One of the problems challenging the knowledge society is to understand the chang-ing prerequisites for publicly governed knowledge production. Several attempts have been made amongst which perhaps the most debated is the concept of changing mo-des of knowledge production proposed by Gibbons et al. The aim of this thesis is to empirically explore whether this concept can be used to identify and explain research policy developments during the period 1980–2000. A two-layered comparative study was undertaken, in which Swedish research poli-cy developments were studied in depth. The main result from the in-depth study was that there is insufficient evidence to fully support Gibbons et al.’s claims. In analysing this result from a comparative perspective the main conclusion was that neither the changing modes of knowledge production nor the two-track concept that was deri-ved from the in-depth study could explain the developments in research policy. The research policy developments in Sweden, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland were re-examined from an institutional perspective, in which the major ide-as that had influenced the policy process during the period 1980–2000 were used to identify and explain developments in these countries. The main conclusion of this thesis is that all the countries studied are using the public research system as a source of strategic opportunity. However, the analysis also shows that both embedded ideas of how public knowledge should be produced, and the nature of the policy process contribute to explaining the different strategies employed the governments of these countries to make publicly funded research a tool for economic and societal development.

This dissertation project explored the privileging of knowledge production in science and technology as a Canadian national economic, political and social strategy. The project incorporated the relationship between nation-state knowledge production and how that knowledge is then systematically evaluated, prioritized and validated by systems of health technology assessment (HTA). The entry point into the analysis and this dissertation project was the Scientific Research and Experimental Design (SR&ED) federal tax incentive program as the cornerstone of science and technology knowledge production in Canada. The method of inquiry and analysis examined the submission documents submitted by key stakeholders across the country, representing public, private and academic standpoints, during the public consultation process conducted from 2007 to 2008 and how each of these standpoints is hooked into the public policy interests and institutional structures that produce knowledge in science and technology. Key public meetings, including the public information sessions facilitated by the Canada Revenue Agency and private industry conferences, provided context and guidance regarding the current pervasive public and policy interests that direct and drive the policy debates. Finally, the “Innovation Canada: A Call to Action Review of Federal Support to Research and Development: Expert Panel Report,” commonly referred to as “The Jenkins Report” (Jenkins et al., 2011), was critically evaluated as the expected predictor of future public policy changes associated with the SR&ED program and the future implications for the production of knowledge in science and technology. The method of inquiry and analytical lens was a materialist approach that drew on the inspiring frameworks of such scholars as Dorothy Smith, Michel Foucault, Kaushik Sunder Rajan, Melinda Cooper, and, Gilles Deleuze. Ultimately, I strove to illuminate the normalizing force and power of knowledge production in science and technology, and the disciplines and structures that encompass it and are hooked into it where the privileging of such knowledge becomes hegemonic within and by the regimes of knowledge production that created them.

This dissertation project explored the privileging of knowledge production in science and technology as a Canadian national economic, political and social strategy. The project incorporated the relationship between nation-state knowledge production and how that knowledge is then systematically evaluated, prioritized and validated by systems of health technology assessment (HTA). The entry point into the analysis and this dissertation project was the Scientific Research and Experimental Design (SR&ED) federal tax incentive program as the cornerstone of science and technology knowledge production in Canada. The method of inquiry and analysis examined the submission documents submitted by key stakeholders across the country, representing public, private and academic standpoints, during the public consultation process conducted from 2007 to 2008 and how each of these standpoints is hooked into the public policy interests and institutional structures that produce knowledge in science and technology. Key public meetings, including the public information sessions facilitated by the Canada Revenue Agency and private industry conferences, provided context and guidance regarding the current pervasive public and policy interests that direct and drive the policy debates. Finally, the “Innovation Canada: A Call to Action Review of Federal Support to Research and Development: Expert Panel Report,” commonly referred to as “The Jenkins Report” (Jenkins et al., 2011), was critically evaluated as the expected predictor of future public policy changes associated with the SR&ED program and the future implications for the production of knowledge in science and technology. The method of inquiry and analytical lens was a materialist approach that drew on the inspiring frameworks of such scholars as Dorothy Smith, Michel Foucault, Kaushik Sunder Rajan, Melinda Cooper, and, Gilles Deleuze. Ultimately, I strove to illuminate the normalizing force and power of knowledge production in science and technology, and the disciplines and structures that encompass it and are hooked into it where the privileging of such knowledge becomes hegemonic within and by the regimes of knowledge production that created them.

