Jennifer Dusdal, Mike Zapp, Marcelo Marques and Justin J.W. Powell
Informed by multiple disciplines, theories, and methods, higher education scholars have developed a robust and diverse literature in many countries. Yet, some important…
Abstract
Informed by multiple disciplines, theories, and methods, higher education scholars have developed a robust and diverse literature in many countries. Yet, some important (organizational) sociological perspectives, both more established and more recent, are insufficiently linked. In particular, we identify two theoretical strands – institutional and relational – that, when joined, help to explain contemporary developments in global higher education and yield new organizational insights. We review relevant literature from each perspective, both in their general formulations and with specific reference to contemporary higher education research. Within the broad institutional strand, we highlight strategic action fields, organizational actorhood, and associational memberships. Within the relational strand, we focus on ties and relationships that are especially crucial as science has entered an age of (inter)national research collaboration. Across these theories, we discuss linkages between concepts, objects, and levels of analysis. We explore the methodological approach of social network analysis as it offers great potential to connect these strands and, thus, to advance contemporary higher education research in a collaborative era.
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Justin J. W. Powell, Frank Fernandez, John T. Crist, Jennifer Dusdal, Liang Zhang and David P. Baker
This chapter provides an overview of the findings and chapters of a thematic volume in the International Perspectives on Education and Society (IPES) series. It describes the…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter provides an overview of the findings and chapters of a thematic volume in the International Perspectives on Education and Society (IPES) series. It describes the common dataset and methods used by an international research team.
Design/methodology/approach
The chapter synthesizes the results of a series of country-level case studies and cross-national and regional comparisons on the growth of scientific research from 1900 until 2011. Additionally, the chapter provides a quantitative analysis of global trends in scientific, peer-reviewed publishing over the same period.
Findings
The introduction identifies common themes that emerged across the case studies examined in-depth during the multi-year research project Science Productivity, Higher Education, Research and Development and the Knowledge Society (SPHERE). First, universities have long been and are increasingly the primary organizations in science production around the globe. Second, the chapters describe in-country and cross-country patterns of competition and collaboration in scientific publications. Third, the chapters describe the national policy environments and institutionalized organizational forms that foster scientific research.
Originality/value
The introduction reviews selected findings and limitations of previous bibliometric studies and explains that the chapters in the volume address these limitations by applying neo-institutional theoretical frameworks to analyze bibliometric data over an extensive period.
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Justin J. W. Powell and Jennifer Dusdal
Growth in scientific production and productivity over the 20th century resulted significantly from three major countries in European science – France, Germany, and the United…
Abstract
Purpose
Growth in scientific production and productivity over the 20th century resulted significantly from three major countries in European science – France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Charting the development of universities and research institutes that bolster Europe’s key position in global science, we uncover both stable and dynamic patterns of productivity in the fields of STEM, including health, over the 20th century. Ongoing internationalization of higher education and science has been accompanied by increasing competition and collaboration. Despite policy goals to foster innovation and expand research capacity, policies cannot fully account for the differential growth of scientific productivity we chart from 1975 to 2010.
Approach and Research Design
Our sociological neo-institutional framework facilitates explanation of differences in institutional settings, organizational forms, and organizations that produce the most European research. We measure growth of published peer-reviewed articles indexed in Thomson Reuters’ Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE).
Findings
Organizational forms vary in their contributions, with universities accounting for nearly half but rising in France; ultrastable in Germany at four-fifths, and growing at around two-thirds in the United Kingdom. Differing institutionalization pathways created the conditions necessary for continuous, but varying growth in scientific production and productivity in the European center of global science. The research university is key in all three countries, and we identify organizations leading in research output.
Originality/value
Few studies explicitly compare across time, space, and different levels of analysis. We show how important European science has been to overall global science production and productivity. In-depth comparisons, especially the organizational fields and forms in which science is produced, are crucial if policy is to support research and development.
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This chapter explores the trajectories of higher education expansion and its political and social conditions in seven countries, namely China, Japan, Germany, Qatar, South Korea…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter explores the trajectories of higher education expansion and its political and social conditions in seven countries, namely China, Japan, Germany, Qatar, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States of America.
Methodology/approach
The analysis relies on longitudinal and cross-sectional data gleaned from the World Higher Education Database, UNESCO, and the OECD.
Findings
The countries have seen remarkable higher education expansion in the 20th century in terms of enrollments and the foundings of universities, with particularly strong growth in the immediate post-WWII period and since 1990. For the particular case of STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), the chapter shows that in those higher education systems in which growth took off relatively late, universities oriented toward the STEM fields are more dominant than in those with a longer history. Countries with a more recent HE system stress technological development more than those that look back on multiple centuries of HE expansion with their canonical legacies.
Originality/value
Comparing these highly dissimilar countries nevertheless reveals important common patterns, and the variable paces of higher education expansion can be explained by national, social, and political factors driving the institutionalization of higher education and research.
