Purpose The digital divide has persisted in California and the USA as a whole at approximately the same level for the past decade. This is despite multiple programs being created and billions of dollars being spent to close it. This paper examines why the efforts to date have been ineffective and to offers policy alternatives that might be more successful. Design/methodology/approach Using data from three, variable constrained projects in California, this paper examines the effectiveness of information-based outreach efforts at (...) closing the digital divide. The projects tested various outreach and enrollment methods to see which, if any, could increase broadband adoption in low-income households. Findings This project found that providing low-income households’ information about low-cost broadband offerings was ineffective at closing the digital divide. The findings in this paper were similar to those of two other works that examined the federal Broadband Technology Opportunities Program grants under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Practical implications The findings of this paper along with the works cited that evaluated the BTOP program should be enough to change public policy. For the past ten years, efforts to close the digital divide have focused on providing information to low-income households. However, two independent surveys show broadband adoption has remained virtually flat during that period. Social implications The digital divide brings concomitant economic and education harms and challenges that plague those unable to access information, services, educational and employment opportunities with the same ease, speed and sufficiency as their connected peers and neighbors. Those harms exacerbate the already existing education and income divides. This paper shows that without a change in strategy, those harms will persist. Originality/value This paper breaks new ground and addresses one of the weaknesses identified in existing research. To the best of author’s knowledge, this is the first paper of its type to use programs designed to generate data that can be empirically evaluated for effectiveness. Prior studies attempted to assess program effectiveness by using data generated from fully implemented government programs. However, those programs contained a vast number of unidentified variables and insufficient data collection. They were not designed to facilitate academic evaluation, and as such made a true effectiveness evaluation challenging. (shrink)

Background: Only data of published study results are available to the scientific community for further use such as informing future research and synthesis of available evidence. If study results are reported selectively, reporting bias and distortion of summarised estimates of effect or harm of treatments can occur. The publication and citation of results of clinical research conducted in Germany was studied.Methods: The protocols of clinical research projects submitted to the research ethics committee of the University of (...) Freiburg in 2000 were analysed. Published full articles in several databases were searched and investigators contacted. Data on study and publication characteristics were extracted from protocols and corresponding publications.Results: 299 study protocols were included. The most frequent study design was randomised controlled trial , followed by uncontrolled studies , laboratory studies and non-randomised studies . 182 were multicentre studies including 97 international collaborations. 152 of 299 had commercial funding and 46 non-commercial funding. 109 of the 225 completed protocols corresponded to at least one full publication ; the publication rate was 48%. 168 of 210 identified publications were cited in articles indexed in the ISI Web of Science. The median was 11 citations per publication .Conclusions: Results of German clinical research projects conducted are largely underreported. Barriers to successful publication need to be identified and appropriate measures taken. Close monitoring of projects until publication and adequate support provided to investigators may help remedy the prevailing underreporting of research. (shrink)

The level of medical care to patients and the success of the implementation of the national project "Health" depend on the health status and doctor's professionalism. Modern healthcare reform is being implemented by optimizing costs, merging medical organizations, closing ineffective hospitals, expanding the use of high-tech care and informatization of the doctor's activities. All this makes it necessary to assess the health of doctors. Scientists have studied the quality of life and identified the professional burnout of doctors in (...) children's clinics in different age groups. Primary care pediatricians have a higher quality of life score when compared to the standard [1]. However, all groups have a high level of professional burnout. The pre-retirement group of doctors has more unfavorable profile. They are highly professional specialists but may experience emotional discomfort because the pension system has been reformed. This situation requires the introduction of preventive work with doctors of this age as a group with great potential and capable of professional longevity. (shrink)

