The reproducibility crisis triggered worldwide initiatives to improve rigor, reproducibility, and transparency in biomedical research. There are many examples of scientists, journals, and funding agencies adopting responsible research practices. The QUEST (Quality-Ethics-Open Science-Translation) Center offers a unique opportunity to examine the role of institutions. The Berlin Institute of Health founded QUEST to increase the likelihood that research conducted at this large academic medical center would be trustworthy, useful for scientists and society, and ethical. QUEST researchers perform "science of science" studies to understand problems with standard practices and develop targeted solutions. The staff work with institutional leadership and local scientists to incentivize and support responsible practices in research, funding, and hiring. Some activities described in this paper focus on the institution, whereas others may benefit the national and international scientific community. Our experience, approaches, and recommendations will be informative for faculty leadership, administrators, and researchers interested in improving scientific practice.

Improving the trustworthiness, usefulness, and ethics of biomedical research through an innovative and comprehensive institutional initiative.

Clinician-scientists (CSs) are vital in connecting the worlds of research and practice. Yet, there is little empirical insight into how CSs perceive and act upon their in-and-between position between these socio-culturally distinct worlds. To better understand and support CSs' training and career development, this study aims to gain insight into CSs' social identity and brokerage. The authors conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 17, purposively sampled, CSs to elicit information on their social identity and brokerage. The CSs differ in how they perceive their social identity. Some CSs described their social identity strongly as either a research or clinical identity (dominant research or clinical identity). Other CSs described combined research and clinical identities, which might sometimes be compartmentalised, intersected or merged (non-dominant-identity). In the types of brokerage that they employ, all CSs act as representatives. CSs with a non-dominant identity mostly act as liaison and show considerable variability in their repertoire, including representative and gatekeeper. CSs with a dominant identity have less diversity in their brokerage types. Those with a dominant research identity typically act as a gatekeeper. Combining lenses of social identity theory and brokerage types helps understand CSs who have a dual position in-and-between the worlds of clinical practice and research. Professional development programs should explicitly address CSs' professional identities and subsequent desired brokerage. Research and policy should aim to clarify and leverage the position of CSs in-and-between research and practice.

/pdf/clinician-scientists-in-and-between-research-and-practice-4q15mdnary.pdf

Clinician-scientists in-and-between research and practice : How social identity shapes brokerage

Function Shift is the transference of functions, which involves responsibilities, assets and human resources (including their employment packages), from one department to the next. The Function Shift to which I refer in this study entails the shifting of functions from the former Adult Education and Training provincial directorates to the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). This process started in 2009 in terms of proclamation 48 of 2009. The purpose of my active research is to investigate in depth the experienced positive and negative consequences of Function Shift with the intention of exploring problematic features and challenges of Community Education and possibilities for addressing them. By ‘experienced’ consequences, I mean consequences that are not just imagined but were expressed by participants. I employed an 'active' qualitative research approach whereby I, as a researcher, am actively involved in the research process in trying to ensure that the research is bearing results for me as well as for the participants. I based the selection of Community Education and Training Colleges on the characteristics of the regions in which the colleges belonged. I clustered regions that portrayed similar characteristics and came out with 3 clusters. I selected one region and its respective college from each of the 3 clusters. From each of the selected regions and their corresponding colleges, I sampled a Regional manager, Curriculum Implementer or regional official, Principal, 1 Centre manager, 1 lecturer and 1 student. I collected data through first and second interview sessions, focus group discussion in 1 college and through evaluative discussion with 2 head office officials. To carry out data analysis, I used the principles of Atlas TI that encourages the coding, categorisation and thematising data collected from participants simultaneously with data from the reviewed literature. It emerged that all participants agreed that a multilevel change management system is suitable for Function Shift as opposed to the traditional rational/linear model and that Function Shift is a potential solution to Adult Education and Training challenges. The prevailing challenge was insufficient consultation, which resulted in some transitional challenges that could have been identified and mitigated against. My concluding recommendation is that the oral or print input made by members on the ground including the assessment of the real and practical situation in Community Learning Centres must drive the development of policies that

The significance of function shift to continuing education and training in South Africa : an active research approach

The focus of the research is circle time, a widely used method in Irish primary schools. It involves children sitting in a circle with their teacher using method-specific techniques and strategies to promote self-esteem, develop skills and support positive classroom relationships. The theoretical and conceptual framework adopted has empowerment of children as its central focus, and is supported by theories of self-esteem, emotional intelligence, and voice and participation theory. Learning and counselling theories also inform the research.
The rise of circle time historically is documented against a backdrop of curricular and social changes in Ireland. These include a psychological turn in educational and societal discourse, a move towards inclusive and rights-based education, and an orientation towards personal development evident in recent reviews of the SPHE Curriculum (1999). The current research is prompted and informed by a review of research on circle time which suggests that there are multiple pathways for its exploration in the Irish school context. Awareness of challenges to circle time on privacy and psychological grounds also added impetus to the research presented here.
A qualitative (interpretive) study was chosen in order to get as close to the practice of teachers as possible, and investigate their beliefs and strategies. Observations were undertaken in five primary school classrooms. Interviews were conducted with teachers, principals, and a leading author on circle time.
Research findings indicate that teachers aim to build children’s confidence and self-esteem, develop personal and social skills, and to give children an equal voice. Children’s voice generally does not extend beyond the confines of the classroom, thereby limiting their potential to influence and exercise agency. Classroom atmosphere and relationships are identified as benefitting from the method. Challenges include the difficulty of assessment, inappropriate or controversial contributions from children, and the potential exposure of both children and teachers. The role adopted by teachers in the circle is facilitative, and is designated as ‘counselling-lite’. In responding to the challenges, the issues of confidentiality and participation are explored.
A vision of circle time is presented which foregrounds children’s voice and participation for agency and action competence. Supports and strategies are identified to facilitate the introduction of this new empowering model of circle time which enables children to take their place as citizens in the evolving Ireland and world we inhabit in the twenty-first century.

