Thursday, November 10, 2011
UK academics now have to demonstrate the impact of their research beyond the academic community, including especially impact on decisions, policies, practice (beyond inspiring research!).
This is a little harder than anticipated, most particularly because the research could have been undertaken since 1995, but the impacts sought for, are since 2008. Nevertheless, Foresight research would be an obvious candidate for us in Manchester, no?
While looking for evidence of impact of work of the FOREN project,
see for example http://community.iknowfutures.eu/pg/file/popper/view/2210/practical-guide-to-regional-foresight-in-the-uk for one of the more than 15 versions of the 2nd edition of the Practical Guide
I found this on FOR-LEARN website, hidden down in the references:
"The FOREN guide has been used as the starting basis for the FOR-LEARN online Foresight guide as it was already considered as a reference by many of the experts interviewed."
this is on page http://forlearn.jrc.ec.europa.eu/guide/A2_references/foren.htm
which you have to link from via http://forlearn.jrc.ec.europa.eu/guide/A2_references/index.htm
which cites FOREN as the 5th of its "main sources".
Looking at FOR-LEARN, this extensively borrows, on numerous pages (and in terms of overall ideas), from The Practical Guide. And the way it does so, it is only the more-than-casual user who bothers to follow up on sources, who will find where this material is borrowed from.
Hmm: "FOR-LEARN... was developed by JRC-IPTS with the financial support of the Directorate General for Research, from January 2005 up to May 2008" So it is a plausible "impact", though the JRC-IPTS authors have not been very helpful in directing us to this.
"The team which has developed the FORLEARN Online Guide or contributed to it consists of:Cristiano Cagnin;Olivier Da Costa; Tibor Döry;Duncan Gilson;Totti Könnölä;Valentina Pierantozzi;Fabiana Scapolo;Antoine Schoen;Philine Warnke;Tennessee Witney" there is no mention of the FOREN team here, though one of these people was a co-author of the original Practical Guide!
There is one other FOREN name in the acknowledgements page of FOR-LEARN.
And to be clear, FOR-LEARN does contain new material, including some rich case study documentation.
But the absence of proper acknowledgement of the earlier project makes it difficult for me now, as you will see - and is surely not good practice for a Research Centre.
This is a little harder than anticipated, most particularly because the research could have been undertaken since 1995, but the impacts sought for, are since 2008. Nevertheless, Foresight research would be an obvious candidate for us in Manchester, no?
While looking for evidence of impact of work of the FOREN project,
see for example http://community.iknowfutures.eu/pg/file/popper/view/2210/practical-guide-to-regional-foresight-in-the-uk for one of the more than 15 versions of the 2nd edition of the Practical Guide
I found this on FOR-LEARN website, hidden down in the references:
"The FOREN guide has been used as the starting basis for the FOR-LEARN online Foresight guide as it was already considered as a reference by many of the experts interviewed."
this is on page http://forlearn.jrc.ec.europa.eu/guide/A2_references/foren.htm
which you have to link from via http://forlearn.jrc.ec.europa.eu/guide/A2_references/index.htm
which cites FOREN as the 5th of its "main sources".
Looking at FOR-LEARN, this extensively borrows, on numerous pages (and in terms of overall ideas), from The Practical Guide. And the way it does so, it is only the more-than-casual user who bothers to follow up on sources, who will find where this material is borrowed from.
Hmm: "FOR-LEARN... was developed by JRC-IPTS with the financial support of the Directorate General for Research, from January 2005 up to May 2008" So it is a plausible "impact", though the JRC-IPTS authors have not been very helpful in directing us to this.
"The team which has developed the FORLEARN Online Guide or contributed to it consists of:Cristiano Cagnin;Olivier Da Costa; Tibor Döry;Duncan Gilson;Totti Könnölä;Valentina Pierantozzi;Fabiana Scapolo;Antoine Schoen;Philine Warnke;Tennessee Witney" there is no mention of the FOREN team here, though one of these people was a co-author of the original Practical Guide!
There is one other FOREN name in the acknowledgements page of FOR-LEARN.
And to be clear, FOR-LEARN does contain new material, including some rich case study documentation.
But the absence of proper acknowledgement of the earlier project makes it difficult for me now, as you will see - and is surely not good practice for a Research Centre.