Original research is of course what scientists are expected to do. Therefore the research project is in many ways the unit of science in the making: it is the center of the professional life of the individual scientist and his coworkers. It is also the means towards the culmination of their specific activities: the original publication they hope to contribute to the scientific literature. The scientific project should therefore be of central interest to all the students (...) of science, particularly the philosophers and sociologists of science. We shall focus on the preliminary evaluation of research projects—the specific task of referees—and will emphasize the problem of their scientificity—the chief concern of scientific gatekeepers. In the past such an examination aimed only at protecting the taxpayer from swindlers and incompetent amateurs, such as the inventors of continuous motion artifacts. In recent times a similar issue has resurfaced with regard to some of the most prestigious and most handsomely funded projects, namely work on string theory and many-worlds cosmology. Indeed, some of their faithful have claimed that these theories are so elegant, and so full of high-grade mathematics, that they should be exempted from empirical tests. This claim provoked the spirited rebuttal of the well-known cosmologists Ellis and Silk, which the present paper is intended to reinforce. Indeed, we shall try to show why empirical testability is necessary though insufficient for a piece of work to qualify as scientific. Finally, the present paper may also be regarded as an indirect contribution to the current debate over the reliability of quantitative indicators of scientific worth, such as the h-index of scientific productivity. But we shall touch only tangentially on the sociological, political, and economics of research teams: our focus will be the acquisition of new scientific knowledge. (shrink)

In 2003 the Otago Philosophy Department scored 6.6. This made it the highest scoring department in any discipline in any university in New Zealand. In 2007 we increased our score to 7.5, thus retaining our status as New Zealand's number one research department.

Summary There is a traditional reluctance among methodologists to study the ever increasingly important phenomenon of research-projects, research-project evaluations, etc. The reason for this is that projects are embedded in programs and programs in intellectual frameworks, or conceptual frameworks, or metaphysical systems. It sounds dogmatic to judge the product of research by a reference to a metaphysical system. Yet, first of all, it is not so dogmatic if judgment can go both ways, if we have competing (...) systems at work, and if what we assess is not the outcome of a project but the existing assessments of projects prior to their implementation. Indeed, one of the most obvious things to do is to compare our assessments of projects before and after their implementations. To this end some further theorizing is required. (shrink)

Graphical AbstractThe culture of chefs from the world's best restaurants is substituted by new trends paradigmatically epitomized by the TV program Masterchef. The authors feel that a similar transformation affects modern research. Recent scientific policies constrict the design of research grants with the aim of short-term maximization of the monetary value generated by the researcher.

This paper discusses the use of the Milgram obedience experiments and the Tuskegee syphilis study in the bioethical literature. The two studies are presented and a variety of uses of them identified and discussed. It is argued that the use of these studies as paradigms of problematic research relies on a reduction of their complexity. What is discussed is thus often constructions of these studies that are closer to hypothetical examples than to the real studies.

(1994). Some remarks on a research project of the centre D'Etudes des solidarites sociales (CESOL) integration: A challenge for business. World Futures: Vol. 41, No. 1-3, pp. 65-66.

The aim of this study is to assess patients' recall of their previous research participation. Recall was established during interviews and compared with entries from clinical notes. Participants were 49 patients who had previously participated in different types of research. Of the 49 patients, 45 (92%) interviewees recalled 69 of 109 (63%) study participations. Level of recall varied according to the type of research, some participants clearly recalled the details of research aims, giving consent and (...) class='Hi'>research procedures. Others recalled procedures (e.g. DNA testing) but were unclear about their purpose. There was no significant effect of time on recall. Some types of research participation (e.g. DNA testing) may be recalled as clinical care. We argue that such misunderstandings may have the potential to undermine participants' ongoing consent, particularly in ongoing/longitudinal studies. Valid consent may be best achieved by re-assessing the scope of consent and relating it to the nature of the interventions themselves rather than the reasons for undertaking them. (shrink)

In this piece I have stated my case for the importance of the inclusion of subjectivity in the study of women's poverty. The relevance of the ideas discussed herein is not confined to this one research area, for the project of incorporation is crucial to any field of research which has a pertinence to the practical realities of women's lives. I have noted how through talking and prioritising principles we run the danger of evacuating the subject, for (...) principles cannot take into account the diversity of women's experiences based upon class, race, ethnicity, religion and sexual affiliation. I have also outlined the benefits that accrue to both researcher and participant, with the researcher gaining better insight and understanding of the women she is concerned with and accountable to in her work, and the participant being given the opportunity to tell her own story of her life, rather than have it told solely by the outsider interpreting it. As such she is actively participating in her life rather than simply being led through it, resulting in a form of empowerment that might otherwise be denied her. Subscription has been made to interviewing as a means of incorporating subjectivity into the research project. But the interview as a technique has been problematised, for only through problematisation can we hope to improve our research and strive to ensure that we heed the lessons we and others have learned through our practical activities. I am indebted to those more experienced feminist researchers whose work has influenced this project. And finally, this piece serves as a reminder to others engaged in work about or with women, that women in all diversity are the subjects we should be concerned with in debates on the subject of poverty. Lest we forget .. (shrink)

(2001). The Fiction of 'Undue Inducement': Why Researchers Should Be Allowed to Pay Participants Any Amount of Money for Any Reasonable Research Project. The American Journal of Bioethics: Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 1g-3g.

