The aim of this thesis is to explore the politics of discourse within Australian universities with particular reference to the position of creative writing as a research discipline. My thesis argues that some discourses have more power than others, with the effect that some forms of knowledge are seen as valid research and others as invalid, at least in research terms. Academic research has been increasingly dichotomised in the short history of research in Australian universities through issues of public versus private funding, and university concern for sector autonomy. The growing influence on university research, stemming from a global market economy, is one that privileges applied research. Creative writing�s position within a basic/applied dichotomy is tenuous as its practitioners vie for a place in the shrinking autonomous research sector of universities. I show the philosophical understanding of creativity (with specific reference to creative writing) from a historical perspective and explore this understanding in the current climate. This understanding of creativity confounds creative writing�s position as research, for this highlights the obstacles faced in certifying it as a valid form of knowledge. I investigate the current status of creative writing in the area of university research in relation to research equivalence, and examine the terminology, the social structures and individual experiences surrounding creative writing as a form of research.

<p>This dissertation study focuses on reasons and means of industry and university</p><p>collaboration which lead to innovation. Collaboration in this study is viewed as one:</p><p>communication, exchange of knowledge and learning form the innovation process. This</p><p>research has followed a qualitative approach for methodology and the data was collected</p><p>through two interviews. The results of this study show how university research</p><p>collaborates with industry from the university research point of view. The findings also</p><p>reveal that university research can not produce innovation without practical knowledge</p><p>which is provided by company during collaboration. In the same way the company can</p><p>not produce scientifically based innovation without the interactive learning.</p>

This dissertation study focuses on reasons and means of industry and university collaboration which lead to innovation. Collaboration in this study is viewed as one: communication, exchange of knowledge and learning form the innovation process. This research has followed a qualitative approach for methodology and the data was collected through two interviews. The results of this study show how university research collaborates with industry from the university research point of view. The findings also reveal that university research can not produce innovation without practical knowledge which is provided by company during collaboration. In the same way the company can not produce scientifically based innovation without the interactive learning.

This thesis explores the question of history’s future as a research discipline in the academy and the question of the discipline’s function in ‘pure’ inquiry. Central to the notion of research is the notion of discovery of new knowledge, but what constitutes new historical knowledge rather than simply more historical information is not clear. As the idea of research (which is understood to mean the discovery and creation of new knowledge) is central to the idea of the modern university, the future of history as a research discipline in the research university would seem to depend on the discipline being clear on its research function. Further complicating resolution of this question is the fact that the funding of research is informed by science and technology paradigms where research is defined as ‘pure basic research’, ‘strategic basic research’, ‘applied research’, and ‘experimental development’. / Curiously, what these classifications mean for the humanities generally and history in particular, remains unexamined—despite the fact that professional survival depends on the academic convincing sceptical funders of the relevance of humanist research. Do historians do basic research? If basic research is inquiry at the edge of understanding, how, and by whom, is the edge defined? In the first decades of the University of Berlin—the institution that formed the model for the modern research-university—the edge was defined through philosophy and history. Hegelian systematic philosophy, Fichtean philosophy of the subject, and the philosophical historicism of such thinkers as Ranke, Niebuhr, Ast and Boeckh was concerned with the subject’s knowledge of knowledge: there lay the edge. By the end of the nineteenth century no discipline was foundational. Epistemological ‘advance’ had resulted in not only the split of knowledge into that derived from humanities or ‘spirit’ studies (Geisteswissenschaften) and that from science studies (Naturwissenschaften), but also the proliferation of disciplinary specialization that further entrenched the dichotomy. / In the twenty-first century, inquiry’s edge has moved on. Climate change, environmental degradation and biological and genetic engineering have posed wholly new existential questions. The Archimedean point from where the edge is viewed is no longer anthropocentric. Society and nature are inextricably connected. The physical and the spiritual can no longer be considered separately. When ‘we’ can either be manufactured or artificially enhanced the notion of autonomy and self-fashioning takes on a different hue in postmodernity than in modernity. There is now an increasing but unsatisfied need for more interdisciplinary and holistic knowledge. Unfortunately, no effective models or processes exist to enable this need to be met. This thesis explores ways in which the deficiencies might be overcome and explores academic history’s possible location within a future integrated-knowledge schema.

