Par Sylvestre Huet. Le rapport de la Cour des Comptes sur le crédit d'impôt recherche confirme amplement les critiques de sa réforme par Nicolas Sarkozy et Valérie Pécresse. Il pose surtout de graves questions sur la véracité des élements donnés par le gouvernement aux Députés et Sénateurs qui ont voté cette réforme. Au delà de ce rapport, une enquête parlementaire s'impose. Suite...30 septembre 2013
Science safeguarded in French budget
By Barbara Casassus. Small drop in national research funding but other programmes untouched. Research and higher-education funding have been left largely unchanged in France's new draft budget, despite the country continuing to grapple with its stubbornly high public deficit.
The outline spending plans for 2014, announced yesterday, include a 0.5% increase in the Higher Education and Research Ministry’s spending, to €23.4 billion, or just over €26 billion if contributions from other ministries are included. Although the increase is smaller than the 2.2% Minister Geneviève Fioraso won last year, she stressed that her budget is still the third largest after lower education and defence. More...
29 septembre 2013
Crédit d'impôt recherche: la gabegie
Par Sylvestre Huet. Le rapport de la Cour des Comptes sur le crédit d'impôt recherche confirme amplement les critiques de sa réforme par Nicolas Sarkozy et Valérie Pécresse. Il pose surtout de graves questions sur la véracité des élements donnés par le gouvernement aux Députés et Sénateurs qui ont voté cette réforme. Au delà de ce rapport, une enquête parlementaire s'impose. Suite...08 septembre 2013
Why are research universities going global?
By Richard J Edelstein and John Aubrey Douglass. Despite the significant increase in the number and type of international activities – from branch campuses to MOOCs and aggressive international student recruitment – many institutional efforts appear to be launched without a clear idea of best practices or how specific activities might be productive and meaningful for a particular institution. Empirical knowledge of how and why institutions expand these activities, and whether they are successful, remains largely anecdotal. Why do universities embark on new projects and activities that engage the institution outside of its national boundaries? What motivates individuals and their institutions to include transnational relations among their core strategic interests and concerns when considering the future path for success? Why are more foreign students and faculty recruited and why are curricula and research agendas more international and global in scope?
The motivation of institutions, and their leaders, appears to be multiple and complex. As part of our larger effort to generate a taxonomy of different kinds of international engagement by universities, and reflecting a recent research paper published as part of a larger project based at the University of California, Berkeley, we offer here an exploration of possible institutional logics and rationales used to justify what are sometimes significant financial and institutional commitments. More...
06 septembre 2013
Looking for funding for your research project? Turn to the public with crowdfunding!
By Marielk. In this post, Hedda’s own Mari Elken examines the idea of “crowdfunding” and its potential for funding research projects.
Opening up the Ivory Tower and involving the public in research processes is a process that has gained prominence in recent years, a while ago we also wrote about “crowdsourcing” – where communities or groups of people outside traditional research environments provide their skills for research processes. But how about using the general public to finance your research project through “crowdfunding“?
Crowdfunding as a phenomenon has emerged in the business circles as a means to fund start-ups, and. In the business sphere, crowdfunding is considered one of the key developments for funding startups. Recenrtly, Forbes commentary about the development was: “Trust me. It’s going to be big“, as various social network sites have also shown interest in integrating with crowdfunding platforms.
A number of these platforms in more creativity related areas have gained massive support and have been around for some years already. For instance, Kickstarter is a platform for funding filmmakers, musicians, artists and designers – and this platform alone has had 4,7 million people pledge over 768 million dollars for funding over 47 000 projects, with a success rate of 44% of the projects reaching their goals. Read more...
01 septembre 2013
Government proposes changes to research fund
By John Gerritsen. Eleven years after the introduction of the country's NZ$250 million (US$195 million) research fund for tertiary institutions, the New Zealand government is proposing only minor changes to it. The Performance Based Research Fund, or PBRF, has evaluated the quality of research at institutions that provide degrees and postgraduate qualifications three times since it was introduced in 2002 and is now under review. The government has published a discussion document and is now consulting on possible changes to the scheme, which will be worth NZ$300 million (US$234 million) a year by the 2016-17 financial year. More...League of European Research Universities (LERU)
The League of European Research Universities (LERU) is as an association of twenty-two leading research-intensive universities that share the values of high-quality teaching within an environment of internationally competitive research. LERU advocates education through an awareness of the frontiers of human understanding; the creation of new knowledge through basic research, which is the ultimate source of innovation in society; and the promotion of research across a broad front in partnership with industry and society at large. The link address is: http://www.leru.org/
Higher Education and Research-Council of Europe
The work of the Council of Europe in the field of higher education and research focuses on issues related to the recognition of qualifications, public responsibility for higher education and research, higher education governance and other fields relevant for the establishment of the European Higher Education Area by 2010. The Council of Europe also supports reform of higher education in the so-called priority regions, mainly the South East Europe, South Caucasus and CIS countries. The link address is: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/highereducation/Default_en.asp
Association of East Asian Research Universities (AEARU)
The Association of East Asian Research Universities (AEARU) is a regional organization founded in January 1996, with the goals of forming a forum for the presidents of leading research-oriented universities in East Asia and of carrying out mutual exchanges between the major universities in the region. The link address is: http://www.aearu.org/
31 août 2013
Interested in a network about EHEA and ERA? Check out ERA-CRN launching events
A while ago we posted about a new researcher network “Collaborative Research Network (CRN) on the European Research Area”, with its main focus on the construction of the Europe of Knowledge – processes and policy initiatives in Europe that lead to the construction of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and European Research Area (ERA).
The ERA-CRN is a network of researchers at all career stages researching the construction of the European knowledge area. It includes researchers from multiple disciplines, ranging from law to communication studies, sociology, science policy and higher education studies, EU studies, international relations and political science.
The network coordinators have asked us to share the information for those of you that are interested or are working on any of these themes in European integration or knowledge governance:
- The role of law and ideas
- Governance and its effects;
- Legitimacy, trust and values;
- Actors and institutional arrangements. More...
25 août 2013
Countries haggle over huge SKA telescope costs
By Ishmael Tongai. South African politicians were told last week that tricky and extended negotiations were under way to work out how much each country involved in the first-phase construction of the massive Square Kilometre Array, or SKA, radio telescope will have to fork out. Bernie Fanaroff, SKA South Africa’s project director, told members of parliament's science and technology portfolio committee last Wednesday that the major current issue was how to fund phase one of the project, which is expected to cost €650 million – US$868 million and about R8.9 billion in local currency. More...
