Picture post: world map of scientific collaboration

“This gossamer image of scientific collaboration displays connections between cities 2005-09, based on shared authorship of research papers in Elsevier’s Scopus database …” (more)

[Richard Van Noorden, The Great Beyond, 27 January]

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Learning from Crunch Time

“… Here’s what interests me more than any other facet: ‘For some they see this course as a competition. Is it? Should it be?’ Competition is healthy as well as harmful. I see third level education as an opportunity for students to discover complementary talent. For that kind of group dynamic to evolve, people need to appreciate diverse skill sets …” (more)

[Bernie Goldbach, Inside View, 28 December]

Now it’s a small world of research

“… The idea that university researchers work in relative isolation has never been more difficult to defend or more questionable …” (more)

[Graeme Harper, The Australian, 15 December]

Collaboration is key to international success

“It has long been my firm belief that the future of higher education in Ireland will be best served by a network of collaborating institutions, each of which has a distinctive mission and develops international excellence in appropriate priority areas of teaching and research …” (more)

[Independent, 10 March]

Industry Collaboration and Academic Research

“Researchers benefit from a reasonable level of collaboration with industry, not only bringing economic benefit to their institutions, but also increased publication levels. That’s according to findings presented by City University London economists at the Royal Economic Society conference in May. Cornelia Meissner outlined how she and her colleagues analysed the publications, research funds and patents of researchers in the engineering departments of Imperial College London and City University London between 1985 and 2006 …” (more)

[Aoife Geraghty, Read Around Research, 3 June]

Barriers rising between business and universities

“Business leaders are increasingly frustrated with university red tape and ‘unrealistic expectations’ of how much research discoveries are worth, says a report from Imperial College Business School today. Getting universities to work with industry to commercialise academic research is a key government policy and ministers have earmarked £150m a year to promote it. Innovation is constantly hailed by ministers as a route out of the current recession. But the Imperial report, seen exclusively by the Guardian, suggests universities have used the extra funding to set up offices to liaise with industry, and to patent and licence the knowledge created from research. According to firms dealing with universities, this has led to a ‘rising tide’ of bureaucracy, says Dr Ammon Salter, a co-author of the Imperial report. Business leaders surveyed also said universities have ‘unrealistic expectations’ of the economic value of their research and try too hard to protect their interests …” (more)

[Anthea Lipsett, Guardian, 12 March]