Ethical and Value Issues in Research Centers

在这个国家，建立大学研究中心以鼓励学术界、工业界和政府在科学技术方面的合作是一个相对较新的现象。这个项目的目的是探索当这三个部门在这些环境中结合在一起时，它们的价值会发生什么变化。这项工作本身是来自哲学、政治学和社会学学科的四位学者的合作。他们将在伦斯勒理工学院的两个研究中心，利用他们的学科观点和方法，包括规范、组织、结构和人种学分析，对价值观谈判进行深入的现场检查，包括对职业成功、控制和管理的关注。制造生产力和技术转移中心以及复合材料和结构中心。一个由商业、政府和公众利益观点组成的四人委员会将为该项目提供建议；RPI科技政策中心目前正在进行的一项关于其他大学与行业互动的调查，将通过交换想法和数据来加强这项研究。结果将在学科和跨学科期刊的文章中传播。将向管理人员和决策者特别邮寄“工作文件”，研究结果也应适用于美国科学促进会和科学社会研究学会的会议。对中心的参与也应该为对中心活动感兴趣的受众提供出版渠道。本项目将对科学技术研究中合作研究议程和方法的发展、应用和评估做出独特的贡献。它还将对这些新的体制环境中谈判价值的过程和产物进行第一次深入的纵向审查。调查人员是非常合格的；研究生也参与其中；机构支持和合作非常好。利用咨询委员会和与另一项有关调查的相互作用将有助于确保更广泛的相关性和平衡。这是EVS应该鼓励的跨学科研究的一个很好的例子。结果很可能是有用的，并得到广泛传播。成本合理。建议总支助额为$164 374，其中$96 000现已由工程理事会和数学和物理科学理事会提供。

The creation of university research centers to encourage collaboration among academe, industry and government in the conduct of science and technology is a relatively new phenomenon in this country. The aim of this project is to explore what happens to the values of these three sectors when they come together in these settings. This effort itself is a collaboration between four scholars from the disciplines of philosophy, political science and sociology. They will use their disciplinary perspectives and methods, including normative, organizational, structural and ethnographic analysis, in an intensive, on-site examination of the negotiation of values, including concerns for professional success, control, and management, in two research centers located at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the Center for Manufacturing Productivity and Technology Transfer and the Center for Composite Materials and Structures. A four-member board incorporating business, government, and public interest perspectives, will advise the project; and the study will be augmented by an exchange of ideas and data with an investigation of other university-industry interactions currently underway in RPI's Center for Science and Technology Policy. Results will be disseminated in articles for disciplinary and interdisciplinary journals. Special mailings of "Working Papers" will be made to administrators and policymakers, and the findings should also be appropriate for sessions at meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Society for Social Studies of Science. Involvement at the centers should also lead to channels of publication to audiences interested in the centers' activities. This project can make a unique contribution to the development, application, and evaluation of collaborative research agendas and methods in science and technology studies. It will also provide the first intensive, longitudinal examination of the processes and products of negotiating values in these new institutional settings. The investigators are exceptionally well qualified; graduate students are involved; institutional support and cooperation is excellent. The use of an advisory board and interaction with another related investigation will help to assure broader relevance and balance. This is a good example of the kind of cross-disciplinary research EVS should encourage. Results are likely to be useful and widely disseminated. Costs are reasonable. Total support in the amount of $164,374 is recommended, of which $96,000 is awarded now, from the Directorate for Engineering and the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences.