The impact of participation in European joint research projects on knowledge creation and economic growth

This paper investigates the impact of participation in European scientific networks on the stock of knowledge and on economic growth. We use scientific links in FP programmes to weight foreign R&D in order to construct two different measures of foreign R&D spillovers and we assess their impact on the production of knowledge (patents) and on economic growth in a panel of countries participating in FP over the period 1994–2005. We find that participation in EU funded projects is an important channel of knowledge transfer. However, while for countries with high levels of R&D expenditure R&D spillovers contribute to the generation of new knowledge, for low R&D spenders knowledge spillovers facilitate technological imitation and catching up.     

CITES,wild plants,and opportunities for crime

The illegal trade in endangered plants damages both the environment and local communities by threatening and destroying numerous species and important natural resources. There is very little research which systematically addresses this issue by identifying specific opportunities for crime. This article presents the results of an interdisciplinary study which brings together criminological and conservation science expertise to identify criminal opportunities in the illegal wild plant trade and suggest strategies in order to prevent and mitigate the problem. Methodologically, the study adapts a crime proofing of legislation approach to the UN Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and is based on documentary and interview data. Situational crime prevention is used as a framework to provide points for effective intervention.     

An unusual case of a triple suicide pact at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic

In December 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared SARS-CoV2 a global pandemic. Home confinement, low social contacts, and fear of virus transmission played a major role as risk factors for suicides during the following period. Suicide pacts, in particular, showed a different pattern. A rare case of a triple suicide pact among members of the same family nucleus is presented. The victims were an elderly, severely ill woman and her adult children (a son and daughter), linked by a morbid relationship. The last time the family was seen alive was 40 days before the discovery. All corpses presented decompositional changes. After a full autopsy, the cause of death was determined to be a lethal intake of morphine for the mother and acute blood loss due to self-stabbing at the neck for the siblings. The younger woman was under the effects of a large amount of heparin. Toxicological analysis was positive for opioids and alcohol in both siblings. Suicide pacts have rarely been described during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the few cases reported, the victims were more often relatives than people in a romantic relationship. The involvement of three people is unusual, as is the use of different suicide methods among the victims. In the presented case, the elderly mother's imminent death from terminal cancer, her concern over dying in a nondomestic environment, and the siblings' fear of being alone likely led to the conception of the suicide pact. Social isolation and economic difficulties also played a contributing role.     

The narratives behind the EU's external perceptions: how civil society and elites in Ukraine,Israel and Palestine “learn” EU norms

ABSTRACT

The EU's normative promotion is a keystone in the arch of its Foreign and Security Policy, reflected in establishing a “ring of friends” in its neighbourhood. However, the EU's normative impact in these countries is often hindered by domestic constraints. Conversely, deeper socialisation through persuasion and “learning” may advance towards the promotion of EU norms better. By tracing the “learning” component of the EU's external perceptions in its Eastern (Ukraine) and Southern (Israel and Palestine) neighbourhoods, this paper elaborates upon the receptiveness of EU norms. Considering the specific attention that the ENP draws towards the support of civil society, this paper focuses on “learning” narratives of EU norms among civil society elites in Ukraine, Israel and Palestine as the key targets of EU assistance – with a particular focus on various conceptualisations of learning in the learning process. Notwithstanding perceptions of the EU as a normative power, we find that the learning processes remain too complex to be captured within a single theoretical framework. Whereas communicative rationality implies learning about each other's identities through rational arguing, our analysis demonstrates that identity performance is one of the most emotive and crucial factors in perceptions of learning.     

Deconstructing the Boundaries: Gender and Genre in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden,Norway and Denmark

ABSTRACT

In her 1796 travelogue, Wollstonecraft combines the main elements of many different genres, blending together the physical-geographical account of the countries she was visiting with her own feelings, producing a Romantic conception of the human being overwhelmed by and subsumed into the natural elements. The journey through the Scandinavian countries turns out to be more than a business travel. It takes the shape of an inner route, a rediscovery of herself and of her experiences, including motherhood. The ability to dismantle the boundaries of the travel writing genre in such an innovative way is the same ability she shows when subverting the literary gender stereotypes that saw women marginalized inside the domestic sphere. What emerges from this extraordinary epistolary collection is a woman capable of the greatest sentimentality and, at the same time, of the smartest rationality, an active woman who does not deny her femininity but who strongly refuses the passivity society has always attributed to the female.     

Building terror while fighting enemies: how the Global War on Terror deepened the crisis in Somalia

Somalia has become a front in the US Global War on Terror (GWoT) because of the potential connection between terrorism and state fragility. While originally oriented towards ‘building states while fighting terror’, Enduring Freedom in Somalia obtained quite the opposite result of deepening the existing conflict. Why and how did the GWoT result in the controversial outcome of ‘building terror while fighting enemies’? This article argues that the GWoT sponsored in Somalia an isolationist strategy that encouraged the political polarisation and military radicalisation of the insurgency. To explore this argument, the article first analyses the structure of the intervention by focusing on the interests and strategies of the interveners. Then it evaluates the conditions under which the modality of intervention (through the use of diplomatic, economic and coercive measures) violated the conditions essential to resolving conflict.     

The management of industry–university joint research projects: how do partners coordinate and control R&D activities?

Benefits derived from industry–university joint research projects (e.g., competitive advantages for firms, opportunities for field experimentation, the funding of academics’ activities and knowledge and technology transfer among partners) are strongly affected by the management system exploited to combine partners’ resources and tasks. Nevertheless, scholars have not paid great attention to management practices of collaborative research, leaving the best practices undefined. Aiming to fill this literature gap, this paper is a first attempt to open the black box of the management of the implementation stage of research and development (R&D) cooperation. The investigation, based on case studies, focuses on how participants of R&D cooperation coordinate and control their activities and what drives the selection of integrating mechanisms. The comparison of coordination and control systems implemented in six industry–university joint research projects highlights that planning and mutual adjustment practices are combined in different ways to manage R&D cooperation. Project and relationship characteristics affect the configuration of the management system. Task uncertainty leads to the decentralization of coordination and control practices, equivocality provides incentives for group coordination mode and reduces the need of informal ongoing monitoring and reciprocal interdependence among partners requires the exploitation of up-to-date project plans.     

Patenting of Research Results Related to Genetic Resources from Areas beyond National Jurisdiction: The Crossroads of the Law of the Sea and Intellectual Property Law

The conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction has attracted increasing attention from international fora over the last 15 years. A particular issue that is currently debated surrounds the regime for research activities related to biological resources from areas beyond national jurisdiction. This article considers the implications of patenting the research results of such activities in the context of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. It concludes that policy clarification is needed in order to ensure that any regime for bioprospecting in areas beyond national jurisdiction provides incentives for researchers and prospectors to continue uncovering the mysteries of the deep oceans, including through the issuance of patents, while at the same time ensuring a fair sharing of the benefits of research results with all States.     

Shared genetic data and the rights of involved people.

The authors examine the two main attitudes toward genetics: Exceptionalism and Undervaluation. They firstly pose the basis of the matter from the scientific point of view and then verify how these two attitudes really work in the different fields where human genetics finds relevant applications, dealing with the questions arising from the unique characteristics of genetic data that is shared among the whole bio-group. Then some judicial cases related to the conflicts arising when genetic data are stored in repositories, whatever the aims and reasons, are presented and discussed. The matter is then considered from the criminal law perspective, in the light of the new possible implications of DNA fingerprinting in criminal investigations. Finally, some general considerations on opposing Exceptionalism/Undervaluation viewpoints and the real reason for making up new rules are presented.