The inhibiting factors that principal investigators experience in leading publicly funded research

Securing public funding to conduct research and leading it by being a principal investigator (PI) is seen as significant career development step. Such a role brings professional prestige but also new responsibilities beyond research leadership to research management. If public funding brings financial and infrastructure support, little is understood about the inhibiting factors that publicly funded PIs face given the research autonomy offered by publicly funded research. Our study finds that there are three key PI inhibiting factors (1) political and environmental, (2) institutional and (3) project based. Traditional knowledge, skills and technical know-how of publicly funded PIs are insufficient to deal with the increasing managerial demands and expectations i.e. growing external bureaucracy of public funding agencies. Public funding is no longer the ‘freest form of support’ as suggested by Chubin and Hackett (Peerless science: peer review and US science policy. Suny Press, New York, 1990) and the inhibiting factors experienced by publicly funded PIs limits their research autonomy. We also argue that PIs have little influence in overcoming these inhibiting factors despite their central role in conducting publicly funded research.     

Navigating the role of the principal investigator: a comparison of four cases

Principal investigators are the lead actors on projects at the forefront of nascent technologies, yet few studies have explored the personal actions and experiences of PIs as they navigate their roles. I investigated principal investigators and their approach to new boundary spanning and entrepreneurial roles. Following a multiple case study methodology with a combination of interviews and observation, four PIs in nanotechnology related fields are explored in three dimensions: career and institutional alignment, boundary spanning activities and the tensions created in the still largely uncharted waters of nanotechnology commercialization. I found that these PIs actively sought organizational alignment that allowed them “to make things happen” while keeping harmony between the university and enterprise. The PIs demonstrated boundary-spanning activities, in particular a propensity for welcoming strangers into their labs in the hopes of finding new knowledge and opportunities, and practicing “good grantsmanship” to convert these new relations into collaboration. I found that the PIs managed tensions related to academic progression and lack of institutional support. Through this study, I offer researchers an opportunity to hear the voice of PIs on these topics and seek to contribute to our understanding of PIs as critical actors in the pursuit of science.     

Grace,gold, or glory? Exploring incentives for invention disclosure in the university context

What motivates university scientists to identify practical applications for their research results and consider having them patent-protected? A wealth of research points towards a complex blend of factors, including organizational antecedents, social norms and personal-level expectations. Few studies, however, have attempted to investigate the effect of concrete incentives from the perspective of individual scientists’ decision-making. In this paper, we operationalize the propensity to patent and commercialize research results as the intention to submit an invention disclosure filing. We use scenario-based conjoint analysis to capture university scientists’ preference structures for different incentive policies. Results indicate that direct and indirect financial incentives are dominant drivers. In addition, a grace period that would allow for patenting and publishing in parallel and the inclusion of patents in academic performance assessments are worth considering, whereas the specific setup of the technology transfer organization and public recognition of achievements in form of an award appear to have limited effect. However, preferences for incentives and hence their effectiveness vary significantly across academic disciplines and ranks as well as with scientists’ working experience, patenting experience and research orientation. On this basis, we can derive more qualified recommendations for incentive system design.     

Academic outcomes among principal investigators,co-principal investigators,and non-PI researchers

Faculty at research universities are evaluated on a number of productivity measures including their ability to conduct research, teach, and engage in service. Research outcomes include publishing research results and acquiring grants and contracts to conduct additional research. While it is assumed that researchers who are awarded grants are more likely to publish research results, there is little research investigating the ways in which grants affect outcomes or how principal investigators differ from researchers who do not hold research grants or those who are co-principal investigators. This research seeks to understand if principal investigators are more or less productive than co-principal investigators and those who do not have grants, and if so, what explains that variation in productivity. It also examines whether women PIs are more or less productive than men PIs. This research uses longitudinal data drawn from an NSF funded survey of academic scientists in Carnegie-designated Research I universities in six fields: biology, chemistry, computer science, earth and atmospheric sciences, electrical engineering, and physics. From this national random sample of men and women scientists and engineers we investigate whether there is variation in the production of outcomes (e.g. publications, teaching, and training graduate students) among PIs, co-PIs, and other researchers. Findings show that productivity and outcomes vary significantly for PIs, co-PIs and by sex.     

