SEARCH FOR THE PAYOFF of RESEARCH CENTERS, INSTITUTES, AND CONSORTIA - IN MEDICAL, BASIC, AND APPLIED SCIENCE
(PRWEB) August 2, 2004
Research directors, college deans, and administrators are given new means to assess their organizations' contributions to economic, educational, community, and humanitarian goals and values.
“THE PAYOFF – Evaluating Research Centers, Laboratories, and Consortia For Success!” By William Tash, Ph. D., Professor of Sociology at Temple University, and Stephen Miles Sacks, Ph. D., Editor of SciPolicy-The Journal of Science and Health policy, is a seminal work as a comprehensive guidebook and manual.
According to authors Tash and Sacks, “University and funding officials often lack sufficient information about which of their investments in research are productive and contribute to local, national and global goals versus those that exist primarily for the self-benefit of the researchers involved.
THE PAYOFF gives planning guides and instruments to conduct comprehensive evaluations. The production of outcomes information enhances executives' visions of research and goes a long way to meet reporting demands by funding sources, stakeholders, and public laws for information about the wisdom of how research dollars are being spent.
The guidebook gives templates for preparing reports to stakeholders. The 200 pages include extensive descriptive material about research centers, a national data baseline for comparisons, 25 questionnaires with over 500 items, and 65 operational ratios and norms for successful centers.
"The book is a very valuable addition to the science of evaluation research. The authors have pulled together a unique set of information about how centers can be evaluated" states Mel Kollander, Director, Washington Office - Institute for Survey Research, Temple University.
For further information, see HTTP://THEPAYOFF. NET or visit the SciPolicy Journal website at http://scipolicy. net (http://scipolicy. net).
The US government spends over $21 billion a year for medical, basic, and applied research and development at universities. The large amount plus the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) are causing demands that university research centers and institutes – which account for a third of the research expenditures - be accountable for the progress and outcomes of their work. This is amid controversy about the wisdom of placing goals and performance measures on the process of discovery. In the milieu of cross and conflicting demands, measuring research performance is easier said than done. Scientists, research administrators, college Deans, and funding source officials, need efficient tools to accurately assess and report on the degree of success of research investment, presently and in the foreseeable future.
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