A rose by any other name? Transdisciplinarity in the context of UK research policy

This paper assesses developments in transdisciplinary research in the UK. While we support the thesis that transdisciplinarity is still not mainstream and is rarely supported per se by funders of research, this paper examines the extent to which UK research policy has embraced the concept of transdisciplinarity. Five empirical case studies provide data about the interrelationship between the interdisciplinary and impact or knowledge exchange aspirations of Research Council UK (RCUK) investments. We find evidence that, to an extent, UK research funding policy is achieving some elements of transdisciplinarity in practice, if not in name.Drawing on broader debates about the limitations of knowledge mobilisation and the challenges of conducting interdisciplinary research, we reflect on how the situation has changed since our original 2004 paper. The evidence suggests that the absence of the ‘transdisciplinary’ label is not necessarily impeding the framing of research funding schemes oriented towards societal issues. Nevertheless, several areas where capacity-building is required, including training for early career interdisciplinary researchers; improved research leadership skills; and the capacity to evaluate the quality of transdisciplinary processes and to learn from such evaluations, are identified.     

金融业对英国经济增长和贸易收支的贡献

英国的产业结构和贸易结构已经进入典型的"后工业化时代",金融业在国内市场、离岸市场和海外市场全面发展,在英国各大产业中增速最快,已经取代制造业成为英国经济增长的发动机。金融业还是当代英国最具全球比较优势和国际竞争力的产业,巨大的金融服务贸易顺差有力地改善了英国的贸易收支,金融业已经成为缓解英国贸易失衡的主要缓冲器。     

英国科研评价政策、实践和典型案例研究

英国科研创新能力居世界前列,其科技创新实力的提高与其科研管理、监督以及评价机制的建立和不断完善密切相关。本文从政府、产业、高校以及科研机构等不同利益相关者角度对英国科研评价政策、实践以及典型案例进行了阐述,介绍了英国在科研评价信息系统建设和数据共享方面的做法,以及对我国科研评价体系建设的借鉴意义。     

英国人工智能路线图及对我国的启示

人工智能是新一轮科技革命和产业变革的必争领域之一。英国高度重视人工智能发展,成立了专门的人工智能办公室,并于2021年1月发布人工智能路线图。本文介绍了英国人工智能发展基本情况和路线图的主要内容,并对中国的人工智能发展提出了建议。     

Are women less likely to be managers in the UK labour market?

This paper investigates the gender gap within management roles in the UK. We find that female workers are less likely to become managers than male workers because women are traditionally expected to provide the majority of care for their family. This implies that women are pressured to do more informal work than men, which limits their formal working experience and impedes their career development. We also find that the probability of becoming a manager adopts an inverted U-shape relationship with age. This likelihood of becoming a manager also increases with employment duration and educational attainment due to the accumulation of relevant experience and human capital.     

英国皇家学会院士制度概述及其启示

英国皇家学会是最早实施院士终身制(即院士制度)的学会之一。皇家学会的宗旨和职能、机构设置、院士增选制度等不仅对英国皇家工程院和不列颠学院等其他英国国家级学会产生重要影响,也被其他国家建立院士制度广泛借鉴。通过对英国皇家学会的法律地位和定位、职责、内部治理结构以及皇家学会院士及其选举过程进行详细介绍,分析了皇家学会院士制度的优势和存在问题,并参考英国经验,从组织机构、院士待遇、院士增选过程、院士影响力发挥等4个方面对我国院士制度改革提出了具体建议。     

THE INFLUENCE OF PHILANTHROPIC FOUNDATIONS ON CITY GOVERNMENT INNOVATION

In this study I examine the role of philanthropic foundations in stimulating city government innovation. Reduced budgets and rising consumer demands are challenging organizational capacity in government, prompting government officials to recognize the need for innovation to improve policies, programmes and practices. This empirical study draws upon qualitative interviews and policy reports to generate comparative case studies on three city governments in England: Bristol, Manchester and Newcastle. It builds on work in urban studies and policy mobilities that reveals how foundations can influence urban agendas, finding that philanthropic foundations engage with city governments through three different types of collaboration: direct provision of financial resources, exchange of non-financial resources with city governments and indirect engagements. Philanthropic foundations are blending financial resources and less tangible provision of space and time to enable city governments to experiment with new ideas, policies and ways of working. The fusion of non-governmental resources provides city governments with the capacity to act, and city governments often use non-governmental funding for riskier projects and for projects that may not have taken place if public funding had been used. Through these different collaborations and by deploying a suite of interventions and methods, philanthropic foundations stimulate product, service, process, conceptual and governance innovation in city governments.     

Control of subsidiaries of MNCs from emerging economies in developed countries: the case of Taiwanese MNCs in the UK

There has been considerable research over the past few decades on the process through which headquarters of multinationals from developed economies exercise control over their network of subsidiaries in foreign countries. However, little research has been conducted on multinationals from emerging economies operating in developed countries. In this article, we examine the motives for, and mechanisms by which, headquarters of Taiwanese multinationals exercise control over their subsidiaries in the UK. The article draws on data collected through 66 interviews with top managers and human resource managers from four UK based subsidiaries of Taiwanese multinationals. The study reveals that Taiwanese multinationals use both output control and behaviour control to manage their subsidiaries in the UK.     

PPP模式在英国保障性住房中的应用

英国是住房保障体系比较完善的西方国家,也是在住房保障中运用PPP模式较为成熟的国家,自20世纪中期开始形成了一套以PPP模式为基础的住房保障措施。文章首先介绍了英国住房保障的发展过程以及其住房保障的特点,然后对三种主要PPP模式——大规模自愿转让(LSVTs)、臂长管理组织(ALMO)、私人主动融资(PFI)的基本内容,操作方法,结构形式等进行分析,最后结合英国经验对我国当前城市住房保障存在的问题进行评述,为住房问题研究和政策制定提供参考。     

ACCOUNTABILITY AND VALUE FOR MONEY IN PRIVATE FINANCE INITIATIVE CONTRACTS

Within the context of New Public Management (NPM), successive UK governments have claimed that PFI projects provide more accountability, and arguably, more value for money (VFM) than conventional procurement for the public ( HM Treasury 1995, 2000, 2003a and 2003b ). However, recent empirical research in the UK on PFI has indicated its potential limitations for accountability and VFM ( Broadbent, Gill and Laughlin, 2004 ; Edwards, Shaoul, Stafford and Arblaster, 2004 ; Shaoul, 2005 ; and Ismail and Pendlebury, 2006 ) albeit these are based on either published accounts or a limited number of key stakeholders. This paper attempts to partially redress this gap in the literature by presenting an interesting case of the impact of PFI on accountability and VFM in Northern Ireland's education sector. The findings of this research, based on forty two interviews with a wide range of key stakeholders, suggest that stakeholders have different and often conflicting expectations and the actual PFI accountability and VFM benefits are much more obfuscated than those claimed in Government publications.