The roles of non-state actors in climate change governance: understanding agency through governance profiles

Globalization processes have rendered non-state actors an integral part of global governance. The body of literature that has examined non-state actor involvement in global governance has focused mainly on whether and how non-state actors can influence states. Less attention has been paid to the comparative advantages of non-state actors to answer questions about agency across categories of non-state actors, and more precisely what governance activities non-state actors are perceived to fulfil. Using unique survey material from two climate change conferences, we propose that different categories of non-state actors have distinct governance profiles. We further suggest that the different governance profiles are derived from particular power sources and that agency is a function of these profiles. The study thereby contributes to a strand in the literature focusing on the authority of non-state actors in climate governance and broadens the methodological toolkit for studying the “governors” of global governance.     

From House to Home: Strategic Bill Drafting in Multilevel Systems with Non-static Ambition

How do legislators behave in systems where pursuit of re-election is not the rule, and ambition is channelled through multiple levels of government? Is their legislative behaviour biased towards their immediate career goals? In this paper, the Argentine case is analysed in order to explore the link between political ambition and legislative performance in a multilevel setting where politicians have subnational executive positions as priorities, rather than stable legislative careerism. The piece demonstrates that legislators seeking mayoral positions tend to submit more district-level legislation than their peers. This finding contributes to the knowledge of strategic behaviour in multilevel settings, and provides non-US-based evidence regarding the use of non-roll call position-taking devices.     

The Subnational Connection in Unitary Regimes: Progressive Ambition and Legislative Behavior in Uruguay

How do legislators develop reputations to further their individual goals in environments with limited space for personalization? In this article, we evaluate congressional behavior by legislators with gubernatorial expectations in a unitary environment where parties control political activities and institutions hinder individualization. By analyzing the process of drafting bills in Uruguay, we demonstrate that deputies with subnational executive ambition tend to bias legislation towards their districts, especially those from small and peripheral units. Findings reinforce the importance of incorporating ambition to legislative studies and open a new direction towards the analysis of multiple career patterns within a specific case.     

The Organized Irresponsibility Principle and Risk Arbitrage

In an age of accelerating wealth at the very top and accelerating risks at the bottom, there is a clear disjunction between the flow of social benefits and social damages produced by different actors and their share of these respective benefits and damages. Yet, the specific processes that generate the dualization of tracks of accumulation of rewards or accumulation of risks and precarity are still up for debate. In tackling this dual process in a way that is attuned to the critical contribution of contemporary forms of the law to this uneven accumulation of wealth and of risks, this paper focuses on organized irresponsibility—where individuals can cumulatively contribute to risks, but avoid individual culpability—and how relations of organized irresponsibility provide extensive opportunities for risk arbitrage. Risk arbitrage is correspondingly a process where actors, whether it be individuals or larger organizations, can produce social risk, appropriate benefit from these risks, and disproportionately avoid the consequences of the risks so as to benefit from the overall “cycle of reward and risk”—even if society as a whole is worse off. The paper identifies organized irresponsibility as fundamentally undergirded by mismatches between existing configurations of law and the existing complexity of the processes of the production of social goods and risks. This paper proceeds to show how gaps in the law enable the organized irresponsibility principle—that given a level of risk production, the greater the number of actors involved and the greater complexity between causes and the risk’s impacts, the less overall culpability that tends to be assigned. It then shows how the organized irresponsibility principle enables relationships of risk arbitrage that intensify contemporary risk and inequality.     

A Tribute to Murray A. Straus

This article offers a brief tribute to the father of the field of family violence, Murray A. Straus, Ph.D. Murray spent the bulk of his career at the University of New Hampshire, where he studied partner violence, corporal punishment, developed the Conflict Tactics Scales, and mentored thousands of students, post-doctoral research fellows, and colleagues alike. His productivity and the significant impact that he had on the field and the public at large, in addition to his warmth and good humor, are noted here.     