/pdf/empowering-children-through-circle-time-an-illumination-of-52oqynox0x.pdf

Empowering Children Through Circle Time: An Illumination of Practice

Four genetically modified (GM) maize (Zea mays L.) hybrids (coleopteran resistant, coleopteran and lepidopteran resistant, lepidopteran resistant and herbicide tolerant, coleopteran and herbicide tolerant) and its non-GM control maize stands were tested to compare the functional diversity of arthropods and to determine whether genetic modifications alter the structure of arthropods food webs. A total number of 399,239 arthropod individuals were used for analyses. The trophic groups’ number and the links between them indicated that neither the higher magnitude of Bt toxins (included resistance against insect, and against both insects and glyphosate) nor the extra glyphosate treatment changed the structure of food webs. However, differences in the average trophic links/trophic groups were detected between GM and non-GM food webs for herbivore groups and plants. Also, differences in characteristic path lengths between GM and non-GM food webs for herbivores were observed. Food webs parameterized based on 2-year in-field assessments, and their properties can be considered a useful and simple tool to evaluate the effects of Bt toxins on non-target organisms.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ece3.2848

Effects of genetically modified maize events expressing Cry34Ab1, Cry35Ab1, Cry1F, and CP4 EPSPS proteins on arthropod complex food webs.

Clinician scientists have gained institutional support in the era of translational research, as the key solution to closing the ‘translational gap’ between biomedical research and medical practice. However, clinician scientists remain an ‘endangered species’ in search of a secure niche, while new grants and training programs attempt to counteract their measurable decline in numbers over the past decades. Our study asks how an occupational space for clinician scientists is currently situated between the politics of translation, professional dynamics, and the specialization of academic disciplines. We interviewed clinician scientists, their adjacent professions—clinicians and biomedical researchers—, and contrast their views with expectations from the discourse on clinician scientists in the biomedical and policy literature. We identify professionalizable work and tasks that relate to, first, being able to speak the two languages of both clinic and research, second, translating patients’ needs and clinical experience for further research, and third, counteracting the trends towards specialization by providing an inclusive point of view. We find that clinician scientists are overburdened with fulfilling a hybrid role of simultaneously being clinicians and scientists. Based on these findings, we suggest a path for the future professional development of clinician scientists towards the role of a translator.

What are Clinician Scientists Expected to do? The Undefined Space for Professionalizable Work in Translational Biomedicine

Translational research is a buzzword which dominates discussions about the quality, the utilization, and the benefits of (bio)medical research. Yet, although translational research has become a prominent topic, no commonly agreed definition of this terminology exists. Instead, experts from different contexts such as biomedical research, clinical practice or nursing discuss translational research in multiple ways depending on how they define the problem that translational research is supposed to be the solution to. In this paper, we do not seek to find a 'correct' definition of translational research, but instead ask how actors using this terminology for describing their own research make sense of it. To do so, we asked three questions: Which actors are engaged in the debate about translational research? What kind of different meanings of translational research exist? And, which actors refer to which meaning of translational research when using the term? In answering these questions, we highlight the role this terminology plays in defining what medical science is about today.

The multiple meanings of translational research in (bio)medical research.

Fourth World Conference on Research Integrity: Conference Summary Report

Promoting translational research as a means to overcoming chasms in the translation of knowledge through successive fields of research from basic science to public health impacts and back is a central challenge for research managers and policymakers Organizational leaders need to assess baseline conditions, identify areas needing improvement, and to judge the impact of specific initiatives to sustain or improve translational research practices at their institutions Currently, there is a lack of such an assessment tool addressing the specific context of translational biomedical research To close this gap, we have developed a new survey for assessing the organizational climate for translational research This self-assessment tool measures employees’ perceptions of translational research climate and underlying research practices in organizational environments and builds on the established Survey of Organizational Research Climate, assessing research integrity Using this tool, we show that scientists at a large university hospital (Charite Berlin) perceive translation as a central and important component of their work Importantly, local resources and direct support are main contributing factors for the practical implementation of translation into their own research practice We identify and discuss potential leverage points for an improvement of research climate to foster successful translational research

/pdf/assessing-the-organizational-climate-for-translational-3qze2yw1v6.pdf

Assessing the Organizational Climate for Translational Research with a New Survey Tool

While translational research (TR) aims at changing regulatory and organizational practices in the biomedical field, surprisingly little is known about how practitioners in the lab or the clinic think about translation. Addressing this gap, we present results from a Q-methodological study on the meanings and values associated with translation held by researchers, clinicians, and clinician scientists at two major German biomedical research institutions implementing TR strategies. We identify eight different collective understandings of translation, with respect to both where primary translational problems are located and what the most immediate and effective measures should be. Our findings suggest that there may not be a one-fits-all solution for improving translation and that general regulatory and organizational measures may be less effective than measures addressing specific audiences and their specific viewpoints. TR does, however, work well as an umbrella term in stimulating and orchestrating a productive interaction between various viewpoints, practices, and contexts.

How practitioners between bench and bedside evaluate biomedical translation

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