This entry is about other aspects of the same, mentioned in the earlier blog, Australian e-Research Strategy and Implementation Framework. This time is about:
Research culture
Several disconnected aspects in this Framework provoked to think about the research culture:
- The Framework, as stated, is “strategic intervention rather than a competitively funded programme” (p. 14) and “the Government should not seek to fund independent projects”. This intervention could be a great strategic approach to achieve synergy and effectively invest public money. However, this non-competitive “strategic” approach will need to work alongside the RQF and other “competitive” Australian research policy agendas. How?
- E-research is cross-disciplinary and collaborative in nature. Most of educational research has been done by individual researchers or small, usually monodisciplinary, research groups. The adoption of e-research might be a big cultural challenge for educational research and academic community. There is no strong (any?) culture of sharing educational datasets, research resources and results, let alone political dimensions of the access to governmental and institutional educational databases (although sharing of these resources would be a “goldmine” for researchers and a “native gold” for decision-makers).
- As a part of this Framework, it is planned to create one e-research Centre and seven e-research nodes. They will be independent from universities and will facilitate the transfer of the e-research methodologies to the research community. I found this strategic approach appealing and challenging. On the one hand, it looks like a great “fair go” strategy; and opportunities, offered as a part of this Framework, will be accessible for all individual researchers from all universities. On the other hand, e-research is collaborative in nature; it needs large infrastructures and organisational support. Will this research culture, created outside universities, be adopted and sustain within universities?
Thus, e-research is probably not (only) about new research culture, but about cultures embedded in larger research policies and institutional arrangements.