The purpose of this thesis is to study how the Swedish welfare state formulated a question of shorter work hours, 1919—2002. During the 1900s, several official reports were published in order to produce knowledge about this issue and construct a manageable inquiry about shorter work hours. The aim of this thesis is to examine what were formulated as problems and solutions and which arguments and beliefs emerged from these formulations. Official state reports are regarded as instruments of knowledge production by the state. This intelligence was required to justify the possibility and desirability of the reform that shaped the question of shorter work hours in the welfare state.   The aim of the official reports was to create knowledge, which determined the value of working time reduction. Leisure as welfare meant that the state interpreted the citizens’ needs and formulated working-time reduction as either a possible or impossible reform. Working hours have never been justified as a reform that simply gives more leisure and less time for work. The reform was instead considered possible and desirable because it was interpreted as helping to reproduce the labour force or capitalism as a whole. It was thought impossible and undesirable when considered to be a threat to this reproduction.   However, there were two major reformulations of the question of shorter work. In the middle of the selected period, the matter moved from the sphere of production to a consumption sphere, meaning that the issue became less conflicted. The state’s responsibility to push the reform was deemphasized. Another reformulation is when flexibility was formulated as a solution, and thus made regulation of working time undesirable and unnecessary. This study shows how the conception of a question of shorter work hours was a process requiring formulations and reformulations and how these expressions fundamentally changed over time, although the basic premises remained.

For Chapter 1: This paper offers a meta-regression analysis of the controversial impact of EU structural funds on the growth of the recipient regions. It identifies the factors that explain the heterogeneity in the size of 323 estimates of their impact recorded in 17 econometric studies. Heterogeneity comes from the publication status, the period examined, controlling for endogeneity, from the presence of several regressors but not from differences in functional forms. For Chapter 2: Recent spatial econometric contributions call for theory-driven spatial models and W matrices capturing actual and time-varying interregional linkages. This paper answers this call by developing theoretically Griliches' well-known knowledge production function to add knowledge externalities to it. They capture how human and private capital originating from one region benefit the creation of innovation elsewhere. Furthermore, we measure interregional interaction based on the actual flows of patent creation-citation and of migration of the educated workers. They have the advantage of capturing clearly the direction of the knowledge transfers. Their presence in the theoretical model leads to a reduced-form spatial cross-regressive model which differentiates better the role of each type of externality - and displays a better goodness of fit - than the spatially lagged model where spillovers depend on geographical proximity only. Both models are estimated on spatial panel data covering the dynamics of innovation across US states over the 1986-1999 period. For Chapter 3: The Ricardian framework is increasingly used for the study of the impact of climate change on farmland values. While most of the Ricardian studies assume no interaction between the geographical units under study, the few that do rely on traditional proximity-based dependence. In this paper we argue that since the larger share of agricultural goods produced by a state is not for its own local market, including interregional trade in the Ricardian framework provides new perspectives, avoids a missing variable bias and prevents erroneous conclusions. Our new framework is applied to the system of the U.S. states over the four most recent censuses (1997-2012) and demonstrate that climate and socio-economic conditions experienced in a state's trade partners have a significant role on that state's local farmland values.

This thesis aims at increasing knowledge about climate research in developing countries and how research can be constructed, implemented and evaluated to be useful for local capacity building and climate action. This has been achieved by studying a concrete research project in Kota, India. Semi-structured interviews and one workshop has been conducted with researchers, stakeholders and one research financier to identify their perspectives on the studied research project as well as future participatory climate research. In the analysis, some identified opportunities for climate research were local knowledge and engagement, stakeholder awareness about the studies issues, a common platform to discuss research outcomes and research that presents possible solutions to local problems. Identified barriers were a lack of representation of specific groups, organizational problems among stakeholders, complex texts and a lack of policies or guidelines. This thesis also suggests some important factors to consider when performing participatory projects, such as planning the project carefully with a thought about timing, evaluation and involvement of many societal groups.

Nosso objetivo é analisar a produção acadêmica acerca da Sociolingüística no Brasil, a fim de verificar quais valorações sociais, relações de poder e imagens percorrem tal produção. Para tanto, tomamos algumas expressões características e, a princípio, imprescindíveis às conceitualizações dessa área do conhecimento. O corpus da pesquisa foi constituído de maneira a focar a reflexão no interior da própria produção acadêmica, a partir de uma coletânea de textos de grande circulação, que abordam de diferentes formas o tema das variações na língua: em material didático, na literatura, na formação histórica do português brasileiro e no uso cotidiano da língua pelos falantes. Pressupomos que, apesar da alegada respeitabilidade a todas as variedades, encontrada nos textos analisados, advinda das reflexões opositoras à Gramática Tradicional, ainda estava presente a imposição de apenas uma forma legítima de variedade; além disso, a posição das novas reflexões lingüistas permanecia como autoridade oferecedora de uma língua mais adequada à realidade nacional, expropriando do falante sua própria língua. Para realizar nosso exame, recorremos às reflexões da Análise do Discurso, essencialmente a Michel Pêcheux, do qual trabalhamos a ideia de processo de produção de um discurso, envolvendo nesse sentido as condições sócio-históricas para tal produção; e a ideia de espaços estabilizados, em que os discursos trabalham pela manutenção dessa estabilidade. Concluímos que: a) possibilidade de um pacto tácito que impede um uso homogêneo dos termos para que não se discuta seu significado; b) uma postura de oferecimento de uma determinada língua aos falantes, movimento parecido ao dos gramáticos, anteriormente lugar de crítica dos sociolinguistas. Por fim, pensamos que a produção acerca da variação linguística procura garantir a estabilidade dos espaços sociais (incluindo os Institucionais) recomendando a fala ao contexto (ou à situação). / Our aim is to analyze the academic production concerning Sociolinguistics in Brazil to verify which social values, power relation and images go beyond that production. To do so, we have taken some characteristically expressions, and as an essential start pointing the concepts of this field of knowledge. The research corpus was constituted in a way to focus the reflection inside the academic production, starting with a collection of texts from great circulation, which deal with in different ways the theme about the language variation: didactic material, literature, the historical formation of Portuguese in the everyday use of the language by the speakers. We think that, in spite of the alleged respectability to all varieties found in the analyzed texts, that came from of the opposition to the Traditional Grammar, it was still under the imposition of only one legitimate way of variety; in addition to this, the position of new linguistics thoughts remained as an offered authority of a more adequate language to the national reality, taking the speakers away from their own language. To realize our exam, we resort to the thoughts of the Discourse Analysis, essentially to Michel Pêcheux, from whom we work the idea of production process of a discourse, involving in this way the pre-hystorical conditions to such production; and the idea of stable spaces, in which the discourses work for the maintenance of this stability. We concluded that: a) the possibility of an implicit pact that prevent the homogenous use of the terms not to discuss their meanings; b) an attitude of offering a determined language to the speakers, movement similar to the grammarian, before under the criticism of sociolinguistics. Finally, we think that the production concerning the linguistic variation try to guarantee the stability of two social spaces (including the Institutional) recommending the speech to the context (or to the situation).

