Crime, Security, and Illegal Wildlife Trade: Political Ecologies of International Conservation

This article takes a political ecology approach to understanding the integration of conservation with security in tackling the illegal wildlife trade. It builds on political ecology debates on militarization by connecting it to the dynamics of global environmental politics, specifically the discursive and material support from donors, governments, and conservation nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The combined effects of a highly competitive funding environment and security concerns of governments has produced a context in which NGOs strategically invoke the idea of the illegal wildlife trade as a security threat. For donors and governments, tackling the illegal wildlife trade is a means through which they can address security threats. However, this has material outcomes for marginalized peoples living with wildlife, including militarization, human rights abuses, enhanced surveillance, and law enforcement.

Returns of research funding are maximised in media visibility for excellent institutes

This paper investigates public communication activity across research institutes with varying levels of excellence in research, and how competitive funding affects this activity. With competing funding trends requiring plans for public engagement in the funded research, a question arising is whether institutes capturing higher amounts of funding return the most value for public communication. Using international data from N = 1550 institutes in six countries, we first compare public communication activity among excellent and less-than-excellent institutes. We then investigate the relationship between competitive funding and public communication across levels of excellence. We find that the returns of funding are maximised in media interactions in excellent institutes when compared to the less excellent, but not in public events. This suggests that returns of research funding may not result in the expected outcomes for increased ‘public engagement in science’ if institutions are guided by instrumental goals.

The oracles of science: On grant peer review and competitive funding

From a purely epistemological point of view, evaluating and predicting the future success of new research projects is often considered very difficult. Is it possible to forecast important findings and breakthrough in science, and if not, then what is the point trying to do it anyway? Still, that is what funding agencies all over the world expect their reviewers to do, but a number of previous studies has shown that this form of evaluation of innovation, promise and future impact are a fundamentally uncertain and arbitrary practice. This is the context that I will discuss in the present essay, and I will claim that there is a deeply irrational element embedded in today’s heavy reliance on experts to screen, rank and select among the increasing numbers of good research projects, because they can, in principal, never discern the true potential behind the written proposals. Hence, I think it is motivated to see grant peer review as an ‘oracle of science’. My overall focus will be on the limits of competitive funding and also that the writing and reviewing of proposals is a waste of researchers’ precious time. And I will propose that we really need to develop new ways of thinking about how we organize research and distribute opportunities within academia.

Grant Review Feedback: Appropriateness and Usefulness

The primary goal of the peer review of research grant proposals is to evaluate their quality for the funding agency. An important secondary goal is to provide constructive feedback to applicants for their resubmissions. However, little is known about whether review feedback achieves this goal. In this paper, we present a multi-methods analysis of responses from grant applicants regarding their perceptions of the effectiveness and appropriateness of peer review feedback they received from grant submissions. Overall, 56–60% of applicants determined the feedback to be appropriate (fair, well-written, and well-informed), although their judgments were more favorable if their recent application was funded. Importantly, independent of funding success, women found the feedback better written than men, and more white applicants found the feedback to be fair than non-white applicants. Also, perceptions of a variety of biases were specifically reported in respondents’ feedback. Less than 40% of applicants found the feedback to be very useful in informing their research and improving grantsmanship and future submissions. Further, negative perceptions of the appropriateness of review feedback were positively correlated with more negative perceptions of feedback usefulness. Importantly, respondents suggested that highly competitive funding pay-lines and poor inter-panel reliability limited the usefulness of review feedback. Overall, these results suggest that more effort is needed to ensure that appropriate and useful feedback is provided to all applicants, bolstering the equity of the review process and likely improving the quality of resubmitted proposals.

Energy Network Innovation for Green Transition: Economic Issues and Regulatory Options

In this age of low-cost capital and stimulus packages, is it the best time to heavily invest in tomorrow’s energy networks and research infrastructure? In the academic literature it is widely acknowledged that innovation is key to decarbonising the energy sector and fostering sustainable development. However, post liberalisation has been struggling to promote R&D and innovation. Is this a case of business, regulatory, or policy failure, or are there other factors involved? In this paper, we discuss the reasons for slow uptake of new technologies in energy networks and propose some remedies for the European context, where innovation in the area of energy networks is crucial for the implementation of the Green Transition. The solutions to address this shortfall need to be considered in an overarching manner. The specific points raised here are based on incentive regulation, the establishment of competitive funding models like Ofgem’s Low Carbon Network Fund, and a large European collaborative research hub.

