What role does community play in driving forward research?

Abstract

Ask an academic how progress is made in their research field and they will often answer: more funding, better facilities, increased data, and improved analysis techniques. Almost none will mention potentially the most powerful driver: community. Community is that hypothetical melting pot of ideas and innovation, the enabling of many minds to address the key questions to make significant progress: but how does this happen? How are different research communities shaped and structured?  How does this affect how knowledge in different research fields is shaped and structured?  What makes a community effective, and what makes it ineffective? How do we identify and disseminate key principles and approaches to optimise research progress and innovation within these communities?  In this seminar, Professor Sara Uckelman and Professor David Alexander will introduce their project via posing these questions to the IAS community, to provide a foundation for a discussion of the role(s) that community can play in driving research progress and innovation. 

 We were also thinking it might be interesting to survey IAS participants in a bit more formal setting, in the weeks leading up to our seminar, to gain some of their thoughts and incorporate them into our talk.  We were wondering if it would be possible for a MS form link to be sent around to people, maybe 2-3 weeks in advance, to ask some of these questions?  

If this is possible, we were planning to talk to Jarita to see if she'd be able to develop a suitable questionnaire -- among other things, that data would also contribute to her part of the project, since she's got way more experience doing surveys and interviewing people than we do, which is why we brought her on board!

Places are limited and so any academic colleagues or students interested in attending in person must register here for a place. 

More information about this IAS Major Project.