The effect of informal industry contacts on the time university scientists allocate to collaborative research with industry

We ask whether informal interactions between university and industry scientists result in collaborative research. Using data from a national survey of tenured and tenure-track scientists and engineers in U.S. research extensive universities, we demonstrate that university scientists’ informal interactions with private sector companies increase both the likelihood and intensity of collaborative research with industry.

Dynamics of collaborative research medicine: the case of glaucoma

This paper inquires into the organizational and spatial dynamics of scientific research by focussing on the evolution of epistemic networks in a specific area of medical practice, glaucoma. As researchers and practitioners struggle to come to grips with this elusive disease, the medical scientific community exhibits a great degree of variety in the ecology of organisations and the associated scientific pathways. Data on scientific publications over a thirty-year period affords a clearer understanding of the changing configurations of a clinical-scientific community, and speaks to the adaptive nature of problem-solving in medicine.     

Criminalisation,modernisation, and globalisation: the US and international perspectives on domestic violence

The growth of modernisation in a society is intimately connected to the growth of legal evolutions related to criminalisation. While modernisation expands the boundaries of tolerance in an open society, it also expands the boundaries of crime and criminalisation. As modernisation expands on a global scale, the process of redefining crime, criminalisation, and victimisation also occurs on a global scale. In the modern societies of the West, the advance of modern law and justice and the progress of the notions of human rights have expanded the boundaries of freedom. They have also expanded the boundaries of criminalisation in a number of social, cultural, political, and economic domains. One of the major areas of criminalisation that has rapidly expanded with modernisation and globalisation, particularly in the West, is domestic violence. During the last 30 years, a series of laws have evolved in these societies that criminalise a wide variety of behaviours related to domestic violence. A comparative study of legislative developments on domestic violence in the United States, Brazil, India, Japan, Bangladesh, and Ghana suggests that, in each, a relatively homogenous set of laws against domestic violence has evolved.     

Spotlight on research integrity: international insights on strengthening research culture in the forensic sciences and beyond

The Singapore Statement on Research Integrity, articulated during the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity in 2010, encompasses principles that apply to all research endeavours, including the various disciplines that comprise the field of forensic science Singapore Statement on Research Integrity (2010) (https://wcrif.org/guidance/singapore-statement). Cases of research misconduct and breaches of research integrity in any field undermine the trustworthiness of research and make it difficult if not impossible for others to rely upon and replicate research results. Moreover, problems in the research environment, whether in the academic, public, or private sector, can include bullying and harassment, discrimination, abuse of power and corruption, as well as competitive pressures related to employment and status.     

A Comparison of US and Japanese Dental Restorative Care Present on Service Members Recovered from the WWII Era

The documentation of dental materials used in the USA during the WWII era is readily available, while references for the Japanese are minimal. It was therefore important to build a photographic database of Japanese restorative care which could be utilized as a comparison tool for the deployed odontologist. The dental restorative care of approximately 400 US and 100 Japanese sets of remains was evaluated. Both countries share many similar restorative techniques to include collared crowns, full‐coverage restorations, cantilever bridge/pontics to close spaces; restorative materials such as amalgam, gold, and zinc phosphate (temporary) restorations; and removable prostheses. The dental restorative materials most commonly used by US dentists include the amalgam and silicate cement, while the full‐coverage crown was the type of restoration most frequently seen on the Japanese remains. Silicates, porcelain and replaceable crowns, and partial‐coverage prepared crowns were not observed on the recovered Japanese remains.     

A taxonomy of collaborative governance: a guide to understanding the diversity of international and domestic conservation accords

Partially in response to the increasing complexity of governance structures in the international environmental arena, international scholars have adopted a distinction between “Type 1” and “Type 2” international agreements. The former refer to agreements between governments, whereas the latter refer to agreements between governments and nonstate actors. While useful, this distinction offers only a partial taxonomy of the diversity of collaborative governance, and fails to incorporate “Type 3” dynamics among nonstate actors. As an initial attempt at sorting out the wide array of collaborative governance structures both domestically and across international borders, we propose a 3 × 3 matrix based on two typologies, one institutional (governmental, collaborative, nonstate), the other geopolitical (domestic, transborder, interstate/transnational). The result is a classification system of nine types of both domestic and international governance. In addition to identifying fundamental differences among the myriad forms of governance, the matrix reveals how the “softening of sovereignty” occurs in practice.

Impacts of the internet on traditional jurisdictional principles in international civil and commercial cases

Started as an undefined US military project to the current global network, the Internet has been developing and improved at an amazing speed, which also brought out enormous challenges to the traditional way of life worldwide. By analyzing the features of the Internet, this paper reveals the impacts of the Internet on jurisdictional principles applied in traditional international civil and commercial cases and aims to apply traditional rules under the new environment of the Internet. In addition, by referring to the international uniform legislation and from the US judicial theories and practices, this paper also brings out reflections and suggestions regarding this issue.     

