1,721,045 research outputs found
Education and Ethics in the Life Sciences : Strengthening the Prohibition of Biological Weapons
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Users and social science research: policy, problems and possibilities
Full text linkPermission to archive article granted by the publisher, but full text is available from the journal website only.Recent times have seen a significant reorientation in public funding for academic research across many countries. Public bodies in the UK have been at the forefront of such activities, typically justified in terms of a need to meet the challenges of international competitiveness and improve quality of life. One set of mechanisms advanced for further achieving these goals is the incorporation of users' needs into various aspects of the research process. This paper examines some of the consequences of greater user involvement in the UK Economic and Social Research Council by drawing on both empirical evidence and more speculative argumentation. In doing so it poses some of the dilemmas for conceptualizing proper user involvement
Rationalising the future? Foresight in science and technology policy co-ordination
No full text© 1999 Elsevier Ltd. Pre-print of article originally published as SATSU working paper N13 1999.Commentators from diverse fields and backgrounds have argued the present innovation environment is one constituted by unprecedented levels of uncertainty. National Foresight programmes recently have emerged as a means of co-ordinating science and technology policies and responding to a condition of uncertainty and change. Perhaps the most systematic Foresight programme is that of the United Kingdom. This article discusses the response the UK Foresight programme offers to the present and future innovation environments. In doing so, it is argued we should examine how the ‘need' for the programme is constructed and how that need is defined and shaped in relation to past UK science and technology policies. It is suggested that Foresight presents an ambivalent response to many of the concerns it proposes to address.ESRC project 'Knowledge Sourcing and Foresight: Public and Private Agencies in the Health and Life Science' ESRC grant L323253035
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