Category Archives: Sponsored Research

With Facts Like This, Who Needs Reason?

Posted on August 12, 2010 by Gerald Barnett

Looking at this report by The Science Coalition. The “facts” about “the innovation process” are more than a little strange. I get the point of the report–more government funding for university research. Will need a Hmpf addendum to work through … Continue reading →

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Masks of Pluralism

Posted on August 12, 2010 by Gerald Barnett

Joan Roelofs’s Foundations and Public Policy: The Masks of Pluralism provides a critique of superficial consensus building. The basics are to capture passionate outliers, make them dependent for funding, and eventually lead them to conform to a consensus rallied around … Continue reading →

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Is Mercenary Science, Science?

Posted on July 27, 2010 by Gerald Barnett

Inside Higher Ed ran a story after the 2010 Gulf oil spill that faculty members have been approached to serve as consultants to BP. See “Oil Debate Spills into Academe.” A faculty member at the University of Southern Mississippi who … Continue reading →

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Intermittency

Posted on July 26, 2010 by Gerald Barnett

In The Survival Game, David Barash discusses the prisoner’s dilemma as a instance of where the payoff for defecting on collaborators is better than playing nice. When such situations repeat, there are huge problems for collaborators in responding to attempts … Continue reading →

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Oh, No, Another Friend Like This!

Posted on July 7, 2010 by Gerald Barnett

I’m going to work through the May 2010 amicus brief filed by AUTM WARF and others in Stanford v. Roche. The aim of the brief is to protect Bayh-Dole relative to a finding by an appeals court that a university … Continue reading →

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Science and Alchemy

Posted on June 9, 2010 by Gerald Barnett

Both chemistry and alchemy involve “research”. Both can be referenced to markets. Perhaps it’s all good, even if there’s no science involved. There’s a claim that science is progressive, cumulative, self-critiquing, and given to a kind of Schumpeterian self-dismantling based … Continue reading →

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Software and Data in Policy-Making Research

Posted on March 8, 2010 by Gerald Barnett

I have been following the “Climategate” situation involving the release of email and software from the University of East Anglia. Apart from what appears to be scientific fraud on the part of a number of scientists, I’m considering what this … Continue reading →

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Data and IP Management in a Mess

Posted on December 4, 2009 by Gerald Barnett

For university IP management, we must also take note of the situation around the climate emails and software. It is all too easy to stand aside and let compliance and misconduct investigations wend their way through the forensics and spin. … Continue reading →

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Institutional Conflict of Interest and Science Investigations

Posted on December 4, 2009 by Gerald Barnett

I have been watching the unfolding of the issues around the release of CRU climate emails and software. If we get past the political spin, and we move through the layer in which concerns might be raised about personal ethics, … Continue reading →

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Open Engagement

Posted on December 4, 2009 by Gerald Barnett

I have posted a short essay on “open engagement” on our Open 3d Printing project blog. The ideas behind this essay came about in discussions between me and Mark Ganter over responses we were seeing to the publication of various … Continue reading →

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