Harmonizing the international regulation of embryonic stem cell research: possibilities, promises and potential pitfalls

Despite near unanimous global opposition to human reproductive cloning, the United Nations has been unable to reach a consensus as to how cloning practices should be regulated at the international level. As a result, the U.N. objective of establishing binding international regulations governing cloning and stem cell research has yet to be achieved. Given the lack of consensus that exists within the global community on this topic, it seems that any attempt to harmonize the international regulation of cloning and stem cell science will face important obstacles. This paper seeks to illuminate the particular challenges to harmonizing international laws and policies related to stem cell research and human cloning, and to investigate potential methods for overcoming these challenges. By drawing on two other areas in which regulatory harmonization has been attempted, namely: environmental and human safety aspects of international trade, and pharmaceutical research and development, we study approaches to global regulatory harmonization. We conclude that while the challenges to harmonization are diverse and important, so too are the benefits of establishing uniformity in approaches to stem cell research worldwide. This paper proposes a model for harmonizing the regulation of stem cell research that focuses on broader norms and principles rather than specific rules. It further recommends that such harmonization should occur through a process initiated and developed by an independent international agency marked by diversity, both in terms of the cultural identities and perspectives represented, and the interdisciplinary expertise of its members.     

Structural sources of international crime: Policy lessons from the BCCI Affair

The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was established in 1972 to provide help for poor people and poor countries. However, its scandalous closure, as the centre of a huge fraud, indicated that the main beneficiaries of the services of BCCI were the Colombian drug barons, the CIA, and several prominent Third World dictators. The BCCI collapse provides an opportunity to look into these global networks of criminality. It demonstrates that the lines between legitimate and illegitimate enterprises can be very thin; that illicit enterprises can themselves collaborate; and that the bank was itself involved in covert operations and the foreign policies of several states. The BCCI scandal presents a number of lessons in regulatory failure.     

Forensic anthropology and the most probable cause of death in cases of violations against international humanitarian law: an example from Bosnia and Herzegovina

This study presents the results of the analysis of at least 298 predominantly male individuals, between 15 and 75 years, who were recovered from an open cast mine in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Particular attention is paid to identifying the mechanisms of injury and determination of the most probable cause of death based on the assessment of lethal or lethal-if-untreated injuries recorded in the skeleton. It was calculated that at least 38.9% (155/398) of individuals sustained gunshot wounds (GSWs) (plus one shrapnel wound) and may have died as consequence of these injuries. Among individuals who died from GSWs, there were 142 males (91.60%), eight females (5.1%) and five cases that were (3.2%) undetermined. One male individual sustained shrapnel injuries. This study presents an example of the multidisciplinary approach to the effective forensic investigation of violation against International Humanitarian Law, as well as an example of how it is possible to obtain meaningful results to assist the needs of the prosecution in these kind of cases despite the large number of cases and technological constraints.     

‘A jack of all trades’: the role of PIs in the establishment and management of collaborative networks in scientific knowledge commercialisation

The commercialisation of scientific knowledge has become a primary objective for universities worldwide. Collaborative research projects are viewed as the key to achieving this objective, however, the role of Principal Investigators (PIs) within these complex multi-stakeholder research projects remains under researched. This paper explores how networks in the scientific knowledge collaboration process are initiated and maintained from a multi-stakeholder perspective. It is based on case study evidence from 82 stakeholders in 17 research collaboration projects in Irish and German universities, which provides for a holistic view of the process, as opposed to prior research which has tended to report findings based on the analysis of one or two stakeholders. It finds that PIs play a lead role in establishing and managing stakeholder networks. This finding is unanimous for all stakeholders, irrespective of research centre size, type and geographical location. Not unlike the entrepreneur, the PI has to be ‘a jack of all trades’, taking on the roles of project manager, negotiator, resource acquirer as well as, the traditional academic role of Ph.D. supervision and mentoring. The findings suggest that PIs are better placed than Technology Transfer Office managers to act as boundary spanners in bridging the gap between science and industry.     

Twenty-five years of science-industry collaboration: the emergence and evolution of policy-driven research networks across Europe

This paper aims at examining the collaborative networks established during the seven Framework Programmes on Research and Technological Development (1984–2009). These networks are the result of self-organized partnering by different participating entities (industry, universities, research centers and technology users) in subsidized research joint ventures selected on a competitive basis under the thematic priorities and funding rules imposed by the European Union. Social network analysis tools are employed in order to describe and assess the architecture, and the dynamics of the networks that were developed in the context of each Framework Programme. Analysis of organizations’ positioning in the network space will show whether there are some pivotal actors with significant policy implications for knowledge and technology transfer. Last but not least, understanding how these network are formed and how they have evolved over time may provide useful policy implications for the design and structure of the current and future EU Programmes aimed at shaping and creating a unified European Research Area.     

Towards global green shipping: the development of international regulations on reduction of GHG emissions from ships

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) promotes global “green shipping” through rule-making in accordance with its mandate under the Kyoto Protocol. The IMO rules related to reduction in greenhouse gas emissions can be divided into two types: technical and operational measures; and market-based measures. As to the former, important regulations have been adopted that are mandatory for ships irrespective of their flag. The latter are still in the drafting process, and in view of deep divisions between member states, it will be difficult to reach early agreement. In the development of rules for emissions reduction in IMO, the common but differentiated responsibility principle (CBDR) conflicts severely with the non-discrimination principle which has long been a traditional and basic principle of IMO regulation. Considering the peculiarities of the shipping industry, a fuller understanding of CBDR will be necessary in order to find a reasonable and feasible way to reconcile these two principles.