Esse trabalho teve como objetivo refletir sobre uma experiência de pesquisa participante a partir de quatro eixos principais: verificar sua execução em relação aos princípios metodológicos da pesquisa participante, identificar suas possíveis contribuições para os Serviços de Saúde da área, verificar sua pertinência junto aos Movimentos Sociais da região, tanto no sentido de produzir um conhecimento autônomo como tendo em vista suas práticas e, finalmente, discutir o papel dos Movimentos Sociais no que diz respeito ao processo de aquisição de cidadania. Desenvolvendo-se como um estudo de caso e utilizando dados de caráter qualitativo e quantitativo, o trabalho revelou que a pesquisa participante constitui-se como um recurso metodológico adequado à produção de conhecimento, à prática dos Serviços de Saúde e dos Movimentos Sociais. O estudo permitiu, também, perceber que a \"cidadania\" (conceitos e práticas) não está totalmente presente nas representações e discursos dos atores sociais. / This study was undertaken for the purpose of reflecting an experiment in participation research along four main lines: the verification of its execution with regard to the methodological principles of participation research, the identification of its possible contributions to the Health Services in the area, the verification of its relevance to the Social Movements of the region, both with a view to producing autonomous knowledge as also with its practices in mind and, finally, the discussion of the role of the Social Movements with regard to the progress of the aquisition of citizenship. Undertaken as a case study and employing data of a qualitative and a quantitative nature, the study shows that participation research is an adequate methodological resource for the production of knowledge and for the practice both of Health Services and of Social Movements. The study, further, permits the perception that \"citizenship\" (in therms of concepts and practices) is not fully present either in the roles represented or in the discourse of the social actors.

