increasingly complex social issues in an increasingly interconnected global community. After reviewing the purposes and consequences, intended and unintended, of several popular classifications, this article addresses the potential for current or future classification systems to promote and support institutional differentiation. Specifically, we consider how appropriately designed classifications can properly recognize mission differentiation and assess the future prospects for contextualizing performance and accountability assessments through the lens of classification.

A Seat at the Table: Strategic Engagement in Service Activities for Early-Career Faculty From Underrepresented Groups in the Academy.

Many academic institutions strive to promote more diverse and inclusive campuses for faculty, staff, and students. As part of this effort, these institutions seek to include individuals from historically underrepresented groups (URGs)-such as women, people from racial/ethnic minority populations, persons with disabilities-on committees and in other service activities. However, given the low number of faculty members from URGs at many institutions, these faculty members tend to receive more requests to provide service to the institution or department (e.g., serving on committees, mentoring) than their counterparts from majority groups. Faculty members from URGs, especially early-career faculty, thus risk becoming overburdened with providing service at the expense of working on other scholarly activities required for promotion and tenure (i.e., conducting research, publishing). Although many scholars and others have written about this "minority tax" and its implications for early-career faculty from underrepresented racial/ethnic minority groups, fewer have published about how this tax extends beyond racial/ethnic minorities to women and persons with disabilities. Further, the literature provides scant practical advice on how to avoid overburdening early-career faculty from URGs. Here, a group of multidisciplinary early- and mid-career faculty members from URGs seek to provide their peers from URGs with practical strategies for both evaluating the appropriateness of service requests and declining those that are not a good fit. The authors also provide institutional leaders with actionable recommendations to prevent early-career faculty from URGs from becoming overburdened with service.

Opportunities for Carbon Dioxide Removal Within the United States Department of Agriculture

Farming and ranching communities in the United States sit at the front lines of climate change impacts and responses. In particular, terrestrial atmospheric carbon dioxide removal (CDR) can reduce climate change impacts while increasing resilience to extreme weather. Currently, many CDR technologies and strategies are still under research and development (R&D), and lack sufficient federal support to reach widespread deployment. Here, we provide an assessment of the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) existing programs and organizational structure, its capacity to support research and demonstration of CDR, and recommendations for expansion of these capabilities. We summarize USDA’s previous and current efforts to incorporate CDR R&D within their research, education, and economics mission, as well as opportunities to refocus and expand existing programs. Potential future actions to expand CDR R&D capabilities include: 1) the establishment of a new extramural research agency and an intramural technology commercialization program within USDA, 2) improved coordination between the Foundation for Food and Agriculture (FFAR) and USDA, 3) improved intra-agency and inter-agency coordination, and 4) congressional action to establish and fund new CDR programs within USDA. USDA can pursue multiple strategies to enhance CDR, driving development, demonstration, and deployment across the United States.

The Value of Innovation to Implementation Program (VI2P): A strategic approach to aligning and leveraging academic research and clinical care missions.

ProblemInefficient implementation of evidence‐based care garners increasing attention as a source of suboptimal value of clinical care, and integration of quality improvement methodology into clinical practice represents a potential solution. Academic medical centers (AMCs) often have expertise in implementation science, yet it is not leveraged effectively to solve operational inefficiencies or to rapidly implement evidence‐based practices (EBPs).ApproachTo leverage in‐house research expertise, the University of Kentucky (UK) College of Medicine and Center for Health Services Research (CHSR) launched a pilot awards program—Value of Innovation to Implementation Program (VI2P)—across its health system and six health professional colleges. Criteria for awards included a transdisciplinary research team and addressing health disparity issues faced by Kentucky. Outcome measures included EBP adoption and implementation and future funding.OutcomesThe VI2P produced 26 transdisciplinary teams that submitted letters of intent. Ten teams were invited to submit full proposal, and four projects were selected for award, spanning the entire continuum of health‐impact research. Three nonawarded projects were implemented and prompted system redesign for an “implementation research living laboratory.” A Workgroup for ImplementatioN Science (WINS) was established to forge transdisciplinary teams to pursue federal grant funding yielding proposals totaling $17.17 million submitted, $4.38 million awarded, and $5.97 million under review. Junior faculty were encouraged to pursue implementation science as a research focus.Next StepsUK WINS will continue serve as the hub for dissemination and implementation researchers at UK. On the basis of the enthusiasm expressed by multiple groups and many inquiries about the future training opportunities at UK, we plan to develop a tailored dissemination and implementation (D&I) training program to build research and practice capacity at UK.

Fostering university-industry collaborations through university teaching

ABSTRACT University-industry links and their impact on innovation processes have been widely acknowledged. However, previous studies have mainly examined university-industry knowledge transfer activities from the perspective of the research and third stream missions. This paper goes a step further, analysing such processes from the perspective of the university’s teaching mission. More specifically, it explores how educational crowdsourcing platforms help bring universities and industry together to develop joint activities in undergraduate and graduate programmes. Nine platforms with different business models were examined. A qualitative exploratory approach was adopted to manually collect and analyse data from the platforms. This study identified three categories of educational crowdsourcing platforms based on their focus (education, crowdsourcing or networking). The analysis shows that, although these platforms have some shortcomings, they provide benefits to all stakeholders by facilitating experiential learning, promoting skills acquisition and encouraging the development of new ideas to meet industry needs.