Models of R&D account for technical, technological and administrative factors of R&D implementation but underestimate the influence of behavioural and political factors such as power and conflict. They assume that R&D organisation is “well-insulated” from partisan, emotions, political reactions and contextual factors and that decision makers are rational and decisions are taken to best fit the content of R&D programme. The present study explores the effects of rational and irrational factors in the R&D implementation process on the performance of publicly funded research projects in universities. It uses realist and qualitative exploratory semi-structured interviews with 22 active researchers in Sultan Qaboos University provides “depth and detail” of the complexities of R&D implementation effects on its performance. The study discovers 18 measures of success of academic research and 30 effects of R&D implementation of the performance of publicly funded research.The study concludes that the iterative, non-linear and processual nature of R&D implementation is a continuous dynamic system. R&D success builds up the capacity for future success whilst failures decrease the chances of future successes. The integrated effects of implementation (IEI) influence R&D performance through technical and administrative capability of the R&D organisation as well as through behaviours of organisation members. These include leaders’ behaviours, conflict and political skills within individuals. Both success dynamism and IEI suggest contextualism implementation of R&D.

This thesis addresses the need to reconceptualise the doctoral experience at a time when the boundaries between education, training, research, work and career development are becoming increasingly blurred. It does so by means of a detailed analysis of what candidates do and how they operate in a variety of disciplinary, employment and other contexts.¶ In order to synthesise and interpret the outcomes of that analysis a broader concept of the doctoral enterprise is developed within which the lived experience is embedded. It is argued that effective representation of the doctoral enterprise is as important as its reconceptualisation, and that both processes are required to generate in-depth understanding of the complexity, diversity and particularity of this phenomenon.¶ Case narratives incorporating the perspectives of candidates—as well as those whom they deem to be influencing their research and learning—are employed to portray distinctive elements of doctoral work and its associated outcomes. Quantitative data and analysis derived from a national survey of doctoral candidates are combined subsequently with this qualitative material in order to generate further insight regarding doctoral activities and the entities that are integral to their enactment.¶ Drawing on theories of practice, an integrative model of the doctoral enterprise is then presented. This comprises two basic components, one of which is a set of doctoral practices classified in terms of curriculum, pedagogy, research and work. The other is a set of doctoral arrangements that reflect configurations of entities inclusive of the participants, the academy and the community.¶ The purpose of the model is to increase understanding of the dynamic and evolving nature of the doctoral enterprise and the interrelationships involving practices and arrangements. This model has implications for candidates and others involved directly in the doctoral enterprise, regardless of their sector, role or status.

Models of R&D account for technical, technological and administrative factors of R&D implementation but underestimate the influence of behavioural and political factors such as power and conflict. They assume that R&D organisation is “well-insulated” from partisan, emotions, political reactions and contextual factors and that decision makers are rational and decisions are taken to best fit the content of R&D programme. The present study explores the effects of rational and irrational factors in the R&D implementation process on the performance of publicly funded research projects in universities. It uses realist and qualitative exploratory semi-structured interviews with 22 active researchers in Sultan Qaboos University provides “depth and detail” of the complexities of R&D implementation effects on its performance. The study discovers 18 measures of success of academic research and 30 effects of R&D implementation of the performance of publicly funded research.The study concludes that the iterative, non-linear and processual nature of R&D implementation is a continuous dynamic system. R&D success builds up the capacity for future success whilst failures decrease the chances of future successes. The integrated effects of implementation (IEI) influence R&D performance through technical and administrative capability of the R&D organisation as well as through behaviours of organisation members. These include leaders’ behaviours, conflict and political skills within individuals. Both success dynamism and IEI suggest contextualism implementation of R&D.

This research investigates the strategic governance choices made in commercializing new technologies arising from university research. <br /><br /> Departing from the traditional licensing vs. start-up approach, it is proposed that there are three primary methods of commercializing these technologies: 1) Build ? creating a new business based on the technology, 2) Rent ? ongoing development and marketing of the technology to established firms that use the technology in their businesses and 3) Sell ? disposition of the technology to an established firm. <br /><br /> Using economic theories of the firm, particularly transaction cost economics, it is hypothesized that: <ul> <li>the build option is positively associated with firms deriving revenue primarily from product market activity (H1a) and expending resources on both technology development activities and production activities (H2a); </li> <li>the rent and sell options are positively associated with firms deriving revenue primarily from technology market activity (H1b) and expending resources on technology development activities but not on production activities (H2b). </li> <li>the greater the patent or other legal protection (H3), the risk of substitutes (H5) or the dynamism associated with the technology (H8), the greater the likelihood that the technology will be commercialized using the rent option;</li> <li>the greater the tacitness and complexity (H4) or the greater the volatility associated with the technology, the greater the likelihood that the technology will be commercialized using the build or sell options; and</li> <li>the greater the importance of specialized complementary assets, the greater the likelihood that the technology will be commercialized using the sell option (H6). </li> </ul> Three studies were conducted providing differing perspectives on the research question. Study #1 examines three start-ups based on new technologies arising from research conducted at the University of Waterloo. Study #2 analyzes the business activities of a number of Canadian and U. S. public start-up firms using archival data. Study #3 is a survey of university faculty members who have had new technologies arising from their academic research put into commercial use. <br /><br /> Hypotheses H1a/b, H2a/b and H3 are supported and Hypothesis H7 received more limited support. Evidence for Hypothesis H5 is in the predicted direction but failed to achieve statistical significance. Hypotheses H4, H5, H6 and H8 are not supported.

