Is public health policy based on scholarly evidence? With the manifold variables that policy makers must consider, is evidence-based policy even realistic? While strategies exist to translate research into policy, a need to understand better how that can play out in real-life remains. Using interviews from informants occupying a range of positions, and considering the atmosphere created by media reports, this study examines the case of smoking privileges at East Coast Forensic Hospital. After a patient committed murder while on leave, apparently to smoke, public pressure over public safety, a relative lack of relevant scholarship, ethical considerations, and the divergent voices of stakeholders created challenging circumstances for policy makers. Through the use of case study methodology, this project identifies the kinds of information that are employed in the creation or modification of policy and offers insights concerning how the influences exerted on policy makers determine how information is employed.

The state of Texas reflects the teacher shortages experienced by the rest of the United States. The three studies included in this dissertation use exploratory mixed-methods and qualitative research designs to understand experiences of Texas high school science teachers at the entry stage of the teacher professional continuum (TPC): recruitment. Little is understood about the relationship between recruitment, job satisfaction and retention of teachers. A conceptual framework (i.e., teacher-to-school match, realistic job previews, decision factors) was used to guide the inquiry process and help draw connections between the literature and findings from this study regarding teacher recruitment, job satisfaction, and retention. This research was completed in collaboration with the PRISE Research Group at Texas A&M University. The first study describes recruitment activities of new-to-school science teachers for their current positions. A content analysis of teachers' interviews suggested that schools are not maximizing valuable resources supporting teacher-to-school match and realistic job previews (RJP). Further analyses indicated teachers' interview experiences and participation in various types of RJP activities were associated with minority student enrollment profile (MSEP) and size of school. The second study explores reasons for teachers' decisions to accept their positions. New-to-school teachers indicated 12 categories of reasons. Subjective factors relating to non-pecuniary aspects of the job were reported by teachers more frequently than objective or critical contact factors. Teachers' responses for accepting their positions were found to be associated with MSEP and size of school. The third study describes recruitment experiences of highly satisfied and retained new-to-school teachers. Trends were identified regarding teachers' match to schools, engagement in RJP activities, and use of decision factors. Findings from this study direct researchers towards new questions with regard to teacher recruitment as a leveraging factor for job satisfaction and retention. The final chapter provides a summary of all three studies. Recommendations are made to stakeholders regarding progressive recruitment practices and policies for high school science teachers. Concurrently, themes in this chapter provide researchers with a topology for the design of future studies addressing teacher shortages on campus using the initial stage of the TPC: recruitment.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references.

The study of sport initiations is in its infancy. So far, the North American-centric research has focussed on ‘exposing and condemning’ morally unacceptable initiation activities, which are referred to as hazing. Hazing moral panics in North America has resulted in universities utilising sport initiation empirical research to construct anti-hazing policies; policies proven to be ineffective in banning sport initiations. The purpose of this research is to address some of the gaps in the knowledge of sport initiations. A two stage ethnographic research approach was utilised to collect information on British university sport initiations. An international student embedded himself as a student-athlete within a British university to learn the cultural meanings of a foreign sport culture and to possess an emic perspective. Semi-structured interviews were then conducted with key policy actors possessing differing organisational cultural perspectives (differentiational and fragmentational), specifically university staff and sport - rugby union, football, and track and field - club members from multiple higher education institutions. The researcher’s ethnographic confessional tale of his experience as a self-funded international student is combined with the data from interviewee participants to construct British university sport initiations as a resistance research topic.