Marketing the Research Missions of Academic Medical Centers: Why Messages Blurring Lines Between Clinical Care and Research Are Bad for both Business and Ethics.

Academic Medical Centers (AMCs) offer patient care and perform research. Increasingly, AMCs advertise to the public in order to garner income that can support these dual missions. In what follows, we raise concerns about the ways that advertising blurs important distinctions between them. Such blurring is detrimental to AMC efforts to fulfill critically important ethical responsibilities pertaining both to science communication and clinical research, because marketing campaigns can employ hype that weakens research integrity and contributes to therapeutic misconception and misestimation, undermining the informed consent process that is essential to the ethical conduct of research. We offer ethical analysis of common advertising practices that justify these concerns. We also suggest the need for a deliberative body convened by the Association of American Medical Colleges and others to develop a set of voluntary guidelines that AMCs can use to avoid in the future, the problems found in many current AMC advertising practices.

Examining the role of funders in ensuring value and reducing waste in research: An organizational case-study of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute

International experts have recommended actions that funders can take to improve the value of research investments. They state that self-assessment and public sharing are the basis for accountability and improvement. We examined our policies and practice to determine the extent to which the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute's (PCORI) policies and practices as a research funder align with international best practice recommendations.A self-audit of current policies and practice against 17 recommendations and 35 sub-recommendations representing five major stages of research production, based on adapted methods used for self-assessment by another funder, was performed.Fit of existing PCORI policies and practices with 35 sub-recommendations, qualitative assessment of adequacy (area of strength; area of partial strength; area of growth; not applicable) for 17 recommendations for five stages of research production was assessed.Of the 17 recommendations, 15 were applicable to PCORI's research mission and focus. PCORI has policies and practices in place for all elements of six recommendations ("area of strength") and policies that address each element but with some still in active development for three ("area of partial strength"). PCORI is partially addressing six of the 15 relevant recommendations ("area of growth").Areas for growth include making study protocols publicly available, improving policies on data sharing, and enhancing collaboration with other funders to reduce redundant funding.A voluntary consortium of international funders is underway to encourage further progress, including additional self-assessment and public sharing for accountability.These findings indicate PCORI has undertaken efforts to align its funding practices with international recommendations to ensure the value of public dollars invested in research. Further efforts will likely require additional coordination and collaboration between funders and stakeholders.

Kersting’s Groundnut [Macrotyloma geocarpum (Harms) Maréchal & Baudet] Crop Attracts More Field Pests and Diseases than Reported Before

It has long been reported that kersting’s groundnut [Macrotyloma geocarpum (Harms) Maréchal & Baudet] is less susceptible to field pests and diseases. Previous reports focused on bruchids and weevils as the major pests exerting biotic stress on the crop. In the process of setting up a breeding program for the crop in Benin, field experiments were established in four research stations and mission trips organized to visit farmers’ fields across the major kersting’s groundnut growing areas of Benin. It was observed that the crop is attacked by many field pests and diseases. In total the crop is attacked by: i) Fungi: wilt disease, white mold disease, rust disease, ii) viruses, iii) invertebrates: aphids, grashoppers, caterpillars, millipedes on pods, and iv) Vertebrates: birds, rodents and rabbits This short communication aims to correct the perceptions of practically no field disease and pest attack so far reported on Macrotyloma geocarpum.

Navigating Networks in the Victorian Age: Mary Philadelphia Merrifield’s Writing on the Arts

When Mary Philadelphia Merrifield (1804–1889) wrote her three major published works on the fine arts in the 1840s, she was simultaneously fulfilling several additional demanding roles. Married to a Brighton barrister with delicate health, and mother to five children between the ages of eight and eighteen living at home, Merrifield’s domestic management alone would have consumed the waking hours of most Victorian women. Her ageing mother also lived with the family, and the education of the younger children was undertaken at home. On the surface, this setting seems an unlikely one for a researcher whose investigation into the authentic materials and methods of the old masters would bring her to the attention of the Fine Arts Commission, convened in response to the challenge of rebuilding the Houses of Parliament after the fire of 1834. Close reading of Merrifield’s published works, together with her own correspondence and that of her broader family and associates, illuminates the complex networks that were fundamental to her ability to research, write, and publish. She was supported by strong and constant encouragement from her husband and collaboration from her family. At the same time, her non-official status seems to have allowed a degree of familiarity in her correspondence with some of the powerful figures in the art-political world, such as Sir Robert Peel or Sir Charles Eastlake, whose support was also key. The pursuit of her research missions on the Continent allowed her to develop her own network of specialist researchers. In the libraries, art academies, and galleries where her identity as a foreign woman seems to have mitigated the social censure normally expected for those of her sex who ventured into activities associated with the male sphere, she secured respect and even friendship. Merrifield’s publications on the materials of the old masters have stood the test of time extraordinarily well. Her writing is not only of note because the author was a woman. Merrifield is still an authoritative source often cited in the publications on technical art history, and her words retain scholarly value related closely to her original aims. Perhaps the informally collaborative nature of her research, writing, and publishing brought the components of opinion and rigorous argument into a just equilibrium.

