The Research Excellence Framework of the Higher Education Funding Council for England is taking place in 2013, its three key elements being outputs, impact, and “quality of the research environment”. Impact will be assessed using case studies that “may include any social, economic or cultural impact or benefit beyond academia that has taken place during the assessment period.”1 Medical ethics in the UK still does not have its own cognate assessment panel—for example, bioethics or applied ethics—unlike (...) in, for example, Australia. Several researchers in medical ethics have reported to the Institute of Medical Ethics that during the internal preliminary stage of the Research Excellence Framework several medical schools have decided to include only research that entails empirical data gathering. Thus, conceptual papers and ethical analysis will be excluded. The arbitrary exclusion of reasoned discussion of medical ethics issues as a proper subject for medical research unless it is based on empirical data gathering is conceptually mistaken. “Empirical ethics” is, of course, a legitimate component of medical ethics research, but to act as though it is the only legitimate component suggests, at best, a partial understanding of the nature of ethics in general and medical ethics in particular. It also mistakenly places medicine firmly on only one side of the science/humanities “two cultures” divide instead of in its rightful place bridging the divide. Given the emphasis by the General Medical Council on medical ethics in properly preparing “tomorrow’s doctors,” we urge medical schools to find a way of using the upcoming Research Excellence Framework to highlight the expertise residing in their ethicist colleagues. We are confident that appropriate assessment will reveal work of high quality that can be shown to have social and cultural impact and benefit beyond academia, as required by the framework. (shrink)

We here analyse the ethical dimensions of the UK's ‘Research Excellence Framework’, the latest version of an exercise which assesses the quality of university research in the UK every seven or so years. We find many of the common objections to this exercise unfounded, such as that it is excessively expensive by comparison with alternatives such as various metrics, or that it turns on the subjective judgement of the assessors. However there are grounds for concern about (...) the crude language in which for example all relevant scholarship becomes called ‘research’ and publications become ‘outputs’. The focus on the impact of research, which was a new feature of the most recent exercise, is particularly problematic, creating as it does a tendency to what Aristotle called alazony, self-aggrandisement, on the part of academics. We conclude that the REF is a mixed good from an ethical point of view, and that more could be done to mitigate its more unfortunate features. (shrink)

As universities in the United Kingdom gear themselves up for the next Research Excellence Framework, REF2021, with peer review at its core, we critically re-visit the idea of peer review as a gold standard proxy for research excellence. We question the premise that anonymous peer review is a necessary and enabling condition for impartial, expert judgement. We argue that the intentions and supposed benefits underlying peer review and its associated concepts have become congealed in received (...) discourse about research quality. Hence we explore the key conceptual issues raised by the nested assumptions and concepts that come into play in peer review as currently practised: primarily those of secrecy, anonymity, legitimacy, trust, impartiality and openness. After delineating the benefits attributed to peer review, we contrast its declared virtues with its problematic features. We locate peer review in an audit culture in which the reviewer is an academic labourer. Drawing on recent trends in moral and political philosophy, we question the usefulness of the ideal of impartiality when tied to secrecy. Then we raise more deliberative, intersubjective possibilities for a revised understanding of peer review in the context of an academic community. Finally, we suggest ways in which the academic community could pursue quality in research by recasting peer review to be less secret and more open. (shrink)

Almost all academics sigh at any mention of the REF. Preparing submissions for the Research Excellence Framework takes up a lot of effort, but is important because the REF determines a department's funding allocation from a finite pot of cash. As such, it is seen as a necessary evil by most staff. However, the REF poses ethical problems in addition to the stress it causes. As it stands, the REF is exacerbating a schism between research and (...) teaching staff, encouraging deceptive attribution of authorship, and failing to give due credit (and cash) to deserving research. As such, the REF needs some serious refereeing. (shrink)

Although, as a result of the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework, the principle of teaching excellence is receiving renewed attention in English higher education, the idea has been left largely undefined. The cynic might argue, in agreement with Bill Readings, that this lack of a precise definition is deliberate, since teaching excellence is not designed to observe teaching but to permit an integrated system of accounting. This article, however, develops a different line of criticism. Following (...) Readings’s characterization of “excellence” as symptomatic of the “Americanization” of higher education, it traces the principle of teaching excellence in English educational discourse back to the influence of debates, led by Ernest Boyer in the US, concerning the teaching-research nexus. Contextualizing these debates in relation to ideas about the learning society influenced by theories of human capital and investment in national productivity, it takes issue with descriptions of recent policy that overemphasize the corporate structure of the university and its vision of the student as consumer at the expense of recognizing the continuation of the nation-state organization of the student as producer. Reconnecting this broader framework back to the teaching-research nexus, the article examines how this intersects with the dominant agenda of research-led teaching excellence, centred on the idea of the productivity of research, and outlines an alternative notion of teaching-led research, developed out of the work of Boyer and Walter Benjamin, within which teaching might continue, in spite of excellence. (shrink)

We here analyse the ethical dimensions of the UK’s ‘Research Excellent Framework’, the latest version of an exercise which assesses the quality of university research in the UK every seven or so years. We find many of the common objections to this exercise unfounded, such as that it is excessively expensive by comparison with alternatives such as various metrics, or that it turns on the subjective judgement of the assessors. However there are grounds for concern about the (...) crude language in which for example all relevant scholarship becomes called ‘research’, and publications become ‘outputs’. The focus on the impact of research, which was a new feature of the most recent exercise, is particularly problematic, creating as it does a tendency to what Aristotle called alazony, self-aggrandisement, on the part of academics. We conclude that the REF is a mixed good from an ethical point of view, and that more could be done to mitigate its more unfortunate features. (shrink)