Several studies have been published postulating the emergence of the post-modern research system, the research system in transition and the new production of knowledge (Cozzens et al. 1990, Rip and van der Meulen 1996, Gibbons et al. 1994). However, these studies have been largely concerned with the gradual transformation of well-established research systems of Western industrialised countries. The radical transformations of the research systems of Central and Eastern European countries (CEE), following the collapse of the communist regime at the beginning of the 1990s, have attracted a smaller number of scholars (Balazs et al. 1995; Schimank 1995; Radosevic 1999; Dyker and Radosevic 1999, 2000). Prior to this, the developments in scientific organisation have been considered to be either an issue of evolution (in advanced or industrialised countries) or, as in the case of developing countries - a development issue. However, the research/innovation systems of CEE in the 1990s were neither underdeveloped, nor following the pattern of evolution of other industrialised countries, but were forced to change as a consequence of changes in the political and economic order. Furthermore, eighteen years after the fall of the communist regime, the research systems of CEE have developed at different rates, along different trajectories, despite similar preconditions for change. Taking into account the aforementioned considerations, the study investigates two research systems in transition, those of Latvia and Estonia, which along with the Czech Republic have initiated the most radical reorganisation of their research systems. The choice of countries is based on the realisation that despite, at first glance, similar pre-conditions for change, as well as similar demographic factors, political and economic systems, and institutional structures of scientific organisation (which makes these countries easily comparable); these systems appear to have evolved along different trajectories. Clear differences are seen in terms of total state funding allocated for research, as well as contributions from the private sector, R&D intensity, research output in terms of publication, citation rates and patents, collaborative projects and publications (Kristapsons, Martinson and Dagyte 2003). Based on these indicators, Estonia precedes Latvia on all counts; possible explanations for this are the diversified funding mechanisms available, and the multitude of assessments of research and development on the basis of which policies were formed (Kristapsons, Martinson and Dagyte 2003).In view of the overall goal of explaining different rates/paths of development of similarly positioned national research systems, the purpose of the study is twofold. Firstly, it attempts to paint a comprehensive picture of the Latvian and Estonian research systems and, secondly, it compares and contrasts them in terms of the reforms initiated and the outputs, outcomes and impacts of these reforms. Methodologically, the study is largely qualitative in nature and it has been deemed appropriate to present the two countries as separate case studies, yet retaining a common analytical frame to gather primary and secondary data. Secondary data has been collected by drawing on the multitude of archival and documentary evidence and statistical databases available; primary data was collected by conducting semi-structured interviews.

The thesis presents an opportunity to study relationship between rapid rail transit system and urban development through measuring various changes caused by the rapid rail transit improvement in Washington, D.C., Beijing, China, and Vancouver, Canada. Due to the reason that the three systems are all well-planned systems, they are not only the important parts of urban public transit, but also tools for guiding urban and regional development. Three principal goals are identified for these systems: relieve traffic congestion; provide a transit alternative to the automobile drivers; and support a compact pattern of regional town centers out from an over-developed downtown area to form a polycentric urban pattern. The rapid rail transit is found to serve a majority of riders going to and from work. It attracts not only former auto drivers but also new riders from other modes due to the fact that the system is a time and cost-saving transportation tool for people. Joining other factors, rapid rail transit could shape land-use pattern, reduce decline of old downtown, and induce development. It influences society and economy positively in that region. Although there is no direct relation between the improvement and regional population growth, it influences the population re-distribution because it attracts new employment to its envelope and influence areas from other parts of the metropol is. A good transportation system in a metropolis should satisfy the variety of needs for mobility engendered by a very heterogeneous population. A system which mainly depends on automobiles cannot meet the needs. An rapid rail transit system could compensate for the insufficiency of automobile. As a critical and irreplaceable part of an urban transportation system, rapid rail transit plays an increasingly important role. / Master of Science