Development and Flight Test of Affordable Scientific Balloon System Suitable for Sea Recovery

A reasonable solution to retrieve a payload of a scientific balloon regardless of safety issues and recoverability is the sea recovery strategy. Sea recovery strategy is a unique retrieval method being pioneered by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) for decades. This strategy has contributed to the achievement of various scientific and engineering research missions in Japan, such as in atmospheric observation and space environment simulation. However, in spite of a long history of conducting sea recovery strategy by JAXA/ISAS, to the best of the author’s knowledge, there have been few published works on designing and manufacturing balloon systems suitable for sea recovery operations due to the rarity of this recovery method. This paper presents a detailed description of a system for a small zero-pressure balloon (ZPB) platform designed for sea recovery operations. For this, a small ZPB platform using affordable commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products was developed with careful consideration of maritime telecommunication, water resistance, short-circuit prevention, and flotation. In addition to reducing the overall cost by using COTS products, it enabled miniaturization of the telemetry, tracking and command system to enhance portability. The results of the latest flight tests were also described including the sea retrieval strategy to verify the reliability of the developed balloon system.

The share of private sources in the revenues of Czech public universities

Abstract Over the last several decades the traditional role of universities in their unique mission in education and research changed to include also the so-called third mission consisting in their active involvement in the socio-economic development of the society. Publicly available data from annual economic report of Czech public universities were analysed to demonstrate the universities´ ability to raise funding from off-budgetary sources which belongs to main characteristics of entrepreneurial university. Off-budgetary sources, where revenues for internal services prevailed, made in 2016 around 16 % of the total income of Czech public universities. The off-budgetary sources include in particular charges for accommodation and board, fees for entrance exam, tuition fees for students that exceed the standard length of studies by more than one year, and tuition fees for studies in a foreign language. The last fees make up to three quarters of all offbudgetary sources at universities that offer studies at medical faculties. The universities´ ability to execute the third role was due to limited availability of data accessed only partially by analysing revenues from knowledge transfer in supplementary activities that involve contractual research, income from licences, educational courses on demand, consultations and counselling. Contractual research in supplementary activities was the most important among the listed activities making up to 8 % of all off-budgetary sources revenues. In international comparison the Czech public universities raise about one half of revenues for R&D from entrepreneurial sources than EU-28 average and only one third compared to German universities. Revenues from license agreements are low making around 0.1 % of all revenues for R&D.

Shifting Academic Health Centers From a Culture of Community Service to Community Engagement and Integration.

There is an increasing need for academic health centers (AHCs) to engage communities across their clinical, research, and educational missions. Although AHCs have a long-standing history of community service, a more comprehensive approach to working with communities is required to respond to shifts toward a population health paradigm, funder requirements for community engagement in research, and demands that medical education focus more on social and environmental determinants of health. Community engagement has been employed at many AHCs, though often in limited ways or relying heavily on students and faculty interested in serving communities. This limited involvement has been due, in part, to lack of infrastructure to support engagement, resource constraints, and the lack of a clear value proposition for long-term investments in community partnerships. However, there are compelling reasons for AHCs to take an enterprise-wide approach to working with communities. An enterprise-wide approach to community engagement will require reconsideration of communities, moving from viewing them as people or groups in need of service to seeing them as assets who can help AHCs better understand and address social determinants of health, enhance students' and trainees' ability to provide care, and increase the relevance and potential impact of research discoveries. To accomplish this, AHCs will need to establish the necessary infrastructure to support long-term community partnerships, adapt policies to support and reward engaged scholarship and teaching, and consider new ways of integrating community members in roles as advisors and collaborators across the AHC.

Describing the dynamic translational science landscape through Core Voucher utilization.

Core facilities play crucial roles in carrying out the academic research mission by making available to researchers advanced technologies, facilities, or expertise that are unfeasible for most investigators to obtain on their own. To facilitate translational science through support of core services, the University of California, Los Angeles Clinical and Translational Science Institute (UCLA CTSI) created a Core Voucher program. The underlying premise is that by actively promoting interplay between researchers and core facilities, a dynamic feedback loop could be established that could enhance both groups, the productivity of the former and the relevance of the latter. Our primary goal was to give translational investigators what they need to pursue their immediate projects at hand. To implement this system across four noncontiguous campuses, open-source web-accessible software applications were created that were scalable and could efficiently administer investigator submissions and subsequent reviews in a multicampus fashion. In the past five years, we have processed over 1400 applications submitted by over 750 individual faculty members across both clinical and nonclinical departments. In total, 1926 core requests were made in conjunction with 1467 submitted proposals. The top 10 most popular cores accounted for 50% of all requests, and the top half of the most popular cores accounted for 90% of all requests. Tracking investigator demand provides a unique window into what are the high- and low-priority core services that best support translational research.