Contemporary epistemologists of education have raised concerns about the distorting effects of some of the processes and structures of contemporary academia on the epistemic practice and character of academic researchers. Such concerns have been articulated using the concept of epistemic corruption. In this paper, we lend credibility to these theoretically-motivated concerns using the example of the research impact agenda during the period 2012-2014. Interview data from UK and Australian academics confirms the impact agenda system, at its inception, facilitated the (...) development and exercise of epistemic vices. As well as vindicating theoretically-motivated claims about epistemic corruption, inclusion of empirical methods and material can help us put the concept to work in ongoing critical scrutiny of evolving forms of the research impact agenda. (shrink)

This document is designed to give guidance on assessing researchers in bioethics/medical ethics. It is intended to assist members of selection, confirmation and promotion committees, who are required to assess those conducting bioethics research when they are not from a similar disciplinary background. It does not attempt to give guidance on the quality of bioethics research, as this is a matter for peer assessment. Rather it aims to give an indication of the type, scope and amount of (...) class='Hi'>research that is the expected in this field. It does not cover the assessment of other activities such as teaching, policy work, clinical ethics consultation and so on, but these will be mentioned for additional context. Although it mentions the UK’s Research Excellence Framework, it is not intended to be a detailed analysis of the place of bioethics in the REF. (shrink)

The issue of plagiarism—claiming credit for work that is not one’s own, rightly, continues to cause concern in the academic community. An analysis is presented that shows the effects that may arise from metrics-based assessments of research, when credit for an author’s outputs (chiefly publications) is given to an institution that did not support the research but which subsequently employs the author. The incentives for what is termed here “institutional plagiarism” are demonstrated with reference to the UK (...) class='Hi'>Research Assessment Exercise in which submitting units of assessment are shown in some instances to derive around twice the credit for papers produced elsewhere by new recruits, compared to papers produced ‘in-house’. (shrink)

In the traditional scientific research and production activities, due to the lack of sufficient communication and communication between researchers, the phenomenon of waste of scientific research resources occurs from time to time, which hinders the efficiency of scientific research output. Based on the design principle of the semantic knowledge framework, this paper puts forward the definition of ontology and semantic relationship of the collaborative system of scientific researchers. In this paper, a framework of collaborative semantic (...) knowledge among researchers is established through decentralized semantic information exchange architecture. In this article, the simulation is verified by experiments and compared with other exchange architectures. The results of the experiment confirmed the semantic information exchange architecture based on semantic knowledge proposed in this paper is 10.39% faster than the traditional centralized method in terms of data volume; the construction speed under the data node perspective is 12.84% higher than that of the traditional centralized construction method; the subject query speed is 36.84% higher than that of the traditional centralization method; the predicate query speed is 31.58% higher than that of the traditional centralization method. The experimental results confirm that the semantic information exchange architecture based on the semantic knowledge framework is feasible, and it has excellent performance in terms of construction speed and query speed. Under the background that researchers rely more and more on collaborative technology to interact with other members, this paper has a certain reference value and exploration value and proposes a new idea of group collaboration system under the framework of semantic knowledge. (shrink)

Neste livro, Donald Gillies pretende responder ao que se propõe no título, utilizando instrumentos de investigação da História e Filosofia das Ciências. O livro é constituído por três partes. As duas primeiras partes são inteiramente destrutivas e a terceira parte é largamente construtiva. A primeira parte analisa o sistema de avaliação da investigação do Reino Unido, chamado “Research Assessment Exercise” (RAE). A segunda parte analisa um outro sistema de avaliação, chamado “Research Excellence Framework” (REF), que, entretanto, (...) substituiu o RAE. A conclusão dessas partes é de que, quer o RAE, quer o REF, têm efeitos negativos na investigação e não parecem contribuir para uma melhor investigação. A terceira parte propõe um novo modelo de avaliação dos académicos que incluiu o parâmetro Ensino, além dos parâmetros Investigação e Administração. (shrink)

