Britain's Research Councils lack the internal skills base to do an efficient job of knowledge transfer, the authors of an internal report on the subject told the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology today (March 29). Richard Brook, director of the Leverhulme Trust, John Murphy from aerospace firm BAE Systems and Barbara Doig from the Scottish Executive, were commissioned by the Research Councils to conduct an "external challenge," and examine how well the eight government-funded councils transfer knowledge to and from business and the wider community.
Their report is still in the draft stage, and is not scheduled for publication until late April or May, a spokesman for the umbrella group Research Councils UK told The Scientist. But under cross-examination by the committee of politicians, the authors confirmed that it contains "some fairly strong messages." Among those messages is the view that "there are not sufficient skilled people in house in the Research Councils to carry out knowledge transfer effectively," said Brook. The Research Councils are far from alone in suffering this shortage, he said, but nevertheless it was something that could be improved. One possible solution could be to use some kind of external facilitator to make improvements. Brook also said that the Research Councils had a “rather limited” view of knowledge transfer, and tended to think of it as being a one-way, outward process....
Another area for improvement is coordination between the seven research councils, Brook said. In particular, the umbrella organization Research Councils UK could be better utilized for that purpose. "I think our view is that RCUK isn't being used as effectively as it could be," he said, adding that part of the difficulty arises because the individual research councils want to retain autonomy. Murphy noted that RCUK does have a dedicated knowledge transfer group, but said "it could do better." The research councils did engage in some sharing of good practices in knowledge transfer, he said, but again "there is big scope for improvement." Today's evidence hearing was part of an ongoing investigation by the select committee into the knowledge transfer activities of the Research Councils. The 11-member committee is empowered by parliament to examine the spending, policy and administration of the Office of Science and Technology and other science-related public bodies.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/30/2006 07:27:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
