Research groups as communities of practice—a case study of four high-performing research groups

Abstract

Research groups as communities of practice-a case study of four high-performing research groups. Higher Education.

Institutional perspectives in transition: research groups’ profiles and embeddedness in organisational and national context

“…While there did not, along with our expectation, seem to be a link between the profile and the country, this does not mean that the country context would not be significant for the lived experience of the research groups themselves. Previous research (Degn et al 2017;Travaille and Hendriks 2010;Metcalfe 2008) shows that the country context is significant for funding, steering and legislation, and our interviews show that the research groups perceive these to be significant also for their own work. However, other elements of the self-constructed context determine the given profile.…”

“…The institutional logics (Thornton and Ocasio 1999;Thornton et al 2012) of the organisation in which research groups are embedded influence the way in which they operate. Thus, despite potential convergence of institutional logics in the neoliberal context (Degn et al 2017;Ocasio and Radoynovska 2016;Paradeise and Thoenig 2013) and the simultaneous existence of multiple optional logics (Kraatz and Block 2008), the operational context and the institutional logics of research groups in universities would be qualitatively different from those groups operating in government research institutes (Potì and Reale 2000), and still different from those in companies or other business entities (Ocasio and Radoynovska 2016). Due to the convergence of national higher education policies in Europe (Bloch and Mitterle 2017;Clark 1983;Kauko 2013;Pinheiro et al 2016;Reale and Seeber 2013), we assume that more similarities exist between universities in different countries (Diogo 2016) than between university and a business entity in a single country (Musselin 2000).…”

“…Research groups are embedded in multiple fields based on their operational context, institutional logics and their own conceptualisation of the aforementioned factors (c.f. Paradeise and Thoenig 2013), establishing communities of practice worth investigating (Degn et al 2017).…”

Doing a transversal method: developing an ethics of care in a collaborative research project

“…Especially in this context, care is required to negotiate the varying career needs, research interests, disciplinary backgrounds, and theoretical and methodological preferences of all team members. It also points to the affective dimension of the care work needed to create a sense of community and solidarity within a research team to counter the high demands and pressures of a competitive academic system (Davies and Horst 2015;Degn et al 2017).…”

n. 06 - PANORAMA DOS GRUPOS DE PESQUISA DE POLÍTICA EDUCACIONAL NO BRASIL

“…O papel e a importância da participação em grupos de pesquisa têm sido Para Degn et al (2018), os grupos de pesquisa bem sucedidos e com alta performance podem ser entendidos como "comunidades de prática" e não como entidades organizacionais formais (equipes de trabalho mais tradicionais). Já Feldmann, Divoll e Klyve (2013) defendem que os grupos de pesquisa são, ao mesmo tempo, comunidades de prática e comunidades epistêmicas.…”