Background There is growing interest in the use and incorporation of empirical data in bioethics research. Much of the recent focus has been on specific “empirical bioethics” methodologies, which attempt to integrate the empirical and the normative. Researchers in the field are, however, beginning to explore broader questions, including around acceptable standards of practice for undertaking such research. The framework: In this article, we further widen the focus to consider the overall shape of an empirical bioethics research (...) project. We outline a framework that identifies three key phases of such research, which are conveyed via a landscaping metaphor of Mapping-Framing-Shaping. First, the researcher maps the field of study, typically by undertaking literature reviews. Second, the researcher frames particular areas of the field of study, exploring these in depth, usually via qualitative research. Finally, the researcher seeks to shape the terrain by issuing recommendations that draw on the findings from the preceding phases. To qualify as empirical bioethics research, the researcher will utilise a methodology that seeks to bridge these different elements in order to arrive at normative recommendations. We illustrate the framework by citing examples of diverse projects which broadly adopt the three-phase framework. Amongst the strengths of the framework are its flexibility, since it does not prescribe any specific methods or particular bridging methodology. However, the framework might also have its limitations, not least because it appears particularly to capture projects that involve qualitative – as opposed to quantitative – research. Conclusions Despite its possible limitations, we offer the Mapping-Framing-Shaping framework in the hope that this will prove useful to those who are seeking to plan and undertake empirical bioethics research projects. (shrink)

Paying research participants in developing countries like Uganda raises ethical concerns over potential for undue inducement. This article, based on an exploratory study, reviewed 49 research protocols from a national HIV/AIDS research ethics committee database. Payments mainly adhered to the reimbursement and compensation payment models. Offers made were diverse but basic in order to limit undue inducement. Implications in terms of undue inducement and possible impact on participants and research are discussed. We end by recommending standardization (...) across comparable studies in the interests of promoting high-quality research, altruism, voluntariness, and restraining unfair reimbursement practices in research. (shrink)

Neobiota as non-native species are commonly considered as alien species. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) intends to “prevent the introduction of, control or eradicate those alien species which threaten ecosystems, habitats or species”. The European Union has financed the DAISIE research project for the first pan-European inventory of Invasive Alien Species (IAS), which is supposed to serve as a basis for prevention and control of biological invasions. This paper discusses the evaluation approach for classifying “100 of the (...) Worst” IAS in Europe by the EU DAISIE research project. The main impact categories used by DAISIE for assorting “100 of the Worst” IAS are investigated and the texts of the “Wanted” species factsheets are examined. Two examples from the DAISIE factsheets of the “100 of the Worst” IAS [Tree of Heaven ( Ailanthus altissima ) and the Raccoon ( Procyon lotor )] are discussed to illustrate DAISIE’s biodiversity evaluation approach in more detail. However, the classification criteria used by DAISIE do not allow for sufficiently differentiating these neobiota from an ecological behavior of native species with a similar ecological niche. In conclusion, neobiota evaluations are not comprehensive when they refer mainly to the successful expansion and competition with native species into available ecological niches. A comprehensive assessment of the impacts of neobiota on biodiversity and humans needs to take into account the different values of biodiversity as mentioned in the preamble of the CBD. (shrink)

Different methods have been developed to address ethical issues during research. Most of these methods were developed at universities. In this article ethical parallel research within a Research and Technology Organization is described. Within a European project about perceived security, CPSI, the ethical issues were identified by ethicists cooperating in the project. The project CPSI was aimed at developing a research method that can be used by (local) government to monitor or assess perceived (...) and actual security. Together with the researchers a way was sought to address the ethical issues. Several issues could be addressed by choices with regard to the design of the validation study, in this case a survey. The ethical and legal reasons that were relevant for choices in the design of the validation study were made an integral part of these decisions. Some issues were already identified during the writing of the proposal others were only identified during the research. Participating in the research gave the ethicists access to all relevant information. It made it possible to address the ethical issues when they became relevant. Ethical reasons were part of some of the discussions on research method. It proved possible to address most ethical issues satisfactorily during the research project. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce the Societal Readiness Thinking Tool to aid researchers and innovators in developing research projects with greater responsiveness to societal values, needs, and expectations. The need for societally-focused approaches to research and innovation—complementary to Technology Readiness frameworks—is presented. Insights from responsible research and innovation concepts and practice, organized across critical stages of project-life cycles are discussed with reference to the development of the SR Thinking Tool. The tool is designed to complement not (...) only shortfalls in TR approaches, but also improve upon other efforts to integrate RRI, sustainability, and design thinking in research and innovation cycles. Operationalization and early-stage user tests of the Tool are reported, along with discussion of potential future iterations and applications. (shrink)

Healthcare user fees present an important barrier for accessing services for the poorest (indigents) in Burkina Faso and selective removal of fees has been incorporated in national healthcare planning. However, establishing fair, effective and sustainable mechanisms for the removal of user fees presents important challenges. A participatory action-research project was conducted in Ouargaye, Burkina Faso, to test mechanisms for identifying those who are indigents, and funding and implementing user fee removal. In this paper, we explore stakeholder perceptions of (...) ethical considerations relating to participation and partnership arising in the action-research. (shrink)

Recent discourse in the field of participatory agricultural research has focused on how to blend various forms and intensities of stakeholder participation with quality agricultural science, moving beyond the simple “farmer-first” ideology of the 1980s and early 1990s. Yet, most existing frameworks of participation in agricultural research still adhere to a linear typology of participatory research with an inherent claim of “the more participation, the better.” In this article, we propose a new framework that looks at participatory (...) research elements along different dimensions and attributes and thus takes into account the diversity and dynamics of agricultural research projects. The framework provides a basis for agricultural researchers engaged in participatory processes with local stakeholders to decide for which issues and in which phases certain participatory elements could be used in a specific research context. Rather than aiming at maximizing the adoption of participatory methods, it can thus become a tool for optimizing the use of participatory approaches in agricultural research. We conclude that this framework can be a starting point for a more thoughtful integration of participatory elements in agricultural research projects that does justice to the multidimensional and dynamic nature of stakeholder participation in varying contexts. (shrink)

Digital change is one of the most critical factors influencing social change in most societies. The Digital Evaluation Index 2017 (Chakravorti & Chaturvedi, 2017) showed based on 60 national economies that almost no digitally indifferent societies exist anymore. However, different speeds of development and, above all, different attitudes towards the challenges and opportunities of digitization can be observed. Primarily industrially, highly developed nations are also digitally highly developed. However, a "trust deficit" is prevalent in those nations as well; that is, (...) there is a rather reserved attitude on the side of policymakers and the population towards digital development. This "trust deficit" points to a changing attitude towards media and thus towards social change as a whole. According to the mediatization theory (Krotz, 2009), "digitization" can be understood as a factor of social change brought about by media-technical progress. This media-driven change is pedagogically and ethically relevant. Digitization does not only influence the ways we engage with one another (online vs. offline) but, more importantly, seems to influence the attitudes and feelings we have towards engaging with one another and also the attitudes and feelings towards how we engage with one another. Phenomena like cyberbullying, hate speech, digital addiction are examples of behaviors that are (seemingly) made possible through digitization. These negative examples might be considered to show the downsides of digitization, though, at the same time, the way these examples are portrayed generates a fear-based attitude around digitization that contributes to the "trust deficit." German teachers – as several international studies, especially the ICILS studies (cf. Fraillon et al. 2014; Fraillon et al. 2019), have shown – are rather critical and restorative media users. Research shows that ethically sound knowledge and easy use tools for reviewing and normatively evaluating media offerings and practices can have a positive impact on educational institutions (Marci-Boehncke & Vogel 2018). The interdisciplinary German research project DigitalDialog21 aims to contribute to a comprehensive evaluation of current and future technologies, practices, and ways of thinking of digital change. The task of an ethical reconstruction of the "trust deficit" is to make the attitudes of the population accessible and processable via a digital assessment of ethics (Rath, 2003). This task will set the theoretical framework for comprehensive digital literacy. One pedagogical goal of the project is to develop practical tools that help to arrive at a concrete, well-founded evaluation of digital offers at the individual level. (shrink)