This research investigates the strategic governance choices made in commercializing new technologies arising from university research. <br /><br /> Departing from the traditional licensing vs. start-up approach, it is proposed that there are three primary methods of commercializing these technologies: 1) Build ? creating a new business based on the technology, 2) Rent ? ongoing development and marketing of the technology to established firms that use the technology in their businesses and 3) Sell ? disposition of the technology to an established firm. <br /><br /> Using economic theories of the firm, particularly transaction cost economics, it is hypothesized that: <ul> <li>the build option is positively associated with firms deriving revenue primarily from product market activity (H1a) and expending resources on both technology development activities and production activities (H2a); </li> <li>the rent and sell options are positively associated with firms deriving revenue primarily from technology market activity (H1b) and expending resources on technology development activities but not on production activities (H2b). </li> <li>the greater the patent or other legal protection (H3), the risk of substitutes (H5) or the dynamism associated with the technology (H8), the greater the likelihood that the technology will be commercialized using the rent option;</li> <li>the greater the tacitness and complexity (H4) or the greater the volatility associated with the technology, the greater the likelihood that the technology will be commercialized using the build or sell options; and</li> <li>the greater the importance of specialized complementary assets, the greater the likelihood that the technology will be commercialized using the sell option (H6). </li> </ul> Three studies were conducted providing differing perspectives on the research question. Study #1 examines three start-ups based on new technologies arising from research conducted at the University of Waterloo. Study #2 analyzes the business activities of a number of Canadian and U. S. public start-up firms using archival data. Study #3 is a survey of university faculty members who have had new technologies arising from their academic research put into commercial use. <br /><br /> Hypotheses H1a/b, H2a/b and H3 are supported and Hypothesis H7 received more limited support. Evidence for Hypothesis H5 is in the predicted direction but failed to achieve statistical significance. Hypotheses H4, H5, H6 and H8 are not supported.

The purpose of this study is to assess the extent to which affiliation with a university research center affects how university scientists allocate their work time across their many academic tasks and responsibilities, including research, teaching, student advising, grants and contracts work, and service and committee duties. The key proposition is that institutional variation across university research centers can affect greatly how center affiliated university scientists allocate their work time insofar as some center level characteristics are more conducive than are others to role strain, which is the structural circumstance (Merton 1957) wherein an individual is beholden to center and departments norms and expectations that are divergent. The concept of role strain befits analysis of the impact of center affiliation on university scientists time allocations insofar as it provides a structural framework with which to characterize the time constraints that center scientists face as a result of being dually obligated to a center and an academic department. Moreover, study at the organizational level of analysis emphasizes competition and even conflict between university research centers and academic departments over the scarce resource of faculty time (Geiger 1990, Stahler and Tash 1994, Mallon 2004). This study uses data from a national survey of university scientists as well as data from interviews with university scientists who affiliate with National Science Foundation Engineering Research Centers or Science and Technology Centers. Survey results demonstrate that a centers size, multidisciplinarity, organization within the university, programmatic ties, and external relations increase the time allocated to research, grants and contracts work, and service and committee duties. These findings constitute objective evidence of center induced role strain (Pandey and Kumar 1997, Rizzo et al. 1970) insofar as they identify components of center scientists work environments suggestive of center and department norms and expectations being divergent and even conflicting. Interview results demonstrate similarly that when a center has no ties to an academic department and when its research focus is applied or commercially relevant, workload increases. These findings constitute subjective evidence of center induced role strain (Pandey and Kumar 1997, Kahn et al. 1964) insofar as it is the center scientists themselves observing these divergent norms and expectations. Implications for policy and theory are discussed.