Human excellences such as intelligence, morality, and consciousness are investigated by philosophers as well as artificial intelligence researchers. One excellence that has not been widely discussed by AI researchers is practical wisdom, the highest human excellence, or the highest, seventh, stage in Dreyfus’s model of skill acquisition. In this paper, I explain why artificial wisdom matters and how artificial wisdom is possible (in principle and in practice) by responding to two philosophical challenges to building artificial wisdom systems. The (...) result is a conceptual framework that guides future research on creating artificial wisdom. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Funding Utopia: Utopian Studies and the Discourse of Academic ExcellenceAdam Stock (bio)As an academic field, there is in some important ways nothing special about utopian studies. Granted, our object of inquiry may look beyond the present toward what Ruth Levitas terms the Imaginary Reconstruction of Society, but we are still workers in what Darren Webb calls the “corporate-imperial” university.1 Webb argues that within the university we can at best (...) protect “bolt holes, breathing spaces, and places of refuge” that can function as “fleeting, transitory, small-scale experiences of utopian possibility.” As academics, our greater value to utopian politics therefore involves using our “knowledge and resources... in the service of a collaborative process of memory- and story-making, pulling together disparate inchoate dreams and yearnings in order to generate a utopian vision that can help inform, guide, and mobilize long-term collective action for systemic change.”2 Such work uses resources and the products of labor within the academy in the service of ends beyond and at times against it. In other words, utopianism within the academy is necessarily complicit in the academy’s constitutive material relations, but it can also be oppositional in intellectual and—more importantly—activist senses to the academy’s ideological form. In other words, whether or not a given [End Page 517] project in the field of utopian studies is politically utopian does not depend on its material basis (i.e., how it is funded) so much as its content, in the senses of both the work that it does and the ways in which it captures and mobilizes available resources. Hence it is possible to imagine both regressive and emancipatory research projects in our field that capture or co-opt additional resources, including both internal and external funding. It is, however, a mark of emancipatory projects that they will use these resources to the ends Webb describes.Implicit in Webb’s argument is an acceptance that politically useful utopian work should be socially engaged beyond the confines of the university campus. However, engaging in utopian politics from within inegalitarian university structures (via what is institutionally termed “outreach” and “engagement” work) should be pursued with caution. Even researchers and educators acting in good faith can easily end up exploiting or causing damage to social movements, support groups and activists. Good allyship and effective support cannot be reduced to institutional mechanisms like ethics committee compliance or equality, diversity and inclusivity (EDI) initiatives, even when these go beyond “lip service” to become meaningful acts.3 For projects involving external collaborators with a connection to the sort of “long-term, collective action” Webb describes, research design must walk a tightrope between being supportive of utopian politics beyond the university and responding to instrumental pressures within it.Here I suggest as an academic field utopian studies is at least a little special as it mediates dialectically between theory and practice at one level while developing a conceptual framework of the dialectic between theory and practice at another. Within what Richter et al term “the paradox of universities as colonizing and liberatory spaces for community engagement and activism” the utopian method is well placed to ask questions about how we engage with the given conditions of the academy, including competitive research funding grants.4 I begin below with a discussion of the relationship of theory and academic work to the social with reference to utopian theory and then apply this to questions about our wider complicity within a discursive regime I term “academic excellence.” I argue this regime is central to the “prestige economy” upon which some of the structural inequalities of our sector are based. I conclude by suggesting that working within the constraints of the given while remaining orientated toward utopian politics in an ethical manner requires close attention to how we navigate the relationship between utopian theory and political practice. [End Page 518]Theory, Praxis, PracticeIn the final chapter of his recent monograph Becoming Utopian, Tom Moylan forms a cogent argument about the praxis of utopian-oriented politics with reference to Saul Alinsky’s community organizing and Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed.5 The writings of both figures are grounded in... (shrink)

Kant (Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals. Hackett, Indianapolis, 1797) described honesty as ‘a sacred command of reason’ which should be obeyed at all times and at any cost. This study inquires into the practice of dishonesty, deception, and deceit by universities in the UK in the pursuit of quality indicators such as league table positions, Research Excellence Framework (REF) scores, and student satisfaction survey results. Deception occurs when the metrics which inform these tables and surveys are (...) manipulated to suggest an improvement in quality when, in fact, the raised scores are merely the result of clever strategic planning. Deceit occurs when these manipulated scores are deliberately and knowingly presented as real improvements in research and educational quality. It might be argued that, within the context of the artificial ivory tower world of academe, this is a game played by almost every academic in every higher education institution with no real losers and little wider consequence. However, this study suggests that some of the strategies employed by institutions to improve their scores without directly addressing the issue of quality can, in certain practice‐based disciplines such as nursing, result in dire consequences for practitioners and service users. It concludes with a number of suggestions taken from personal experience to resolve the tension between the contractual demands placed on nurse academics by their employers and the moral and practical obligations of their professional body, most notably the use of subversion. The conclusion, contra Kant, is that the most effective strategy against dishonesty and deception is often more dishonesty and deception. (shrink)

This report describes research focusing on virtues and character in teaching, by which we mean the kind of personal qualities professional teachers need to facilitate learning and overall flourishing in young people that goes beyond preparing them for a life of tests. The ‘good’ teacher is someone who, alongside excellent subject knowledge and technical expertise, cares about students, upholds principles of honesty and integrity both towards knowledge and student–teacher relationships, and who does good work . In the Framework (...) for Character Education , we considered the character of teachers to be a crucial ingredient in the development of flourishing children. This new report describes research that examined how teachers thought about, and drew upon, character strengths and virtues in their daily professional lives. (shrink)

This article explores the links between our roles as academics, advocates, and activists, focusing on our research on treatment decisions for patients in vegetative and minimally conscious states. We describe how our work evolved from personal experience through traditional social science research to public engagement activities and then to advocacy and activism. We reflect on the challenges we faced in navigating the relationship between our research, advocacy, and activism, and the implications of these challenges for our (...) class='Hi'>research ethics and methodology—giving practical examples of how we worked with research participants, wrote up case studies and developed interventions into legal debates. We also address the implications of the impact agenda—imposed by the British Research Excellence Framework— for our actions as scholar‐activists. Finally, we ask how practicing at the borders of academia, advocacy, and activism can inform research—helping to contextualize, sensitize, and engage theory with practice, leading to a more robust analysis of data and its implications, and helping to ensure a dialogue between research, theory, lived experience, front‐line practice, law, and public policy. (shrink)

This article argues that the Seven Solutions in the US, and the Research Excellence Framework in the UK, manifest the vice of epistemic insensibility. Section I provides an overview of Aristotle's analysis of moral vice in people. Section II applies Aristotle's analysis to epistemic vice, developing an account of epistemic insensibility. In so doing, it contributes a new epistemic vice to the field of virtue epistemology. Section III argues that the (US) Seven Breakthrough Solutions and, to a (...) lesser extent, the (UK) Research Excellence Framework manifest two key features of the vice of epistemic insensibility. First, they promote a failure to desire, consume, and enjoy some knowledge that it is appropriate to desire, consume, and enjoy. Second, they do so because they wrongly assume that such knowledge is not epistemically good. The Solutions wrongly assume that any research that lacks ‘impact’, in the form of funding, thereby lacks epistemic value. The REF wrongly assumes of otherwise comparable bodies of research, that the research that lacks ‘impact’ has less epistemic value. (shrink)