At the interface of developmental biology and evolutionary biology, the very criteria of scientific knowledge are up for grabs. A central issue is the status of evolutionary genetics models, which some argue cannot coherently be used with complex gene regulatory network (GRN) models to explain the same evolutionary phenomena. Despite those claims, many researchers use evolutionary genetics models jointly with GRN models to study evolutionary phenomena. This dissertation compares two recent research projects in which researchers jointly use the two (...) kinds of models. I use methods from the empirical social sciences, such as digital corpus analysis, content analysis, and structured case analysis. I infer three primary conclusions about projects of the kind studied. First, they employ an implicit concept of gene that enables the joint use of both kinds of models. Second, they pursue more epistemic aims besides mechanistic explanation of phenomena. Third, they don’t work to create and export broad synthesized theories. Rather, they focus on phenomena too complex to be understood by a common general theory, they distinguish parts of the phenomena, and they apply models from different theories to the different parts. For such projects, seemingly incompatible models are synthesized largely through mediated representations of complex phenomena. (shrink)

Background At the beginning of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, many non-Covid healthcare services were suspended. In April 2020, the Department of Health in England mandated that non-Covid services should resume, alongside the continuing pandemic response. This ‘resetting’ of healthcare services created a unique context in which it became critical to consider how ethical considerations did (and should) underpin decisions about integrating infection control measures into routine healthcare practices. We draw on data collected as part of the ‘NHS Reset Ethics’ (...) class='Hi'>project, which explored the everyday ethical challenges of resetting England’s NHS maternity and paediatrics services during the pandemic. Methods Healthcare professionals and members of the public participated in interviews and focus group discussions. The qualitative methods are reported in detail elsewhere. The focus of this article is our use of Frith’s symbiotic empirical ethics methodology to work from our empirical findings towards the normative suggestion that clinical ethics should explicitly attend to the importance of relationships in clinical practice. This methodology uses a five-step approach to refine and develop ethical theory based on a naturalist account of ethics that sees practice and theory as symbiotically related. Results The Reset project data showed that changed working practices caused ethical challenges for healthcare professionals, and that infection prevention and control measures represented harmful barriers to the experience of receiving and offering care. For healthcare professionals, offering care as part of a relational interaction was an ethically important dimension of healthcare delivery. Conclusions Our findings suggest that foregrounding the importance of relationships across a hospital community will better promote the ethically important multi-directional expression of caring between healthcare professionals, patients, and their families. We offer two suggestions for making progress towards such a relational approach. First, that there is a change of emphasis in clinical ethics practice to explicitly acknowledge the importance of the relationships (including with their healthcare team) within which the patient is held. Second, that organisational decision-making should take into account the moral significance afforded to caring relationships by healthcare professionals, and the role such relationships can play in the negotiation of ethical challenges. (shrink)

Gaining ethical approval for qualitative health research and implementing all the planned research processes in a proposed study are not straightforward endeavours. The situation becomes more complex when qualitative research is conducted in a cross-national healthcare and academic context. Also, it is even exhausting when the study is student-based, as student researchers may be considered novices and inexperienced researchers, especially for field-based research. Our aim in this reflective paper is to present, reflect, and discuss the experiences (...) of a doctoral researcher in dealing with two independent institutional review boards in Canada and Ghana during an interdisciplinary Ph.D. project and the ethical dilemmas encountered while collecting data in Ghana. Based on the researcher’s experiences, it became apparent that consent and its documentation can have cultural implications in different settings; hence, institutional review boards must exercise reflexivity in their protocol review practice. Also, sharing research data with participants and institutional leaders while maintaining participant confidentiality and privacy in institutional ethnographic research requires sensitivity to bi-lateral ethical values. With the experiences shared in this paper, we advocate for a dialogic ethical review process in qualitative research where researchers and research ethics boards engage in ongoing dialogue rather than the usual prescriptive format research ethics reviews often assume. (shrink)