Open or closed meetings? Explaining nonstate actor involvement in the international climate change negotiations

When do states allow nonstate actors (NSAs) to observe negotiations at intergovernmental meetings? Previous studies have identified the need for states to close negotiations when the issues under discussion are sensitive. This paper argues that sensitivity alone cannot adequately explain the dynamic of closing down negotiations to observers. Questions that have received little attention in the literature include which issues are considered sensitive and how the decision is made to move the negotiations behind closed doors. This paper examines the practices of NSA involvement in climate diplomacy from three analytical perspectives: functional efficiency, political dynamics, and historical institutionalism. Based on interviews and UNFCCC documents, this paper suggests that to understand the issue of openness in negotiations, institutional factors and the politics of NSA involvement need to be better scrutinized. The paper shows that each perspective has particular advantages when analyzing different dimensions of the negotiations, with implications of how we understand the role of NSAs in global environmental governance.     

Gangs in the DRC and El Salvador: towards a third generation of gang violence interventions?

The phenomenon of gangs in El Salvador and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has already been researched, but a comparative study of gangs and gang policies is lacking. In this paper we discuss several gang violence prevention initiatives regarding the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 in El Salvador, and the kuluna and bashege in Kinshasa, DRC. In order to analyze the different gang interventions, we implement the typology of first and second gang violence prevention initiatives (Rodgers et al. 2009), and propose the evolution towards a third generation of gang violence prevention interventions. While first generation initiatives are security and law-enforcement driven, and second generation initiatives socio-preventive driven, third generation initiatives are more politically driven. The latter indicates a shift towards a vision of dialogue and negotiations to deal with gang violence. However, the different generations are not predefined within time and third generation initiatives can also be followed up by first generation initiatives, which was for example the case in the gang truce in El Salvador. Also, comparative gang research includes challenges, especially when the gang phenomenon in one country is better researched and documented than in other countries. As such, we were unable to identify politically-driven initiatives in the DRC to compare with the ones in El Salvador. Further research is thus required. With this paper we not only aim to contribute to the literature on gang violence prevention and reduction initiatives, we also want to push researchers, practitioners and policymakers to look beyond the borders when setting up gang (violence) prevention and rehabilitation projects, and to learn from other regions where similar initiatives have been implemented to deal with comparable issues of gang violence.     

Faculty Entrepreneurs and Research Productivity

In this paper, we analyze the research productivity of faculty entrepreneurs at 15 research institutes using a novel database combining faculty characteristics, licensing information, and journal publication records. We address two related research questions. First, are faculty entrepreneurs more productive researchers (“star scientists”) compared to their colleagues? Second, does the productivity of faculty entrepreneurs change after they found a firm? We find that faculty entrepreneurs in general are more productive researchers than control groups. We use multiple performance criteria in our analysis: differences in mean publication rate, skewness of publication rate, and impact of publications (journal citation rate). These findings bring together previous work on star scientists by Zucker, Darby, and Brewer [Zucker, L. G., Darby M. R., &; Brewer M. B. (1998). The American Economic Review, 88, 290–306.] and tacit knowledge among university entrepreneurs by Shane [Shane, S. (2002). Management Science, 48, 122–137.] and Lowe [Lowe, R. A. (2001). In G. Libecap (Ed.) Entrepreneurial Inputs and Outcomes. Amsterdam: JAI Press, Lowe, R.A. (2006). Journal of Technology Transfer, 31(4), 412–429]. Finally, we find that faculty entrepreneurs’ productivity not only is greater than their peers but also does not decrease following the formation of a firm.     

Tax treaties with developing countries and the allocation of taxing rights

Worldwide income taxation in the country of residence is a legal dogma of international taxation. We question this dogma from the perspective of relations between developed and developing countries from legal and economic perspectives, and make a modern and fair proposal for tax treaties. We show under which conditions a developing and a developed country will voluntarily sign a tax treaty where the developing country is more inclined to share the information with the developed country and whether they should share revenues. Moreover, we demonstrate how the conclusion of a tax treaty can assist in the implementation of a tax audit system in the developing country.     

Access to health care for undocumented migrants: a comparative policy analysis of England and the Netherlands

The presence of undocumented migrants is increasing in many Western countries despite wide-ranging attempts by governments to increase border security. Measures taken to control the influx of immigrants include policies that restrict access to publicly funded health care for undocumented migrants. These restrictions to health care access are controversial, and evidence suggests they do not always have the intended effect. This study provides a comparative analysis of institutional, actor-related, and contextual factors that have influenced health care policy development on undocumented migrants in England and the Netherlands. For undocumented migrants, England restricts its access to care at the point of service, while the Netherlands restricts through the payment system for services. The study includes an analysis of policy papers and semistructured, in-depth interviews with various actors in both countries. Findings confirm the influence of such contextual factors as immigration considerations and cost concerns on health care policy making in this area. However, these factors cannot explain the differences between the two countries. Previously enacted policies, especially the organization of the health care system, affected the kind of restrictions for undocumented migrants. Concerns about the side effects of generous treatment of undocumented migrants on other groups played a substantial role in formulating restrictive policies in both countries. Evidently, policy development and implementation is critically affected by institutional rules, which govern the degree of influence that doctors and professional medical associations have on the policy process.     