This article discusses the intensification of research performance demands in UK universities in relation to the complex terrain of academic identity formation. It considers whether a demand for academic researchers to produce and evidence economic and societal impact – in the rewards game of the UK’s performance-based research funding system, the Research Excellence Framework – influences their self-concept as ‘engaged researchers’. While a designation of being REF impactful may be considered constitutive to a researcher’s sense (...) of self-worth and advantageous to their professional and institutional profile, a consultation of researchers included within REF2014 impact case studies challenges these assumptions. Instead, respondents are found to complain of identity dispossession and exploitation by their universities where their public contributions are appropriated for positional gain. Their testimony confirms the prevalence of a culture of ‘competitive accountability’ across UK universities which is with a systemic insatiability for ‘scholarly distinction’, causing the privileging of appearance in rationalisations of publicly funded research. Using the theoretical insights of Guy Debord and Erving Goffman it is argued that REF impact elucidates the UK higher education sector as a ‘society of the Spectacle’ that subjugates ‘authentic’ versions of the academic Self. However, REF-impact is also seen to provide an opportunity for cultural detournément and a means to elicit and concurrently invert ‘simulations’ of research praxis’, thus enabling the assertion or ‘front-staging’ of perceived and idealised academic identities. (shrink)

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) is the European Commission’s in-house science and knowledge service, employing a substantial staff of scientists devoted to conducting research to provide independent scientific advice for EU policy. Focussed on various research areas aligned with EU priorities, the JRC excels in delivering scientific evidence for policymaking and has published numerous science-for-policy reports and scientific articles. Drawing on a scientific integrity statement, surveys among JRC’s research staff, and thematic discussions with JRC’s research (...) leaders, the JRC has developed a comprehensive Scientific Integrity and Research Ethics (SIRE) framework, including instruments, procedures, and guidelines to ensure high standards and independence in its research. Key components of the SIRE framework include a Scientific Integrity Officer, an Editorial Review Board, a Research Ethics Board, and guidelines for responsible conduct of research. This article provides an overview of the JRC’s SIRE framework and how it was developed, emphasising the importance of maintaining independence, integrity, and ethics in scientific research that supports EU policy. The article also discusses potential gaps in the framework and where additional efforts may be needed, comparing with the recent U.S. National Science and Technology Council report on Protecting the Integrity of Government Science. (shrink)

Realising the societal gains from publicly funded health and medical research requires a model for a reflexive evaluation precedent for the societal impact of research. This research explores UK Research Excellence Framework evaluators’ values and opinions and assessing societal impact, prior to the assessment taking place. Specifically, we discuss the characteristics of two different impact assessment extremes – the “quality-focused” evaluation and “societal impact-focused” evaluation. We show the wide range of evaluator views about impact, (...) and that these views could be conceptually reflected in a range of different positions along a conceptual evaluation scale. We describe the characteristics of these extremes in detail, and discuss the different beliefs evaluators had which could influence where they positioned themselves along the scale. These decisions, we argue, when considered together, form a dominant definition of societal impact that influences the direction of its evaluation by the panel. (shrink)

Research integrity is fundamental to the validity and reliability of scientific findings, and for ethical conduct of research. As part of PRINTEGER (Promoting Integrity as an Integral Dimension of Excellence in Research), this study explores the views of researchers, research managers, administrators, and governance advisors in Estonia, Italy, Norway and UK, focusing specifically on their understanding of institutional and organisational influences on research integrity.A total of 16 focus groups were conducted. Thematic analysis of the (...) data revealed that competition is pervasive and appeared in most themes relating to integrity. The structural frameworks for research such as funding, evaluation and publication were thought to both protect and, more commonly, undermine integrity. In addition, institutional systems, including workload and research governance, shaped participants’ day-to-day work environment, also affecting research integrity. Participants also provided ideas for promoting research integrity, including training, and creating conditions that would be supportive of research integrity.These findings support a shift away from individual blame and towards the need for structural and institutional changes, including organisations in the wider research environment, for example funding bodies and publishing companies. (shrink)

Theoretical researchers of manager psychology have excellent potential to extend its research framework to more enterprise application areas, such as innovation, performance, and safety in production. Research in these areas has also been increasing in the past 10 years. Psychological capital is composed of four aspects: self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and tenacity. It plays an essential role in stimulating organizational growth and improving organizational performance. In safety management work, managers, as the core members of the organization, have a (...) relationship between their psychological capital and employees’ safety performance. Nevertheless, the closeness of the relationship between psychological capital and employee safety performance has not been fully demonstrated by academic circles. Based on positive psychology theory, this paper conducts a questionnaire survey of 157 managers and 314 employees related to safety work in manufacturing enterprises. From the new perspective of organizational emotional capability, this paper investigates the complex and extensive social-psychological role in organizations and combs, analyzes, and integrates relevant psychological research to construct the influence mechanism of managers’ psychological capital and employee safety performance. Finally, the three important issues found based on data analysis were: Managers’ psychological capital has a significant positive impact both on employee safety performance and organizational emotional capability; Organizational emotional capability has a significant positive impact on employee safety performance; organizational emotional capability plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between managers’ psychological capital and employee safety performance. (shrink)