Palliative care seeks to improve the quality of life for patients suffering from the impact of life‐limiting illnesses. Palliative care encompasses but is more than end‐of‐life care, which is defined as care during the final hours/days/weeks of life. Although palliative care policies increasingly require all healthcare professionals to have at least basic or non‐specialist skills in palliative care, international evidence suggests there are difficulties in realising such policies. This study reports on an action research project aimed at developing (...) respiratory nursing practice to address the palliative care needs of patients with advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The findings suggest that interlevel dynamics at individual, team, interdepartmental and organisational levels are an important factor in the capacity of respiratory nurses to embed non‐specialist palliative care in their practice. At best, current efforts to embed palliative care in everyday practice may improve end‐of‐life care in the final hours/days/weeks of life. However, embedding palliative care in everyday practice requires a more fundamental shift in the organisation of care. (shrink)

Research necessarily entails the close interrelation of concepts and arguments, including solutions to a range of meta-questions, whether acknowledged explicitly or not. Despite this, few detailed accounts currently exist that support researchers to develop their complex conceptual architectures, especially in critical realist spheres. Indeed, many published accounts often omit much of this ‘messiness’ that sits behind, yet is foundational to, research projects. Those accounts that do seek to portray how/why researchers have made decisions (e.g. about connections between (...) class='Hi'>research philosophy, methodology, methods, theory and empirical evidence) tend to focus on one set of meta-questions, or occasionally on the relationships between two sets, at a time. Therefore, this paper presents a flexible framework – supported by specific examples from studies – that we hope will be useful in supporting researchers from all traditions, but especially critical realists, to carefully think through and develop more holistic connections in their conceptual architecture. (shrink)

Web scraping involves using computer programs for automated extraction and organization of data from the Web for the purpose of further data analysis and use. It is frequently used by commercial companies, but also has become a valuable tool in epidemiological research and public health planning. In this paper, we explore ethical issues in a project that “scrapes” public websites of U.S. county jails as part of an effort to develop a comprehensive database to enhance HIV surveillance and (...) improve continuity of care for incarcerated populations. We argue that the well-known framework of Emanuel et al. provides only partial ethical guidance for the activities we describe, which lie at a complex intersection of public health research and public health practice. We suggest some ethical considerations from the ethics of public health practice to help fill gaps in this relatively unexplored area. (shrink)

There are increasing concerns that research regulatory requirements exceed those required to manage risks, particularly for low- and negligible-risk research projects. In particular, inconsistent documentation requirements across research sites can delay the conduct of multi-site projects. For a one-year, negligible-risk project examining biobank operations conducted at three separate Australian institutions, we found that the researcher time required to meet regulatory requirements was eight times greater than that required for the approved research activity. In total, 76 (...) business days were required to obtain the necessary approvals, and site-specific processes required twice as long as primary Human Research Ethics Committee and Research Governance Office processes. We describe the impact of this administrative load on the conduct of a one-year, externally-... (shrink)

BlOMQVIST K, THEANDER E, MOWIDE I and LARSSON V. Nursing Inquiry 2010; 17: 317–323 What happens when you involve patients as experts? a participatory action research project at a renal failure unitAlthough there is a trend towards developing health care in a patient‐centred direction, changes are usually planned by the professionals without involving the patients. This paper presents an ongoing participatory action research project where patients with chronic renal failure, nurses at a specialist renal failure unit, (...) a hospital manager and a researcher worked together to develop patient‐centred care. The project combined the expertise of patients in their own experiences of living with a chronic condition with the professional expertise of nurses, the manager and the researcher. As the workload on the unit was uneven, the development work needed to be low in intensity but long‐term. Based on a number of dialogues in focus groups, four main development areas were identified; access to test results, prerequisites for postponing the progress of the illness, general awareness and understanding of living with chronic renal failure, and family‐focused care. A number of changes have been planned or implemented, such as developing a prototype for a web‐based feed‐back system, expanding patient education to newly diagnosed patients, steering the nurses' role towards a guiding and family‐focused function, and planning a digital story‐telling workshop. Involving committed people who have the mandate to change practices were prerequisites for success. (shrink)

