Institute for Competitiveness and Communication
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Ergebnisse nach Hochschule und Institut
Publikation The Emerging Governance of E-Infrastructure(Wiley, 2013) Barjak, Franz; Eccles, Kathryn; Meyer, Eric; Robinson, Simon; Schroeder, RalphThe paper studies the transition to ICT-based support systems for scientific research. These systems currently attempt the transition from the project stage to the more permanent stage of an infrastructure. The transition leads to several challenges, including in the area of establishing adequate governance regimes, which not all projects master successfully. Studying a set of cases from Europe and America, we look at patterns in the size and scope of the undertakings, embeddedness in user communities, aims and responsibilities, mechanisms of coordination, forms of governance, and time horizon and funding. We find that, though configurations and landscapes are somewhat diverse, successful projects typically follow distinctive paths, either large-scale or small-scale, and become what we term ‘stable metaorganizations’ or ‘established communities.’01A - Beitrag in wissenschaftlicher ZeitschriftPublikation International collaboration, mobility and team diversity in the life sciences: impact on research performance.(Taylor & Francis, 2008) Barjak, Franz; Robinson, SimonThe combination of knowledge and skills from different backgrounds or research cultures is often considered good for science. This paper describes the extent to which academic research teams in the life sciences draw on different national knowledge pools and how this is related to their research performance. We distinguish between international collaboration between research teams and international mobility leading to team diversity, where scientists with a background in another country work as members of a team over time. Our findings confirm previous results on the positive relationship between international collaboration and team performance. Moreover, we show that the most successful teams have a moderate level of diversity: maximizing diversity does not maximize performance. These results have implications for research team management and for research policy, in particular pointing out a need for adequate integration support to mobile scientists.01A - Beitrag in wissenschaftlicher ZeitschriftPublikation Case Studies of e-Infrastructure Adoption(SAGE, 2009) Barjak, Franz; Lane, Julia; Kertcher, Zack; Poschen, Meik; Procter, Rob; Robinson, SimonThis article reports results from a study of e-Infrastructure adoption in the social sciences and humanities (SSH). The authors find that bridging barriers between computer and domain scientists is of key importance. In particular, SSH communities have to be accepted as being distinct and not suited to a ‘‘one size fits all’’ strategy of e-Infrastructure diffusion. Sustainability was also a core issue, whereas barriers to resource sharing could mostly be resolved with technological solutions, and skills and training activities are a reflection of the general ‘‘user dilemma.’’ The authors’ recommendations to European Union (EU) policy makers point the way to promoting e-Infrastructure development and wider application in the SSH.01A - Beitrag in wissenschaftlicher ZeitschriftPublikation National cultural diversity of research teams(2009) Barjak, Franz; Robinson, SimonAccording to social categorization theory diversity has negative effects on group processes as it places a burden on communication and cohesion. From an information processing approach, however, diversity is considered as beneficial for groups broadening the available cognitive resources. The paper compares national cultural diversity of research teams, i.e. to what degree members of research teams come from different countries, across a set of 10 European countries and four academic domains (engineering, natural sciences, biology, and social sciences). It uses different measures of diversity which include species richness, evenness and disparity to different degrees. For all measures we find that the UK and Sweden have high cultural diversities of their research teams, whereas the Czech Republic, Hungary and Italy and at domain level the social sciences have low diversities. We then relate the diversity measures to the teams’ research performance measured as journal publications but at the current level of calculations we fail to find a stable relationship.04B - Beitrag KonferenzschriftPublikation Assessing the web connectivity of research groups on an international scale(Emerald, 2008) Thelwall, Mike; Li, Xuemei; Barjak, Franz; Robinson, SimonThe purpose of this paper is to claim that it is useful to assess the web connectivity of research groups, describe hyperlink‐based techniques to achieve this and present brief details of European life sciences research groups as a case study. Design/methodology/approach A commercial search engine was harnessed to deliver hyperlink data via its automatic query submission interface. A special purpose link analysis tool, LexiURL, then summarised and graphed the link data in appropriate ways. Findings Webometrics can provide a wide range of descriptive information about the international connectivity of research groups. Research limitations/implications Only one field was analysed, data was taken from only one search engine, and the results were not validated. Practical implications Web connectivity seems to be particularly important for attracting overseas job applicants and to promote research achievements and capabilities, and hence we contend that it can be useful for national and international governments to use webometrics to ensure that the web is being used effectively by research groups. Originality/value This is the first paper to make a case for the value of using a range of webometric techniques to evaluate the web presences of research groups within a field, and possibly the first “applied” webometrics study produced for an external contract.01A - Beitrag in wissenschaftlicher Zeitschrift