There is a widespread policy assumption that school leaders such as headteachers and governors need to have 'training courses' which are constituted by a growing corpus of Education Management Studies (EMS) if they are to achieve successfully current schooling goals of 'effectiveness', 'quality', 'excellence' and 'value for money'. Another body of work which attempts to address these issues in a wider cultural framework and which may be called Critical Leadership Studies (CLS) is regarded as interesting for those studying (...) for higher graduate qualifications but hardly relevant for everyday school busyness. While EMS is constructed as 'practical' and therefore a necessary constituent of the National Professional Qualification for Headteachers and other training courses for school leaders, CLS is constructed as 'academic' and more suitable for the EdD seminar. It will be argued here that both cultural analysis and recent research shows this to be a simplistic and reductionist view with dangerous policy consequences. Critical scholarship in education has much to offer to those meeting the everyday challenges of school leadership. In particular, feminist critical scholarship offers oppositional models to both traditional and market forms of patriarchal school leadership. (shrink)

Indirect observation is a recent concept in systematic observation. It largely involves analyzing textual material generated either indirectly from transcriptions of audio recordings of verbal behavior in natural settings (e.g., conversation, group discussions) or directly from narratives (e.g., letters of complaint, tweets, forum posts). It may also feature seemingly unobtrusive objects that can provide relevant insights into daily routines. All these materials constitute an extremely rich source of information for studying everyday life, and they are continuously growing with the burgeoning (...) of new technologies for data recording, dissemination, and storage. Narratives are an excellent vehicle for studying everyday life, and quantitization is proposed as a means of integrating qualitative and quantitative elements. However, this analysis requires a structured system that enables researchers to analyze varying forms and sources of information objectively. In this paper, we present a methodological framework detailing the steps and decisions required to quantitatively analyze a set of data that was originally qualitative. We provide guidelines on study dimensions, text segmentation criteria, ad hoc observation instruments, data quality controls, and coding and preparation of text for quantitative analysis. The quality control stage is essential to ensure that the code matrices generated from the qualitative data are reliable. We provide examples of how an indirect observation study can produce data for quantitative analysis and also describe the different software tools available for the various stages of the process. The proposed method is framed within a specific mixed methods approach that involves collecting qualitative data and subsequently transforming these into matrices of codes (not frequencies) for quantitative analysis to detect underlying structures and behavioral patterns. The data collection and quality control procedures fully meet the requirement of flexibility and provide new perspectives on data integration in the study of biopsychosocial aspects in everyday contexts. (shrink)

Universities are under increasing pressure to demonstrate the economic and social relevance of the research they produce. In the UK, for example, recent developments in the UK under the Research Excellence Framework (REF) suggest that future funding schemes will grant “significant additional recognition…where researchers build on excellent research to deliver demonstrable benefits to the economy, society, public policy, culture and quality of life” (HEFCE 2009 ). Having conceded that this and similar developments are likely to (...) continue into the future, this paper explores the problematic ethical terrain facing philosophers of education under increasing pressure to produce work that has unambiguous, demonstrable practical value on terms offered by various funding regimes. A preliminary ethics of relevance is developed through an examination of the debate between John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas on the relationship between philosophy, public policy and public reason. The paper then articulates and defends a principle of legitimate relevance . This principle is then applied to the case of directing disciplinary competence in philosophy of education for the educational policy process as a means to producing social and economic benefits. (shrink)

The search for equity in science policy (in terms of territory, gender and other inequalities of opportunity) faces strong tensions with academic excellence, autonomy and meritocracy, which ultimately tend to concentration. Integrating different but related approaches and concepts, this article proposes an analytical framework to study the evolution of scientific policies, instruments or organizations through the lens of these tensions. The utility of this framework is illustrated by a case study of the Argentine National Scientific and Technical (...) Research Council (CONICET in Spanish) and its scientific researcher career, with a focus on the deconcentration initiatives during the 2010-2022 period. This comprehensive perspective shows how tensions and contradictions translate into frequent marches and countermarches, turning the career calls into an incoherent set of layers, rationales, objectives and impacts, which counteract each other and tend to perpetuate rather than diminish territorial inequalities. Beyond this particular case study, we hope that this approach can be adapted in future research to examine other science policies and institutions, in order to identify and highlight the internal tensions that could interfere with some of the intended (equity) objectives. (shrink)

This paper argues that a proper evaluation of the notion of efficiency in business ethics requires that we separate efficiency qua human good from the originally value-neutral sense of the term. The adverse consequences of hyper-efficiency consist in paradoxically causing greater inefficiencies (‘perversity’) as well as a negative impact on the human capacities to pursue various forms of excellence (‘jeopardy’). In contrast to its negative consequences, the precious good of efficiency can be formulated in terms of Alasdair MacIntyre’s influential (...) practice-institution framework. The paper proposes that efficiency be defined in terms of the kind of success towards which it aims; while it never quite reaches the status of an internal good, efficiency fluctuates between being an external good proper and what we call a paradoxical good, with attributes of both internal and external goods. The archetype of a paradoxical good is the good of success qua victory in the domain of sports, which shares attributes of internal goods (since it is defined as a necessary and desirable goal by the practice itself) and external goods (since victory for one implies the defeat of another, a zero-sum logic). The paper fleshes out the consequences of this paradox in MacIntyre’s framework by proposing a three-stage model of success and efficiency for various practices. (shrink)