Grant Review Feedback: Appropriateness and Usefulness

The primary goal of the peer review of research grant proposals is to evaluate their quality for the funding agency. An important secondary goal is to provide constructive feedback to applicants for their resubmissions. However, little is known about whether review feedback achieves this goal. In this paper, we present a mixed methods analysis of responses from grant applicants regarding their perceptions of the effectiveness and appropriateness of peer review feedback they received from grant submissions. Overall, 56%-60% of applicants determined the feedback to be appropriate (fair, well-written, and well-informed), although their judgments were more favorable if their recent application was funded. Importantly, independent of funding success, women found the feedback better written than men, and more white applicants found the feedback to be fair than non-white applicants. Also, perceptions of a variety of biases were specifically reported in respondents’ feedback. Less than 40% of applicants found the feedback to be very useful in informing their research and improving grantsmanship and future submissions. Further, negative perceptions of the appropriateness of review feedback were positively correlated with more negative perceptions of feedback usefulness. Importantly, respondents suggested that highly competitive funding pay-lines and poor inter-panel reliability limited the usefulness of review feedback. Overall, these results suggest that more effort is needed to ensure that appropriate and useful feedback is provided to all applicants, bolstering the equity of the review process and likely improving the quality of resubmitted proposals.

Future mechanisms for funding research on unhealthy commodities – criteria for industry-supported research funding programs

Research funding is scarce and some argue that commercial enterprises not only can, but should, fund extramural research. Others are concerned by the evidence that commercial funding of research is used by these commercial interests to subvert the scientific process, to gain credibility and to advance their own financial interests, without regard to broader societal values and needs. A key question is whether there might be a funding model whereby industry-supported research funding programs are acceptable to the public health community and that support broader societal goals. We developed eight criteria for evaluating research funding programs that include support from the tobacco industry: (1) transparency and independence; (2) competitive funding process; (3) ownership of data and freedom to publish; (4) independent research agenda; (5) governance; (6) protection against conflict of interest; (7) industry public relations gains that counteract public health; and, (8) feasibility. We will discuss the applicability of similar programs for funding research on other unhealthy commodities, and on the practices of other harmful industries such as the fossil fuels industry.

We Need the Open Artefact: Design Science as a Pathway to Open Science in Information Systems Research

© 2019, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Design science research (DSR) is facing some significant challenges such as how to make the knowledge and artefacts we create more accessible; exclusion from competitive funding schemes that require open practices; and a potential reproducibility crisis if scholars do not have access to everything needed to repeat past research. To help tackle these challenges we suggest that the community should strongly engage with open science, which has been growing in prominence in other fields in recent years. A review of current DSR literature suggests that researchers have not yet discussed how open science practices can be adopted within the field. Thus, we propose how the concepts of open science, namely open access, open data, open source, and open peer review, can be mapped to a DSR process model. Further, we identify an emerging concept, the open artefact, which provides an opportunity to make artefacts more accessible to practice and scholars. The aim of this paper is to stimulate a discussion amongst researchers about these open science practices in DSR, and whether it is a necessary step forward to keep the pace of the changing academic environment.

We Need the Open Artefact: Design Science as a Pathway to Open Science in Information Systems Research

© 2019, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Design science research (DSR) is facing some significant challenges such as how to make the knowledge and artefacts we create more accessible; exclusion from competitive funding schemes that require open practices; and a potential reproducibility crisis if scholars do not have access to everything needed to repeat past research. To help tackle these challenges we suggest that the community should strongly engage with open science, which has been growing in prominence in other fields in recent years. A review of current DSR literature suggests that researchers have not yet discussed how open science practices can be adopted within the field. Thus, we propose how the concepts of open science, namely open access, open data, open source, and open peer review, can be mapped to a DSR process model. Further, we identify an emerging concept, the open artefact, which provides an opportunity to make artefacts more accessible to practice and scholars. The aim of this paper is to stimulate a discussion amongst researchers about these open science practices in DSR, and whether it is a necessary step forward to keep the pace of the changing academic environment.