RAILS Paper: Understanding information needs to support Australia’s policy of engagement with Asia

Understandinginformation  needs  to  support  Australia’s  policy  of  engagement  with  Asia

Roxanne Missingham

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• Knowledge society• Policy problem• Knowledge theories• Perspectives:

– Industry– Researchers – Universities and libraries

• Methodology

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Knowledge society

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Policy problem

• Knowledge transfer– Primarily investigated as science &

technology– Measures – patents, innovation, research

outputs– Civic epistemologies (Jasanoff)– Information ecologies (Davenport and Prusak)

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University communication

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Disconnect

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Developing our Asia-capability

We will develop more Asia-capable talent and help Australians gain study and work experience, form relationships, learn to adapt behaviour to Asian contexts and learn to work more effectively with Asian governments.

We will develop Australia’s ‘Asia literacy’ beyond language skills. We will develop strong people-to-people relationships.

Our intention is to develop a ‘deep knowledge’ of Asia and to broaden and deepen our engagement and relationships in the region.

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Knowledge theories

• Knowledge management– knowledge-driven model (unidirectional and

logical flow of information from researchers) – transfer – generally inter firm as theory– Actor network theory– ‘Proteus phenomenon’ (Grimshaw et al)

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Research

“The results of the survey show that the acquisition of additional research funds is a major motive for university centers to co-operate with industrial firms. The exchange of knowledge with industrial researchers is, however, a further key issue that can explain the considerable growth of university–industry interaction…”Meyer-Krahmer and Schmoch, 1998 “Science-based technologies: university–industry interactions in four fields”, Research Policy, 27(10), pp. 835–851

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Channels

Bekkers, R. Freitas, I.M.B. (2008) “Analysing knowledge transfer channels between universities and industry: To what degree do sectors also matter?”, Research Policy, 37 (10), Pages 1837–1853

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Perspectives

• Industry– Sharing knowledge– Commissioning– Search?

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Perspectives

• Researchers– “the activities that make up much of the work

of knowledge transfer—outreach, building partnerships with nonacademic organizations, and plain language communication—are not widely accepted as legitimate forms of scholarship” (Jacobson, Butterill, Goering)

– Open access research (Kingsley)

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Perspectives

• Universities and libraries

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• Repositories and libraries– Snowden: “Repository rhymes with

suppository. Guess which is better?”

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Contour maps of overall indices for selective countries (1998–2008)

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Methodologies

• reading study• Focus groups

– Institutes preliminary dsicussion

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Thirst for knowledge

I am always on the look out for new research papers with good data.

Senator Kate Lundy 2014

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Research funded by ALIA

Questions/discussion