Christopher Hendrickse and Thomas Wolfgang Thurner
This paper aims to report on a design intervention at the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) control room which resulted from a user-centred design approach intended to raise…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to report on a design intervention at the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) control room which resulted from a user-centred design approach intended to raise its usability.
Design/methodology/approach
Adapting a user-centred design approach, the observations and interviews revealed a number of weaknesses of the current control room design.
Findings
While most suggestions would require larger restructuring, the designers intervened with simple solutions resulting in the improved handling of many pieces of hardware. This study suggests that such design interventions hold the possibility to majorly improve the efficiency of the control room and thereby raise the potential outcome of such highly capital intense installations.
Originality/value
Thereby, this paper has immediate relevance to the astronomical field and the corresponding advancements in electronics, engineering and technology development.
Details
Keywords
Thomas Wolfgang Thurner and Stanislav Zaichenko
Given the immense gains in productivity in agriculture and mining over the last decades, the purpose of this paper is to study knowledge transfer from Research and Technology…
Abstract
Purpose
Given the immense gains in productivity in agriculture and mining over the last decades, the purpose of this paper is to study knowledge transfer from Research and Technology Organizations (RTOs) into primary sector producers. The authors inquire which of these RTOs are successfully competing for public funding, and how these funds are used. Also, the authors study what makes an RTO more (financially) successful in technology transfer than their peers and which RTOs transferred technology that was new to the Russian market.
Design/methodology/approach
This research is based on 62 RTOs which reported technology transfer to enterprises with main economic activities classified by NACE rev 1 as “A – agriculture, hunting and forestry” and “B – fishing” and “C – mining and quarrying,” including oil and gas extraction.
Findings
The authors found remarkable differences between the Russian RTOs and their OECD peers, but also differences between agriculture and mining. Interestingly, competitive funding plays a different role in both industries. In agriculture, a more conservative funding paradigm prevails, and competitive funding is less important and more reliance on classical annually revolving funds is given. Competitive funding here is more used to strengthen basic R&D and to generate patentable knowledge, while in mining, these funds support technology transfer.
Originality/value
This is, to the knowledge, the first detailed study on Russian RTOs servicing her primary sector. The authors believe that studying these RTOs is of great value as RTOs are broadly under-researched and various scholars have called for more fine-grained analyses to better understand their role in the innovation system.