本研究旨於探討政策研究社群(STI policy research communities)在政策實務中所扮演的角色、與政策實務間的關係及互動，以及該社群隨著不同政策情境其所累積的知識結構。本文以英國科技政策研究社群SPRU及MIoIR為例，首先以Top-down的方式從整體制度及機構面進行探討，第二部份則進一步描述及探討SPRU及MIoIR這兩個研究社群在英國政策實務中所扮演的角色及定位。第三部份旨於探討在英國的政策研究及決策支援制度情境下，政策研究社群與政策實務間的互動關係，以及影響兩者關係的關鍵因素。第四部份則進一步探討如何橋接政策與研究之間的缺口，以及研究社群如何透過不同的研究成果擴散模式，進而政策產生影響與效益。第五部份，本文綜合英國科技政策社群所處之制度及機構情境、政策研究社群之知識產出、政策與研究之間的缺口、以及兩者間的互動關係，從Bottom-Up的角度提出一全面性的理論架構，填補過去文獻在探討政策與研究兩者間關係時，僅探討部份、或分析特定議題之理論缺口。 / The importance of scientific research which positively motivates economic growth has been widely recognised by governments of most countries in the world. A government needs to formulate policies for sustaining national developments, but a sound policy usually has to be evident by academic findings provided by academic researcher. On the opposite, an academic researcher can conduct research needed by the government only if they can be funded by the government. The mutual reliance on each other for academic researchers and the government as well as the relationship between them have been investigated previously in literature. The complex relationship between the government and researcher is modelled as “principal-agent relationship” (Pratt & Zeckhauser, 1985). The interdisciplinary STI (Science, Technology and Innovation) policy research, which seeks to solve socioeconomic problem at national level, creates knowledge much closer to what the government needs and can be used directly to inform policy formulation. The relationship between the government and STI policy research community is therefore much stronger and more sensitive than that between the government and other research communities. In the process of delivering research to policymakers, the agenda and concern underlying different interacting scenarios between actors are varied from academia, funding agency, governmental organisation and policy makers. Therefore, changing the way of communication is becoming important for academic researchers to make the whole process more smoothly or effectively. However, in this interacting process research actors not only need to turn around the language, but also change the perspective they view from different scenarios especially when there is conflicting interest or view exited between academia and politics. The purpose of this study aims to investigate in what way can STI policy research community influence policy as well as interaction between STI policy research community and the government by bottom-up approach, i.e. from STI policy researcher to the government and three different perspectives proposed by Allison (1971), i.e. 1) Bounded Rational Perspective, 2) Organisational Behaviour Perspective, and 3) Governmental Politics Perspective. This study selects the two prestigious research organisations in the UK- SPRU and MIoIR (formerly PREST) as the case study and a total of sixteen renown interviewees are interviewed, since the UK is the leading country in STI policy research and the most outstanding research organisations in the UK STI policy research community are SPRU and MIoIR which have contributed to STI policymaking since 1970s, interaction between the UK government and this research community are analysed. Further, the UK Technology Foresight programme undertaken jointly by SPRU and MIoIR is used as a representative event to demonstrate the responding strategy of STI policy research community to the UK government. It is found in this study that a successful contribution from STI policy research community to the government critically relies on appropriate responding strategies which are dependent on whom (on the government side) exactly the researcher is interacting with. A successfully interaction between researcher and the government takes a sound strategy which eventually lead to contribution of research to policy practice. Finally, this study develops several propositions for suggesting how to sustain effective policy contribution from STI policy researcher and sound interaction between STI policy research community and the government.

D.Litt et Phil. / The departure point of this research is that the emergence of a system of intergovernmental relations will have direct and profound implications for the development of the country as a whole, as well as providing an additional dimension to the understanding of the approach to development in South Africa. A sound academic understanding of the nature of development in this country will therefore have no choice but to take into account the structures and processes which the major role-player (government) makes use of to facilitate and implement development ...

The aim of this thesis is to create knowledge on discursive formations surrounding literature that is being produced and/or reproduced in Sweden today. This is achieved by studying how the project group members responsible for writing the Gothenburg application to become a UNESCO City of Literature, and other key players involved in this process, argue for the values of literature and why a membership in the UNESCO creative cities network would be beneficial for Gothenburg city, its citizens and the literary field. To this end, both documents related to the process of getting Gothenburg’s candidature approved by UNESCO and interviews with the project group members responsible for writing the application to UNESCO are studied and analyzed. Eight interviews were conducted with members of the project group using a semi-structured qualitative interview methodology. The theoretical framework for this thesis consists of a foucauldian discourse analysis, ideology and studies of institutional logics in Swedish cultural politics. While analyzing the collected material, I was able to identify several dominating discursive formations about literature and literary work, as well as minor, competing discursive formations, that can all be recognized in how Swedish cultural policy have been discussed historically. These are later related to overarching ideological and political structures that are connected to them. Key findings include that literature is portrayed as a human right, as essential to a healthy, sustainable democracy and as something with inherent value. The project group members navigate predominant discursive formations and ideological understandings of literature, creating an environment where literary work is prioritized.

Diss. Umeå : Univ., 2003.