Justifying higher education is a political exercise in which representatives of universities advocate for resources from the state while also seeking autonomy to manage their own affairs. This analysis builds upon Collini’s identification of the conflict over the value of higher education in the UK. It sets out the ‘worlds of worth’ typology to explain the basis of conflicting justifications in UK higher education policy debates. It elaborates the six worlds of worth and links them to pragmatic justifications utilised in (...) higher education, varying according to situated contexts. It explains the conflicts between the worlds and how they play out in practical ways in higher education policymaking. The Research Excellence Framework constitutes a compromise between multiple worlds of worth. Debates around ‘low value’ courses are centred around conflicts between the industrial and market worlds. It concludes that the worlds of worth model offers a productive framework for the analysis of pragmatic policy conflicts and illuminates political struggles about what universities are for, embedded in power struggles for autonomy and control. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence is increasingly inputting into various human resource management functions, such as sourcing job applicants and selecting staff, allocating work, and offering personalized career coaching. While the use of AI for such tasks can offer many benefits, evidence suggests that without careful and deliberate implementation its use also has the potential to generate significant harms. This raises several ethical concerns regarding the appropriateness of AI deployment to domains such as HRM, which directly deal with managing sometimes sensitive aspects of (...) individuals’ employment lifecycles. However, research at the intersection of HRM and technology continues to largely center on examining what AI can be used for, rather than focusing on the salient factors relevant to its ethical use and examining how to effectively engage human workers in its use. Conversely, the ethical AI literature offers excellent guiding principles for AI implementation broadly, but there remains much scope to explore how these principles can be enacted in specific contexts-of-use. By drawing on ethical AI and task-technology fit literature, this paper constructs a decision-making framework to support the ethical deployment of AI for HRM and guide determinations of the optimal mix of human and machine involvement for different HRM tasks. Doing so supports the deployment of AI for the betterment of work and workers and generates both scholarly and practical outcomes. (shrink)

Critical thinking is a complex, dynamic process formed by attitudes and strategic skills, with the aim of achieving a specific goal or objective. The attitudes, including the critical thinking attitudes, constitute an important part of the idea of good care, of the good professional. It could be said that they become a virtue of the nursing profession. In this context, the ethics of virtue is a theoretical framework that becomes essential for analyse the critical thinking concept in nursing care (...) and nursing science. Because the ethics of virtue consider how cultivating virtues are necessary to understand and justify the decisions and guide the actions. Based on selective analysis of the descriptive and empirical literature that addresses conceptual review of critical thinking, we conducted an analysis of this topic in the settings of clinical practice, training and research from the virtue ethical framework. Following JBI critical appraisal checklist for text and opinion papers, we argue the need for critical thinking as an essential element for true excellence in care and that it should be encouraged among professionals. The importance of developing critical thinking skills in education is well substantiated; however, greater efforts are required to implement educational strategies directed at developing critical thinking in students and professionals undergoing training, along with measures that demonstrate their success. Lastly, we show that critical thinking constitutes a fundamental component in the research process, and can improve research competencies in nursing. We conclude that future research and actions must go further in the search for new evidence and open new horizons, to ensure a positive effect on clinical practice, patient health, student education and the growth of nursing science. (shrink)

Appreciation and gratitude get good press: They are central virtues in many religious and secular ethical frameworks, core in positive psychology research, and they come highly recommended by the self‐improvement set. Generally, appreciation and gratitude feature as good things, in popular consciousness. Of course, on an Aristotelian model, the belief that these are virtues implies they are something people can get right or wrong. This paper examines bad appreciation and bad gratitude, characterizing forms of appreciation and gratitude at the (...) center of some major social norms and practices, and demonstrating that they mask familiar oppressive expectations and power relations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 12.2 (2002) 215-224 [Access article in PDF] Bioethics Inside the Beltway Expanding Human Research Oversight Ellen Holt [Table]Overwhelmed by all the changes and proposed changes in the system to ensure human subject protection? It is an important subject and one in which everyone is interested. Being for human subject protection is like being for Mom. However, we all know that Mom sometimes can (...) be a handful! So I shall quickly review how we got to where we are, what is being done, and who is doing it. The table at the end of this article provides an additional summary of the current state of human subject protections. How We Got Here The current system of human subject protection was built 30 years ago with Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) as the cornerstone. Some well-publicized system failures in the last decade prompted evaluations that identified increasing volume and research complexity as primary threats to the system's effectiveness. In response, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG 1998), and the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC 2001) issued recommendations calling for education and reform. Since then, initiatives in pursuit of these objectives have been rolling out non-stop. What Is Being Done The Office of Human Research Protections (OHRP) is leading the effort for DHHS, holding noncompliant research organizations accountable, while expanding the government's capacity for oversight, monitoring, and educating the research community. OHRP already has leveraged resources by: (1) implementing a unified federal registration system for all IRBs that identifies where IRBs are, how they are constituted, what kinds of research they are reviewing, and what volume of work they handle; (2) implementing a streamlined assurance process allowing all federal agencies to recognize a single, common assurance and avoid redundancy. The assurance is a commitment from any entity that receives federal funds for research to follow federal rules for protection of research subjects; and (3) redeploying resources from the process of negotiating assurances to supporting [End Page 215] quality improvement, including increasing the number site visits and providing IRBs with tools for self assessment and guidance for improvement.The goal is to prevent problems before they occur, and positive reinforcement and supportive training are the preferred themes. OHRP does wield a big stick and can shut down clinical studies in response to lax oversight, but it also has developed a big carrot by creating a national awards program to recognize excellence in protection of human research subjects—e.g., best practices, innovations in protecting research volunteers, and lifetime achievement for outstanding protection activities.Dr. Greg Koski, Director of OHRP, also is working with other government agencies to consolidate and build a comprehensive program. OHRP has four goals for a new oversight framework: Simplicity, Uniformity, Efficiency and Effectiveness. Selecting representatives from throughout the federal government, Dr. Koski has created the "SUEE" task force to identify and eliminate inefficiencies between the various agencies' human testing regulatory approaches. In addition, the SUEE task force will suggest improvements to current OHRP practices that can be achieved relatively quickly and easily.OHRP is working in concert with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which in October 2001, established the Office of Good Clinical Practice (OGCP) to improve the conduct and oversight of clinical research and to promote the protection of participants in FDA-regulated clinical research. Congressional Developments Although Dr. Koski is leading an aggressive charge to consolidate oversight across the federal government, many feel that reform will require legislation to succeed.Action on Capitol Hill is encouraging Bush administration efforts to reform oversight of clinical research. The House International Relations Committee has approved a measure that protects individuals in clinical trials overseas. A six-part Washington Post series (17-22 December 2000), "The Body Hunters," prompted an amendment to the Export Administration Act that, if finalized, will require drug companies to show that a U.S. ethics committee has approved the clinical trial as part of the application for authorization to export the investigational product.Members of Congress also are considering legislation to expand federal oversight of... (shrink)