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Peter Arcidiacono, Patrick Bayer, Federico A. Bugni and Jonathan James
Many dynamic problems in economics are characterized by large state spaces which make both computing and estimating the model infeasible. We introduce a method for approximating…
Abstract
Many dynamic problems in economics are characterized by large state spaces which make both computing and estimating the model infeasible. We introduce a method for approximating the value function of high-dimensional dynamic models based on sieves and establish results for the (a) consistency, (b) rates of convergence, and (c) bounds on the error of approximation. We embed this method for approximating the solution to the dynamic problem within an estimation routine and prove that it provides consistent estimates of the modelik’s parameters. We provide Monte Carlo evidence that our method can successfully be used to approximate models that would otherwise be infeasible to compute, suggesting that these techniques may substantially broaden the class of models that can be solved and estimated.
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Introduces papers from this area of expertise from the ISEF 1999 Proceedings. States the goal herein is one of identifying devices or systems able to provide prescribed…
Abstract
Introduces papers from this area of expertise from the ISEF 1999 Proceedings. States the goal herein is one of identifying devices or systems able to provide prescribed performance. Notes that 18 papers from the Symposium are grouped in the area of automated optimal design. Describes the main challenges that condition computational electromagnetism’s future development. Concludes by itemizing the range of applications from small activators to optimization of induction heating systems in this third chapter.
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Tran Liem, Marc Gaudry, Marcel Dagenais and Ulrich Blum
Although its contributions to global science date from 1980, Qatar embarked on an ambitious plan in 2009 to position itself as an important hub for global research production…
Abstract
Purpose
Although its contributions to global science date from 1980, Qatar embarked on an ambitious plan in 2009 to position itself as an important hub for global research production. This paper assesses Qatar’s contribution over the past three decades to global research output and science productivity in STEM+ fields, as measured by scientific journal article production.
Design
The core of the analysis is based on a specially coded dataset of all peer-reviewed journal articles in the STEM+ disciplines with at least one author whose primary affiliation was a Qatar-based research organization. The original data source is Thomson Reuters’ Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE). Analyzing trends between 1980 (the first year in which a paper with a Qatar-based author appeared in these selected leading journals) and 2011, the chapter documents how scientific journal article production in Qatar has developed over three decades.
Findings
Between 1980 and 2002, rates of journal article production were relatively low. From 2003, reflecting considerable investments in higher education and research, the annual number of journal article publications increased dramatically. Most publications were authored by university-based scientists (58%) and scientists based at research hospitals or other medical research facilities (30%). By 2011, over 83% of scientific journal articles published with at least one Qatar-based author were the result of collaboration with international partners. European, North American, and Middle Eastern research scientists and organizations were the most common international collaborators.
Originality/value
This is the first comprehensive empirical study of Qatar’s contributions to global scientific production in the STEM+ disciplines.
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Manfred Stock, Alexander Mitterle and David P. Baker
Advanced education is often thought to respond to the demands of the economy, market forces create new occupations, and then universities respond with new degrees and curricula…
Abstract
Advanced education is often thought to respond to the demands of the economy, market forces create new occupations, and then universities respond with new degrees and curricula aimed at training future workers with specific new skills. Presented here is comparative research on an underappreciated, yet growing, concurrent alternative process: universities, with their global growth in numbers and enrollments, in concert with expanding research capacity, create and privilege knowledge and skills, legitimate new degrees that then become monetized and even required in private and public sectors of economies. A process referred to as academization of occupations has far-reaching implications for understanding the transformation of capitalism, new dimensions of social inequality, and resulting stratification among occupations. Academization is also eclipsing the more limited professionalization processes in occupations. Additionally, it fuels further expansion of advanced education and contributes to a new culture of work in the 21st century. Commissioned detailed German and US case studies of the university origins and influence on workplace consequences of seven selected occupations and associated knowledge, skills, and degrees investigate the academization process. And to demonstrate how universal this could become, the cases contrast the more open and less-restrictive education and occupation system in the US with the centralized and state-controlled education system in Germany. With expected variation, both economies and their occupational systems show evidence of robust academization. Importantly too is evidence of academic transformations of understandings about approaches to job tasks and use of authoritative knowledge in occupational activities.
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Nasiru Salihu, Poom Kumam, Sulaiman Mohammed Ibrahim and Huzaifa Aliyu Babando
Previous RMIL versions of the conjugate gradient method proposed in literature exhibit sufficient descent with Wolfe line search conditions, yet their global convergence depends…
Abstract
Purpose
Previous RMIL versions of the conjugate gradient method proposed in literature exhibit sufficient descent with Wolfe line search conditions, yet their global convergence depends on certain restrictions. To alleviate these assumptions, a hybrid conjugate gradient method is proposed based on the conjugacy condition.
Design/methodology/approach
The conjugate gradient (CG) method strategically alternates between RMIL and KMD CG methods by using a convex combination of the two schemes, mitigating their respective weaknesses. The theoretical analysis of the hybrid method, conducted without line search consideration, demonstrates its sufficient descent property. This theoretical understanding of sufficient descent enables the removal of restrictions previously imposed on versions of the RMIL CG method for global convergence result.
Findings
Numerical experiments conducted using a hybrid strategy that combines the RMIL and KMD CG methods demonstrate superior performance compared to each method used individually and even outperform some recent versions of the RMIL method. Furthermore, when applied to solve an image reconstruction model, the method exhibits reliable results.
Originality/value
The strategy used to demonstrate the sufficient descent property and convergence result of RMIL CG without line search consideration through hybrid techniques has not been previously explored in literature. Additionally, the two CG schemes involved in the combination exhibit similar sufficient descent structures based on the assumption regarding the norm of the search direction.