This survey is being carried out in the context of a research project lead by the NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities (Portugal), the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança (Portugal) and the University of Kent (UK). It  targets Professionals at the Interface of Science (PIoS) working at government institutions pursuing the mission of science funding and policy making, across the world.

We define PIoS as those Professionals performing broad activities in research management and administration; science communication; knowledge and technology transfer; laboratory management and other areas, working at all types of research-performing institutions (as defined by Agostinho et al, 2018).

For the purpose of this study we aim at the PIoS as an individual who performs the above tasks in government related ministries, agencies and institutions dedicated to science and technology funding and/or policy making. We target individuals worldwide.

We believe that PIoS  play a crucial role in national and international research and innovation ecosystems. However, empirical evidence suggests that this crucial stakeholder of the research and innovation (R&I) systems worldwide has been somewhat lacking. 

With your help, the research questions that we will address in this study are the following:

1) What are the similarities in terms of profile, functions, career and expectations between PIoS  working at science funding and policy organisations and those working at higher education institutions, research centres and so on?

2) Are these research managers, administrators, communicators and technicians actively integrated in existing formal and informal, national and international PIoS associations? If not, why? Should they? What are the expected impacts?

We expect that your contribution to this study will provide greater awareness of the profession, from a worldwide perspective. We hope to contribute to the recognition of the specificities of these professionals and provide recommendations on professional frameworks, training, development, and associations. 

The survey is now closed.

Thank you in advance for your collaboration!

The project´s first academic paper "Professionals at the Interface of Science: is there more than meets the eye?" is now out.  The published version is available on the journal website (@ Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education).  You can read an open access copy of the accepted manuscript here.  If you want to read the final version, as published, and don't have access to the article through your library subscription then please contact one of the authors, we have some e-copies to share (emails at the bottom of the page).

Some preliminary results have been presented at the 2021 EARMA Conference! Please find the presentation here.

The second academic paper "Who are the Professionals at the Interface of Science Working at Research Funding, Science Policy Making, and Similar Organisations?" has just been published! You can access it for free here.

The third paper has just been published! It is part of the "The Emerald Handbook of Research Management and Administration Around the World", and it is available for free here.

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About the questions

The inquiry will address your academic and professional background and profile, the main characteristics of your job position , your views on your contribution to research and innovation ecosystems, and on PIoS as a professional community.

The survey is aimed at PIoS, no matter who they work for, or in which country. With each question a brief explanation is provided so as to clarify any doubts arising from different geographical working contexts. 

You may leave the survey at any time you wish, leave questions unanswered. If you do not wish to participate, you may simply exit the survey.

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Data use and confidentiality

Appropriate measures have been adopted in order to assure the anonymous nature of the survey. Thus, the responses will be encrypted and no IP location data will be collected. Data will be stored at institutional secure servers. 

The raw data will be anonymised  for analysis and results will be published accordingly. If you want to eliminate your submitted data, you can do so up until the time that the questionnaire closes, by contacting the project team.

The Qualtrics survey tool privacy and security policies can be consulted here and here, respectively. 

In addition, we will treat any personal information that we have on you with the strictest confidentiality and in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), effective as of 25 May 2018. Further details are provided in the University of Kent General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Privacy notice for research – University-level document.

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Risks

All responses are anonymous and we have minimized the risk of  breach of confidentiality by enabling SSL encryption and removing collection of IP addresses using the industry standard Qualtrics survey tool. We believe eventual risks are minimal.  While the questions are not of a sensitive nature, and all are optional, it is possible that some might bring back memories of previous experiences, however we view the liklihood of these causeing distress as being low.

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Ethical approval

This survey has been developed by an international team of PIoS from Portugal and UK. It has received ethical approval  from the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, Portugal (ref: 8/2020 on 20th December 2019), from the University of Kent, UK (ref: 0421920 on 17th April 2020), and from the NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Portugal (ref: FCSH-EA-1/2020 of 15th May 2020). 

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Contact information

Any questions or concerns should be directed to the lead researchers: 

Carolina Varela of the NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities- carolina.svarela@gmail.com

José Santos of the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança - josesantos@ipb.pt

Simon Kerridge of the University of Kent - s.r.kerridge@kent.ac.uk