In this study, we explored how high school students’ participation in a local history research project about a historically Black cemetery in the Southeast United States contributed to their demonstration of historical empathy. Major findings show that students displayed historical empathy in research activities that occur beyond the traditional classroom through their examination of perspectives concerning representations of race and diversity in the social studies curriculum, the historical contexts about the impact of enslavement and Jim Crow segregation (...) in their community, and affective connections they made to their identities as citizens. We recommend that future studies focus on how social studies teachers, community organizations, and other educational providers can collaborate to promote historical empathy in and outside of schools with equity frameworks and curricular initiatives such as the National Council for the Social Studies College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework. (shrink)

We welcome Blumenthal-Barby’s et al. (2022) plaidoyer for the integration of philosophy in bioethics because of a perceived mutual benefit. Drawing on experience from a collaborative project, funde...

Research skills are important for university graduates, but little is known about undergraduates’ motivation for research. In this study, self-efficacy beliefs and intrinsic motivation for several research activities were measured three times during an undergraduate research project. In order to promote self-efficacy for writing and collaboration, a collaboration script was developed and tested on half of the students. Twelve students were interviewed three times to gather in-depth information about motivational and self-efficacy beliefs. All measures except (...) intrinsic motivation for research increased significantly during the project. Interview results suggest that enactive mastery and positive social interdependence promoted self-efficacy. Feelings of relatedness seemed to promote intrinsic motivation for writing. Lack of autonomy and low perceived relevance may explain why motivation for research remained stable. The script had no impact on self-efficacy beliefs. Relatedness,... (shrink)

This paper introduces this special issue which is focused on its target paper - The Natural Origins of Content. The target paper has had a robust and considered set of fifteen replies; a literal A to Z of papers. This extended introduction explains the background thinking and challenges that motivated the target article's proposed research programme. It also provides a sneak peak preview and navigational aid to the special issue’s contents. Brief highlights of each commentary are provided and they (...) are grouped together under broad headings. We do not attempt to give detailed replies to these suggestions or answer the various critiques at this stage of the proceedings: that is for future work. (shrink)

Answering Beate Hofmann's article on mothers’ recuperation in Germany, this response uses the results of two Sweden-based research projects on the changed role of the Church of Sweden and seven more West-European majority churches in welfare society. Special attention is given to the interdependence of national welfare system and theology and to current changes in European welfare systems.

With advances in research environments and the accompanying increase in the complexity of research projects, the range of skills required to carry out research calls for an increase in interdisciplinary and collaborative work. CogNovo, a doctoral training program for 25 PhD students, provided a unique opportunity to observe and analyze collaborative processes. We propose a process-oriented framework for understanding research collaborations along two dimensions: interpersonal and project-related. To illustrate the utility of this process-oriented framework, we (...) apply the framework matrix to several collaborations that emerged within the CogNovo program. The framework that we introduce has several advantages over existing metrics. Firstly, we offer a process-oriented—as opposed to product-oriented—evaluation of interdisciplinary and collaborative endeavors. Secondly, we propose a means of assessment that preserves the distinctive profile (or “fingerprint”) of a given collaborative project, thus capturing the uniqueness of each project and its environment. (shrink)

The physical boundaries of office work have become increasingly flexible. Work is conducted at multiple locations outside the office, such as at clients’ premises, at home, in cafés, or when traveling. However, the boundary between indoor and outdoor environment seems to be strong and normative regarding how office work is performed. The aim of this study was to explore how office work may be conducted outdoors, understanding how it is being experienced by office employees and identifying its contextual preconditions. Based (...) on a two-year interactive research project, the study was conducted together with a Swedish municipality. Fifty-eight participants engaged in the collaborative learning process, including 40 half-day workshops and reflective group discussions, co-interviews, and participants’ independent experimentation of bringing work activities outdoors. Data was collected via interviews, group discussions and a custom-made mobile application. The results showed that a wide range of work activities could be done outdoors, both individually and in collaboration with others. Outdoor work activities were associated with many positive experiences by contributing to a sense of well-being, recovery, autonomy, enhanced cognition, better communication, and social relations, but also with feelings of guilt and illegitimacy. Conditions of importance for outdoor office work to happen and function well were found in the physical environment, where proximity to urban greenspaces stood out as important, but also in the sociocultural and organizational domains. Of crucial importance was managers’ attitudes, as well as the overall organizational culture on this idea of bringing office work outdoors. To conclude, if working life is to benefit from outdoor office work, leaders, urban planners and policymakers need to collaborate and show the way out. (shrink)