The Horizons of the Constitution: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Politeia</Emphasis>, the Political Regime and the Good

How do we think about the word politeia when this involves a reaching back to the past? The response, pursued in this paper, is that in the classical understanding of politeia there is a significant connection between the question of the ‘good’ and the constitution; a connection which has become occluded or obscured by modern constitutional thought. In support of this understanding of politeia it must be acknowledged that what is meant, in this paper, by ‘good’ is very different from that conventionally found in contemporary constitutional, legal or political theory. In an effort to disclose how politeia unravels this novel sense of ‘the good’ the paper will closely consider the philosophical work of Hans-Georg Gadamer on Plato. The paper claims that this largely neglected work is of importance to contemporary constitutional philosophy, particularly in so far as it focuses, as in this paper, on classical traditions or origins within constitutional thought.     

Sexual Violence Against Women Through the Lens of Environmental Criminology: Toward the Accumulation of Evidence-based Knowledge and Crime Prevention

Sexual violence against women is a serious problem worldwide. In this study, we organize and critically review previous empirical studies on sexual offenses against women through the lens of environmental criminology. For this purpose, we use the questions asked by environmental criminologists/crime analysts in the study of crime events; that is the: who, what, where, when, and how this phenomenon typically occurs. Based on the current state of the criminological research literature, we then provide a discussion on the prevention of sexual offenses against women drawing on a situational crime prevention framework. By engaging in this exercise, we argue that environmental criminology can substantially contribute to understanding and informing prevention practices in the field of sexual offenses against women.     

Public Attitudes in Australia to the Reintegration of ex-Offenders: Testing a Belief in Redeemability (BiR) scale

We report the results of a large scale Australian survey of public attitudes to offender reintegration. A representative sample of 1215 respondents gave their views about the possibility that offenders could make a good life for themselves after having committed crime. Views expressed were significantly positive with around four out of five respondents indicating they believed reintegration was possible and should be attempted. On the basis of the responses an overall score was calculated for each respondent. Analysis of the data suggested that three factors contributed to the overall score. We named these: Human capital, Possibility of change and Agency and the rationale for these is discussed. Some demographic factors (age, gender, presence of children in the household and highest level of schooling) were significantly related to scores in one of the components. Respondents also reported whether they, or someone close to them, had been a victim of crime or had been arrested, and whether they had worked in the field of law enforcement or the field of human services. Inclusion in these categories was found to be significantly related to certain components of the overall score. These findings are discussed in the light of related surveys in other jurisdictions and we invite other researchers to use the scale and suggest improvements.     

‘No banquet can do without liquor’: alcohol counterfeiting in the People’s Republic of China

The illegal trade in alcohol has been an empirical manifestation of organised crime with a very long history; yet, the nature of the illegal trade in alcohol has received relatively limited academic attention in recent years despite the fact that it has been linked with significant tax evasion as well as serious health problems and even deaths. The current article focuses on a specific type associated with the illegal trade in alcohol, the counterfeiting of alcohol in China. The article pays particular attention to the counterfeiting of baijiu - Chinese liquor - in mainland China. The aim of the article is to offer an account of the social organisation of the alcohol counterfeiting business in China by illustrating the counterfeiting process, the actors in the business as well as its possible embeddedness in legal practices, trades and industries. The alcohol counterfeiting business is highly reflective to the market demand and consumer needs. Alcohol counterfeiting in China is characterised primarily by independent actors many of whom are subcontracted to provide commodities and services about the counterfeiting process. The business relies on personal networks – family and extended family members, friends and acquaintances. Relationships between actors in the business are very often based on a customer-supplier relationship or a ‘business-to-business market’. The alcohol counterfeiting business in China highlights the symbiotic relationship between illegal and legal businesses.