Scholarship on higher education research (i.e., research on the topic of higher education) within the UK has frequently emphasised some of the weaknesses with work in this area, sometimes juxtaposi...

It has become almost a truism to describe the interaction between research ethics committees and researchers as being marred by distrust and conflict. The ethical conduct of researchers is increasingly a matter of institutional concern because of the degree to which non-compliance with national standards can expose the entire institution to risk. This has transformed research ethics into what some have described as a research ethics industry. In an operational sense, there is considerable focus on modifying (...) class='Hi'>research behaviour through a combination of education and sanctions. The assessment of whether a researcher is ethical is too often based on whether they submit their work for review by an ethics committee. However, is such an approach making a useful contribution to the actual ethical conduct of research and the protection of the interests of participants? Does a focus on ethical review minimise institutional risk? Instead it has been suggested that ethics committees may be distorting or frustrating useful research and are promoting a culture of either mindless rule following or frustrated resistance. An alternative governance approach is required. There is a need for a strong institutional focus on promoting and supporting the reflective practice of researchers through every stage of their work. By situating research ethics within the broader framework of institutional governance, this paper suggests it is possible to establish arrangements that actually facilitate excellent and ethical research. (shrink)

The development of the philosophy of science in the twentieth century has created a framework where issues concerning funding dynamics can be easily accommodated. It combines the historical-philosophical approach of Thomas Kuhn. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, [1962] ) with the sociological approach of Robert K. Merton The sociology of science. Theoretical and empirical investigations. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 267–278, [1942] ), linking the ‘exact’ sciences to economy and politics. Out of this came a new (...) domain, namely the study of scientific practices : Science as practice and culture. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1992). Given this broad theoretical framework, we will specify by looking at the case of STEM education and its variant Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics with Art education as an example par excellence. Without going into the technical details of the financial support of the projects, we prefer to open a philosophical debate on the way how policies on academic subjects influence a whole society and the personal life of both researchers and people/pupils involved in education. (shrink)

With this issue of the Journal of Research Practice, we initiate a conceptual framework for thinking and writing about research, defining areas of editorial focus, and indexing work published in the journal. The framework takes the form of a concept hierarchy that offers index terms at three interrelated levels: (1) focus areas for reflection on research practice within which the journal aims to achieve excellence and strengthen its profile and visibility, (2) subject areas relevant (...) to research practice that the journal aims to cover and in terms of which it defines its focus areas, and (3) keywords for capturing the content of research work done in these subject areas or for reflecting and writing about it. Focus areas are characterized by assigned subject areas; subject areas are characterized by assigned keywords. The concept hierarchy is part of a more comprehensive initiative to strengthen the journal's profile and visibility, an initiative that will also include a restructuring of the editorial team and new roles for the journal's dedicated reviewers and active readers. The article introduces an initial version of the concept hierarchy, explains its intended use and further development, and situates it in the larger effort of which it is a part. (shrink)

This article argues that the Teaching Excellence Framework manifests the vice of epistemic insensibility. To this end, it explains that the TEF is a metrics‐driven evaluation mechanism which permits English higher education institutions to charge higher fees if the ‘quality’ of their teaching is deemed ‘excellent’. Through the TEF, the Government aims to improve the quality of teaching by using core metrics that reflect student satisfaction, retention and short‐term graduate employment. In response, some have criticised the TEF for (...) failing to meaningfully evaluate the quality of teaching. This article seeks to explain and justify this criticism. It thus presents Heather Battaly's account of the vice of epistemic insensibility and argues that the TEF manifests two key features of an epistemically insensible policy, namely: it promotes a failure to desire, consume and enjoy epistemic goods that it is appropriate to desire, consume and enjoy; and it does so because it is committed to a false conception of the epistemic good. Crucially, it argues that the TEF falsely assumes that epistemic goods that serve to bolster its core metrics are more valuable than epistemic goods that do not. The article thus shows how this relies on an erroneous conception of the purpose of education and thus a false conception of the epistemic good. Finally, the article considers two brief objections and concludes that the TEF advances a conception of the student‐as‐customer which detracts from desiring, consuming and enjoying epistemic goods related to edification, civic participation and the student‐teacher relationship. (shrink)

The research ethics framework put forward by McCradden et al. to support systematic inquiry in the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies in healt...