BackgroundCommunities’ engagement in priority-setting is a key means for setting research topics and questions of relevance and benefit to them. However, without attention to dynamics of power and diversity, their engagement can be tokenistic. So far, there remains limited ethical guidance on how to share power with communities, particularly those considered disadvantaged and marginalised, in global health research priority-setting. This paper generates a comprehensive, empirically-based “ethical toolkit” to provide such guidance, further strengthening a previously proposed checklist version of (...) the toolkit. The toolkit places community engagement and power-sharing at the heart of priority-setting for global health research projects.MethodsA two part method was used to generate a revised toolkit. Part one was conceptual, consisting of novel analysis of empirical data (previously collected as part of the same overall project) to identify additional concepts relevant to power-sharing between researchers and communities in global health research priority-setting. Part two was empirical, seeking feedback on the initial checklist version of the toolkit in interviews with researchers, ethicists, community engagement practitioners, and community organisation staff.ResultsThe conceptual process identified two additional components of engagement and six additional features that affect who defines, who participates, and who is heard in research priority-setting. New ethical considerations related to sharing power in global health research priority-setting are articulated in relation to those components and features. Interviewees provided suggestions for revising the toolkit’s content and language. The implications of these suggestions and the analytic process for the toolkit are described.ConclusionsThe resultant toolkit is a reflective project planning aid for researchers and their community partners to employ before priority-setting is undertaken for global health research projects. It consists of three worksheets (to be completed collectively) and a companion document detailing how to use them. It is more comprehensive than the initial toolkit, as worksheet questions for discussion cover all phases of priority-setting. (shrink)

For researchers who study technology designs, the application and execution of so-called design-oriented research projects are a common way of funding their research. Against this background, we propose a new methodical approach with which VSD can easily be implemented in such projects and which we call “value declaration”. We share our experience with this method which we gained in two design-oriented research projects.

This article explains some moral dimensions of a transnational feminist research project designed to provide a better standard or metric for measuring poverty across the world. The author is an investigator on this project. Poverty metrics incorporate moral judgments about what is necessary for a decent life, so justifying metrics requires moral argumentation. The article clarifies the moral aspects of poverty valuation, indicates some moral flaws in existing global poverty metrics, and outlines some conditions for a better (...) global metric. It then explains the methodology used in our project, providing its moral rationale and discussing some remaining moral concerns. (shrink)

In early 2020, as the first of many COVID lockdowns began across Australia, a collective of feminist and queer performance scholars and artists embarked on the research project Staging Australian Women’s Lives: Theatre, Feminism and Socially Engaged Art. Our aim was to document contributions of womxn theatre makers, while conducting a feminist analysis of strategies used to deal with gender inequality and oppression, on stage and off. While pivoting to the digital and the virtual, we recognised a need (...) to support womxn theatre makers whose lives and livelihoods are thrown into further precarity by the pandemic. This paper speaks to our commitment to bringing together critical theory, arts practices and everyday life in ethical forms and encounters that make visible, recognise and express care for one another and for the work. (shrink)

A complex world like ours demands for the teachers and professors to command intercultural competences in order to avoid the instrumentalization of the alterities. It is precisely the professionals of education who, given their social function, have the responsibility of forming the citizens of the future in attitudes and behaviours adjusted to plural communities. This article presents the first part of a research project carried out by researchers from Barcelona, Marseille, Rabat and Beirut on the complex world of (...) the respect necessary to face prejudices and stereotypes. (shrink)

By understanding better how certain socioeconomic systems work, what chances for transformation they contain, and hence determining on these bases how they may evolve, we will be in a better position to look for the compatibilities and synergies that may be established among economic activities, social policies, and interventions in defense of environmental equilibria. It will also become clearer if, and how, it is possible to make these different needs interact for the better of all concerned. The research (...) class='Hi'>project illustrated here intends to contribute to our knowledge in this sense. (shrink)