A presente tese tem por objetivo analisar a produção do conhecimento sobre os estudos de cinema realizados pelos pesquisadores vinculados à Sociedade Brasileira de Estudos de Cinema e Audiovisual (Socine). Procuramos compreender o contexto da criação da entidade, em 1996, destinada a realizar pesquisas sobre cinema e audiovisual e como foi possível o crescimento e a consolidação, até 2012, quando completou dezesseis anos de atuação. Visamos a mapear a produção do conhecimento sobre cinema nesse período, de maneira a elencar pesquisadores e temas pesquisados. Nesse escopo, relacionamos o início das atividades da Socine com o crescimento da produção, da divulgação e da exibição de filmes no país. Percebemos que os efeitos quantitativos e qualitativos do reinício da produção fílmica decorreram, entre outros fatores, da aprovação de leis de incentivo à cultura que passaram a vigorar no início dos anos de 1990 e, sobretudo, do espírito de redemocratização da política e da cultura no país, favorável à produção de bens simbólicos. Uma vez que a Socine propunha-se, desde sua criação, a romper com formas arcaicas de fazer pesquisa em cinema, possibilitou a formação de mais pesquisadores na área, contribuindo para a produção e divulgação das pesquisas sobre cinema. Inovaram, assim, tanto em aspectos científicos quanto político-intelectuais. Para analisar as contribuições da Socine para a produção fílmica nacional, fundamentamos teoricamente nossa investigação na noção de campo e na análise relacional. Esses conceitos nos foram caros uma vez que, ao reunir um expressivo número de pesquisadores, a Socine configurou-se como agente coletivo que visava a analisar o cinema quanto à sua representatividade cultural e simbólica para o país. As condições da ação e as formas de articulação dos pesquisadores de cinema na Socine ajudaram, desse modo, a compor os campos científico e cinematográfico inscritos na composição e na forma de gestão que adota, de maneira a permitir avaliar a sociedade com relação ao que ela promove. Recorremos, em nossa análise, a entrevistas narrativas de alguns membros do Conselho Editorial organizadores dos livros, publicações e documentos. Constatamos, no material produzido pela Socine, uma relação entre o aumento da produção, distribuição e exibição de películas brasileiras desde 1995 e a postura propositiva da Socine ao delimitar interesse sistematizado pela temática, com aumento do número de pesquisadores dispostos a pesquisar, debater e publicar sobre a temática. Como consequência, em mais de uma década e meia de existência, a sociedade manteve: encontros anuais, publicação de artigos, resenhas, ensaios, livros e revista debatendo os vários aspectos que envolvem o cinema no Brasil. Além disso, promoveu a exposição, análise e emprego de categorias que tomamos como base para nossas análises desse que constitui um rico e diversificado conjunto de materiais. Ao nos determos à análise de estudos sobre a composição e representação do povo brasileiro, amparamo-nos na perspectiva que entende os discursos como produtores e comunicadores de significados de mundo. Esses significados, por sua vez, formam representações sobre a vida, o futuro, o ser social, a política e o poder e, sobretudo, a pessoa humana que nos deram condições de ter uma melhor percepção a respeito do modo singular com que ela aborda a realidade. Deste modo, concluímos que o filme pode ser um fundamental meio que homens e mulheres encontram para expressar-se, e que olhar para essas produções de maneira mais efetiva só se fez possível a partir dos estudos de cinema realizados na Socine, uma vez que apresentam uma visão de conjunto dessa produção. / This thesis aims to analyze the knowledge production concerning to the cinema studies carried out by researchers from the Sociedade Brasileira de Estudos de Cinema e Audiovisual Socine (Brazilians Society of Cinema and Audiovisual studies). We intend to understand the context of the entitys creation, in 1996, destined to carried out researches about cinema and audiovisual, and how it was possible its development and consolidation, until 2012. We aim to map the knowledge production concerning to cinema in this period of time, listing some researchers and subjects researched. For this target, we have related the beginning of Socines activities with the development of the production, disclosure and exhibition of movies in Brazil. We have understood that qualitative and quantitative effects of the restart of movies production occurred because of the approval of incentive of culture laws, which went into effect in the beginning of the nineties and, above all, the spirit of redemocratization and the countrys culture, favorable to symbolic goods production. Once Socine was determined to break off relations with the archaic ways of doing research about cinema, it made possible the formation of more researchers of that field of studies, cooperating to the cinemas researches production and disclosure. They have changed either the scientific aspects or the intellectual and political ones. In order to analyze Socines contributions to the Brazilians movie production, we are based upon the notion of field and in relational analysis. The concepts were very important once, as we reunited many researchers, Socine set up as a collective agent that aimed to analyze cinema as its cultural and symbolic representativeness in Brazil. Socine movie researchers action circumstances and articulation ways helped to put together the scientific and the cinematographic fields, inscribed in the compositions and type of the management adopted, in a way that, it is allowed to evaluate society in relation to what it promotes. To our analysis, we have recurred to the members of the editorial boards narrative interviews. We have found out that in the material produced by Sorine, there is a relationship between the productions increasing, the exhibition of Brazilian movies since 1995 and Socines propositive posture limiting the systematic interest for this theme, increasing the number of researches that want to search, debate and publish about this subject. As a consequence, in more than a decade and half of existence, this society maintained: annual meetings, articles publication, summaries, essays, books and journals debating many subjects that are concerned to the Brazilian movies. In addition, it has promoted the exhibition, analysis and employment of the categories that are the base to our analysis of this, that constitutes a very important set of materials. We understand also that the discourses as creators and communicators of the different worlds. Those meanings have made lifes representations, future, the social being, politics and power, and, over all, the human beings, that gave us conditions to have a better perception about the singular way that reality was approached. Thus, we have concluded that movies can be an essential way that everyone has find to express oneself and that looking that productions in a more effective way was only possible because of the cinema studies carried out by Socine, once they represent those productions overview.

A hipermídia se coloca à frente de imensuráveis possibilidades de aprendizagem e conhecimento ao propiciar o encontro entre a razão e o sensível. Avaliando o desvelar da verdade através da vivência estética, presente no fundamento do jogo, este trabalho analisa a rica possibilidade de produção de conhecimento presente na hipermídia. Linguagem esta que advém da confluência de modernas tecnologias, arte, jogo e o vivenciar subjetivo de uma intensa experiência estética. / Hypermedia is placed ahead of immeasurable learning opportunities and knowledge to foster the encounter between reason and sensitive. Analyzing the unveiling of the truth through aesthetic experience, present at the foundation of the game, this paper analyzes the rich possibility of producing knowledge in hypermedia. This language that comes from the confluence of modern technology, art, game and subjective experience of an intense aesthetic experience.