Liability and Risk Assessment in Student Activity Abroad—The UKCOSA Survey

Universities in England are required to assess risk in all activities they undertake. This enables proper procedures to be put in to place to provide effective delivery whilst at the same time minimising risk and potential liability. The individual components of the law involved in student activity abroad are essentially 'standard' but the total package of law and the procedures that it is advisable to follow is more complex. A survey of universities was carried out to ascertain what procedures they had in place and what their level of awareness was. The findings of the survey have been used to indicate what management procedures should be put in place in order to minimise risk in the form of answers to a series of Frequently Asked Questions (UKCOSA, 2002). The total elimination of risk is not possible, but use of information can reduce risk, minimise liability and enhance the quality of service provided.     

New ideas in political ecology

Alain Lipietz, Green Hopes: The Future of Political Ecology, (Polity Press, Cambridge 1995). 169pp. ISBN 0–7456–1327–6.

Andrew Dobson and Paul Lucardie, The Politics of Nature: Explorations in Green Political Theory, (Routledge, London and New York 1995). 240pp. ISBN 0–415–12471–9.

Tim Hayward, Ecological Thought: An Introduction, (Polity Press, Cambridge 1995). 259pp. ISBN 0–7456–1320–9.     

Managing competition between individual and organizational goals in cross-sector research and development centres

Research of potential socio-economic value is commonly conducted within cross-sector (government, university, business) centres. Success depends on partners whose objectives and strategies may converge or compete. Yet little empirical evidence exists on: (a) how individual researchers perceive the benefits of their participation, (b) how far the structures and functions of particular collaborative R&D centres coalesce around of researchers’ expectations and, (c) what problems arise for researchers who opt for a ‘second job’ in the centre. The paper presents a qualitative analysis of a survey of respondents from public sector organizations involved in Australian Cooperative Research Centres. A novel frame for analysing these data is the study of inter-organizational relationships (IOR). We use the perspective of the individual research scientists to illuminate the important management issues of trust, governance, and competition between functional domains, which emerge from IOR and which have been inadequately recognised in the context of collaborative R&D centres. The findings have implications for the management and of the centres, for the careers of research scientists and for public policy.