This research is founded on the fundamental hypothesis that a holistic perspective and general understanding play a decisive role in shaping the terminology of any discipline and organizing its components and subfields within a coherent methodological framework. Possessing such a holistic perspective and understanding is a key factor in determining the creativity, innovative approaches, and depth of expertise of scholars, as well as their ability to guide the discipline in accurate and constructive directions. The study explores this hypothesis (...) in the context of Hadith sciences, specifically focusing on Hadith criticism and the evidentiary value of narrations. It de-monstrates that Hadith scholars adopted a holistic view by considering the impact of thematic chapters (bab) in their criticism of Hadiths and their judgments regarding authenticity or rejection. This approach is evident in the classification of Hadith compilations, where Hadiths are arranged ac-cording to thematic chapters. Subsequently, each narration, Hadith, or chain of transmission (isnād) is evaluated in light of the established princip-les and evidence specific to these chapters, including other supporting pro-ofs. Over time, these principles and evidences became well-defined within each chapter, serving as essential criteria for assessing subsequent narrati-ons and scholarly interpretations.The research is structured around five main axes:1.The concept of thematic babs and their relationship with Hadith, inc-luding an analysis of their historical application by muhaddithūn in classifi-cation and methodological development.2.The impact of singularity (tafarrud) within Hadith chapters and the criteria for its acceptance or rejection.3.The relationship between solitary (āhād) Hadiths and singularity, and the significance of thematic categorization in this context.4.The role of thematic babs in evaluating discrepancies among narra-tors (rāwīs) and determining preferences.5.The influence of thematic babs on judging Hadiths as munkar or unacceptable.The study concludes by affirming the strong and intrinsic connection between the thematic categorization of Hadiths and Hadith criticism, emp-hasizing that this relationship constitutes a fundamental element in the judgments of critics regarding Hadiths. Additionally, it confirms the impact of thematic classification on the evaluation of narrators and the grading of Hadiths.The research highlights that neglecting the thematic context of Hadiths when examining narrators and their narrations has led later scholars (mu-ta’akhkhirūn) to methodological errors, diverging from the approaches of master Hadith critics and well-established jurists. Therefore, particular at-tention must be given to the meticulous classification employed by Hadith scholars, especially the authors of the Kutub al-Sittah, whose precision in categorization reflects a profound understanding of Hadiths and their cor-rect interpretation. Finally, the study underscores that the pinnacle of matu-rity and excellence in Hadith classification is particularly evident in the ar-rangement of authentic compilations, with Imam al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870) standing as a leading figure. His methodological rigor in the organization of the Sahīh and the profound insights derived from his use of chapter hea-dings (bab titles) exemplify an unparalleled model in this domain. (shrink)

The history of the National Health Service research ethics system in the UK and some of the key drivers for its change into the present system are described. It is suggested that the key drivers were the unnecessary delay of research, the complexity of the array of processes and contradictions between research ethics committee (REC) decisions. It is then argued that the primary drivers for this change are and will be replicated by the systems of research (...) ethics review being put in place at UK universities in response to the Economic and Social Research Council research ethics framework. It is argued that this is particularly problematic for multi-centre review and for researchers who switch institutions. Finally, some potential solutions to this problem and their feasibility are discussed. (shrink)

The application of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies in healthcare have immense potential to improve the care of patients. While there are some emerging practices surro...

Care after research is for participants after they have finished the study. Often it is NHS-provided healthcare for the medical condition that the study addresses. Sometimes it includes the study intervention, whether funded and supplied by the study sponsor, NHS or other party. The NHS has the primary responsibility for care after research. However, researchers are responsible at least for explaining and justifying what will happen to participants once they have finished. RECs are responsible for considering the arrangements. (...) There are ethical and practical issues, in particular when participants may wish to continue on the study intervention after the study. There are also various guidelines and legislation. This document presents a framework of questions to help NHS RECs and their applicants. Information on this document’s development is here. (shrink)

There is a long philosophical tradition of addressing questions in philosophy of science and epistemology by means of the tools of Bayesian probability theory (see Earman (1992) and Howson and Urbach (1993)). In the late '70s, an axiomatic approach to conditional independence was developed within a Bayesian framework. This approach in conjunction with developments in graph theory are the two pillars of the theory of Bayesian Networks, which is a theory of probabilistic reasoning in artificial intelligence. The theory has (...) been very successful over the last two decades and has found a wide array of applications ranging from medical diagnosis to safety systems for hazardous industries. Aside from some excellent work in the theory of causation (see Pearl (2000) and Spirtes et al. (2001)), philosophers have been sadly absent in reaping the fruits from these new developments in artificial intelligence. This is unfortunate, since there are some long-standing questions in philosophy of science and epistemology in which the route to progress has been blocked by a type of complexity that is precisely the type of complexity that Bayesian Networks are designed to deal with: questions in which there are multiple variables in play and the conditional independences between these variables can be clearly identified. Integrating Bayesian Networks into philosophical research leads to theoretical advances on long-standing questions in philosophy and has a potential for practical applications. (shrink)

Several researchers have identified codes of ethics as tools that stimulate positive ethical behavior by shaping the organisational decision-making process, but few have considered the information needed for code implementation. Beyond being a legal and moral responsibility, ethical behavior needs to become an organisational priority, which requires an alignment process that integrates employee behavior with the organisation’s ethical standards. This paper discusses processes for the responsible implementation of CoEs based on an extensive review of the literature. The internationally recognized European (...) Foundation for Quality Management Excellence Model is proposed as a suitable framework for assessing an organisation’s ethical performance, including CoE embeddedness. The findings presented herein have both practical and research implications. They will encourage construction practitioners to shift their attention from ethical policies to possible enablers of CoE implementation and serve as a foundation for further research on ethical performance evaluation using the EFQM model. This is the first paper to discuss the model’s use in the context of ethics in construction practice. (shrink)