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It has been a busy summer for a number of group members with new papers published and numerous conference presentations on the agenda for the fall. From August to November, group members will be presenting research on a range of topics at several major conferences in St. Louis, San Diego, Lausanne, and Amsterdam. Below see some of the work that the group members have been up to:

Papers

Tamtik, M. & Sá, C. (2013). Policy Learning to Internationalize European Science: Possibilities and Limitations of Open Coordination. Higher Education, 2(6), pp. doi:10.1007/s10734-013-9654-4

Sigurdson, K. (2013). Clark Kerr’s Multiversity and Technology Transfer in the Modern American Research University. College Quarterly, 16(2).

Conferences

Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education (CSSHE)

Deering, D. (2013). A Call for a New Governance Paradigm: Polycentric Governance and Responsibility Centre Budgeting and Responsibility Centre Management. Presented at the Annual Conference of the Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education (CSSHE), Victoria BC, June 3-5.

European Association for Institutional Research (EAIR)

Deering, D. & Field, C. (2013). Overcoming the Disconnect Between Decentralized Decision Making and Centralized Governance Structures: An argument for multi-level governance in pursuit of organizational excellence. Paper to be presented at the Annual European Association for Institutional Research (EAIR) Conference, Rotterdam, Netherlands, August 28-31.

Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER)

Tamtik, M. (2013). Transformations of Institutional Identities: Mutual Learning Initiatives in the EU’s Research Policy. Paper to be presented at the Annual Conference of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER), Lausanne, Switzerland, September 9-11.

Sá, C. & Kretz, A. (2013). Open Science Strategies in Research Policy. Paper to be presented at the Annual Conference of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER), Lausanne, Switzerland, September 9-11.

Society for Social Studies of Science (4S)

Lemay, A. (2013). The Origins of Expectations of Scientific Research in Agriculture. Paper to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), San Diego CA, October 9-12.

Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE)

Austin, I. & Deering, D. (2013). Misapplication or Other Intentions? Small Universities Implementation of Responsibility Centre Budgeting and Responsibility Centre Management. Paper to be presented at the Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), St. Louis MO, November 13-14.

Sá, C. & Kretz, A. (2013). Beyond research commercialization: Public policy and university entrepreneurship. Paper to be presented at the Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), St. Louis MO, November 13-14.

Sá, C., Sigurdson, K, Lemay, M. & Kretz, A. (2013). The Use of Performance Indicators in Canadian University Technology Transfer. Paper to be presented at the Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), St. Louis MO, November 13-14.

Sigurdson, S. & Field, C. (2013). Benefits for Mentors: A Case Study of Formal Mentoring for General Staff in a University. Paper to be presented at the Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), St. Louis MO, November 13-14.

Kristjan Sigurdson presented a comparison of university technology in the University of Toronto and the University of Wisconsin at the Joseph P. Farrell Student Research Symposium of the Comparative, International, & Development Education Centre at OISE on February 22. To see the video recording of Kristjan’s presentation, click the title above and then follow this link.

Merli Tamtik participated in the Mapping the Global Dimension of Policy conference at McMaster University on January 28-29. At the conference Merli presented on Mutual Learning Initiatives in European Research Policy.

Over the past few months, Amy has presented findings of the “Linking research to its uses” project, based on field work carried out in 2012 to investigate how research is used in programmatic decision making in a Public Health Unit in Ontario. From October 10-13, the venue was the casrai reconnect12 1st Annual International Conference: Occupy Impact in Montreal, which brought together stakeholders in research and innovation to share ideas and solutions for measuring the impacts of a highly diverse research community (http://reconnect.casrai.org). This month, Amy shared results with the Public Health Unit itself, the site of the ethnographic study. This project was sponsored by the Mitacs Accelerate program and CASRAI.

Amy Lemay and Andrew Kretz presented papers at the 2012 Association for Study of Higher Education (ASHE) Annual Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada (USA). In one of the papers, The Uptake of University Research in Public Policy: The View of “Users” in a Public Health Unit, authors Amy Lemay and Creso Sá report on an ethnographic study of how research is used in programmatic decision making. While the literature usually highlights the lack of knowledge and capacity of users to access and use research, this study identifies the strategies of “active users” in the Public Health context to utilize research. The study was part of the project Linking research to its uses: Making sense of how decisions are informed by research, sponsored by the Mitacs Accelerate program and CASRAI.

In the other paper, Canada-U.S. Ties and University Technology Transfer, authors Creso Sá, Andrew Kretz and Kristjan Sigurdson reveal how Canadian technological nationalism was an important factors shaping how technology transfer was practiced, organized, and legitimated between the early 20^th century through the 1970s at the University of Toronto. The study is part of the project The Institutionalization of Technology Transfer in Canada.

In September, Creso Sá, Andrew Kretz and Kristjan Sigurdson presented findings from research conducted on technology transfer activities of the University of Toronto at the 25th annual Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER) conference in Belgrade, Serbia. In the presented paper, The Institutionalization of Technology Transfer in Canada: The Roots of Research Commercialization at the University of Toronto, authors Creso Sá, Andrew Kretz and Kristjan Sigurdson explore how the routines, practices and orientations towards technology transfer evolved at the University from their beginnings in the late 1910s, up to the emergence of the University of Toronto Innovations Foundation in the 1980s. The paper presented in Belgrade is the first in a series of resulting from archival research and interviews conducted at the University of Toronto on the emergence of technology transfer activities in the Canadian context at Canada’s largest research university.

The OECD’s Economic Survey of Canada was released in Ottawa on Wednesday, June 13th.  The following day, the Higher Education Group at OISE hosted the two contributing authors in the event “Strengthening Canada Through Post-Secondary Education and Innovation: A Symposium on the OECD’s Economic Survey of Canada”. Creso Sá was a discussant of the chapter on innovation at the symposium.

More information on the event can be found here.

Patricia Gaviria chaired the panel discussion ‘Methodological and research developments in comparative education’ and presented her paper entitled From contextual comparison methodology to methods: Doing research in Nunavut and Greenland at the 56th Annual Conference of the Comparative and international Education Society (CIES) in April. In this paper she discusses how contexts shape methods from the moment the literature is chosen to the time findings are written. The presentation was a reflection of her research: Self-determination and Postsecondary Education: The Inuit in Nunavut and Greenland. Under the supervision of Creso Sá, this research receives support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

In April, Andrew Kretz presented findings from research conducted with Creso Sá and Merli Tamtik on the use of evidence and expertise in major research funding agencies at the 2012 Annual Conference of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES).  In the presented paper, The Role of Research Funding Agencies: Expertise and Evidence in Program Design, authors Creso Sá, Merli Tamtik, and Andrew Kretz reveal processes of evidence-use at major research funding agencies in the United States, Canada, and the European Union, and provide a conceptual orientation for understanding how these agencies design, implementation, and review research funding programs and supported projects.