Search results

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) extending quality life (EQUAL) initiative, specifically supports interdisciplinary user‐focused design, engineering and technology research concerned with enhancing the independence and quality of life of older and disabled people.As well as establishing a new UK community of researchers and a new scientific approach to ageing research the initiative has successfully contributed across a broad front to policy and practice. In a short time it has provided a much‐improved understanding of the potential contribution of new approaches to design, engineering and technology to enhancing the lives of older people and has engendered confidence in the potential of this type of ageing research.

The paper provides details of the size and scope of construction research carried out in a number of architecture, civil engineering and building related departments in British universities. After considering the level of funding, the type of research projects undertaken and the resulting outputs, especially how these benefit industry, the paper focuses on the careers of academics and researchers and the way in which research is organized at university, departmental and team levels. Finally, the paper suggests that whilst the construction research community in universities has many strengths, there is a danger that in responding to recent opportunities it may overreach itself. The end result may be disappointing for all parties involved. Some of the factors which would contribute to an effective approach to the development of links between universities and industry are discussed.

The development of national capacity to undertake ageing‐related research is vital to ensuring that the challenges arising from an ageing society faced by government, society and individuals are adequately understood and quality of life enhanced. Yet, in the early 2000s there was a danger that previous initial investment in ageing research would be wasted. A campaign was mounted to support newcomers to ageing research, especially those in early career, eventually resulting in Strategic Promotion of Ageing Research Capacity (SPARC). This was a four‐year programme to pump‐prime newcomers to ageing research, to publicise the outcomes of ageing research to all stakeholders and to lobby policy‐makers about the value of ageing research. This end‐of‐programme review suggests that those supported with pump‐priming awards have been fast‐tracked into the highly competitive world of ageing research, that the findings have been very well received and that the advocacy activities have been influential. A new model for promoting ageing research has been established.

In the search for more effective learning methods, “real life” simulations have many attractions although their development requires a sound base of information about business practice and the translation of this knowledge into a form suited to simulation.

Analyses of the results of research assessment exercises (RAEs) carried out in the UK in 1996 and 2001 supported a simple hypothesis, that the grade awarded to a university department can be related to its level of activity in terms of, for example, number of research students, research studentships secured, research degrees awarded, research funded from external sources, and the profile of publications. The purpose of this paper is to consider the extent to which these relationships prevailed for the most recent RAE in 2008.

Information from 157 departments from five subject areas was subjected to extensive correlation analysis and regression modelling, informed by the findings from analyses of previous RAEs.

Although the information submitted by universities to RAE 2008 was the same as for previous RAEs, a different methodology was employed for assessing their performance. Establishing a relationship between the assessments of research quality of departments and measures of activity was more challenging than previously. Differences between subject areas were large and it was not possible to develop a single model applicable to the five subject areas.

Despite the relationship with performance being much less obvious than for previous RAEs, activity levels are important to success, but in different ways in different subject areas.

The paper indicates the extent to which expectations about the importance of key research‐related activities, expressed as simple quantitative measures, are reflected in qualitative assessments of performance, given the increasing complexity and subtlety of the assessment process.

For many academics in UK universities the nature and orientation of their research is overwhelmingly determined by considerations of how that work will be graded in research assessment exercises (RAEs). The grades awarded to work in a particular subject area can have a considerable impact on the individual and their university. There is a need to better understand those factors which may influence these grades. The paper seeks to address this issue.

The paper considers relationships between the grades awarded and the quantitative information provided to the assessment panels for the 1996 and 2001 RAEs for two subject areas, built environment and town and country planning, and for three other subject areas, civil engineering, geography and archaeology, in the 2001 RAE.

A simple model demonstrating strong and consistent relationships is established. RAE performance relates to numbers of research active staff, the production of books and journal papers, numbers of research studentships and graduations, and research income. Important differences between subject areas are identified.

Important issues are raised about the extent to which the new assessment methodology to be adopted for the 2008 RAE will capture the essence of good quality research in architecture and built environment.

The findings provide a developmental perspective of RAEs and show how, despite a changed methodology, various research activities might be valued in the 2008 RAE. The basis for a methodology for reviewing the credibility of the judgements of panels is proposed.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

In January the Ashridge Management College hosted a novel conference jointly with the Association of Teachers of Management. More than 20 managers, academics and consultants from the UK and overseas, all with an active interest in solving management problems, debated some of the very many research projects currently in progress. After an opening session in which Philip Sadler emphasised the need for high quality, relevant and practical research, most time was in small sessions with researchers whose projects had common themes but who tackled the issues from different perspectives. Since almost all work presented at the conference was based on practical studies within organisations, there was much scope for sharing experience between managers and academics.