Research and Development Management

Amid the emergence of the 21st century, a new era of modern business has set in India. Liberalization and globalization of Indian economy have provided challenges and opportunities to our new business and which has necessitated re-engineering of the present management education system. Recently, Union Budget is also decreasing the fund for higher education in India for the last five years. This research is focused mainly on existing problems and challenges which are needed to be addressed and seeks to provide the solution thereabout. At present in India, there exists three-tier management education administration i.e., Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), Entrepreneur's and prestigious industry run best management institutes and management departments of Universities. Besides this, private B-Schools and non-statutory business training institutions also impact business education leading to MBA degree or PGDM diploma. Unfortunately, most of the students don't get the job in the completion of the course. In most of the cases, even the best student doesn't cater to the needs of the market because in the formal education system the gap between what is taught and what is demanded by the market is evident. Hence, an urgent need to rethink and redesign the management courses has arisen. It discusses the rationale of re-engineering of the whole management education system i.e, Admission, Instruction, Infrastructure, Regulation, Examination, Certification, Training and Placement etc.

In the present paper, it is attempted to empirically verify the impact of economic liberalization on the R&D behaviour of Indian pharmaceutical firms controlling for the effects of several firm specific characteristics including firm size. The results from the Tobit analysis for a sample of firms over the period 1989-90 to 2000-01 indicate that competitive pressure generated by liberalization has worked effectively in pushing Indian pharmaceutical firms into R&D activity. A host of firm characteristics like firm age, size, profitability, intangible assets, export orientation and outward foreign direct investment are also found to be important determinants of innovative activity in the industry. The study suggests several policy measures to further indigenous technological efforts of pharmaceutical firms, which include, removing obstacles that inhibit outward orientation of firms, providing special scheme for small size firms in the overall technology policy for the industry, intensi...

Diseñada para el bienio 2000-2002, la estrategia persigue incluir, con pleno crédito y derecho, el trabajo investigativo de alumnos y tesantes, en programas y proyectos de investigación conducidos y coordinados por profesores de licenciatura, maestría y doctorado del área de ciencias sociales, en la Universidad de Quintana Roo, una pequeña universidad pública ubicada en el Caribe mexicano.

One of the challenges for the Big Pharma is finding the golden line in the tradeoff between innovation and pricing. This paper investigates the relationship between R&D expenditures, patents and gross profits, based on US pharmaceutical industry panel data. The initial hypothesis states that there is a positive relationship between the R&D expenditures, patents applied in a current year and the company's profitability measured in terms of gross profits. The study concludes that there is a significant positive relationship between the R&D spending and the number of the applied patents in a current year. However, the relationship between the patents applied and the profitability has proved to be negative. The incline in the total assets and sales volume leads to the increasing profitability, whereas the size of the firm measured by the number of employees has an opposite negative effect. Results are relevant to the ongoing discussions regarding the fairness of pharmaceutical industry pricing, since it provides an evidence on the relationship between R&D expenditures, patents and gross profits.

This Impact Report identifies and summarises the diverse impacts, resulting from the £500m of UK funding of Science and Technology in 2013, using numerous quantitative metrics and short case study extracts.  It shows how the varied impacts of a national science and technology organization and its many funded programmes can be annually identified, captured, tracked, and summarised in a public document.

The report was produced for, and by, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) -  the UK Research Council responsible for funding: (1) all UK astronomy, particle and nuclear physics research, (2) related UK science and technology facilities (e.g. as Harwell and Daresbury), (3) the UK contribution to international science (e.g. CERN, international telescopes and space missions), (4) innovation and business spin-off programmes, and (5) UK public engagement activities.

The Report was co-researched and co-authored by the STFC Impact Team, including myself while Impact Evaluation Manager in 2013, with Dr. Claire Dougan-McCallie (lead author/Head of Impact) and Jenny Beard, with additional input from senior managers, and many data and case study contributions from other key managers across STFC.

Varied key impacts are identified and reported including:

• Research amongst the best (by citation impact) in astronomy, nuclear and particle physics.
• Supported research of 226 Principal Investigators in 70 universities, led to 1,100 peer-reviewed papers in 2012.
• Facilities (the Diamond Light Source, ISIS and CLF) were used in 2012/13 by over 4,200 unique users , in over 2,400 experiments, producing over 1,000 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

• Technology from CERN benefited the UK economy by over £100 billion every year.
• Funding the development of the UK’s space, internet and computer animation industries, returned over £500 billion to the UK economy per annum.
• Funded Innovation Campuses hosted over 230 enterprises and supported over 5,000 jobs.
• UK industry won £43 million in contracts from the international subscriptions funded, and had accumulated a total of £150 million since 2005.

• Funded research inspired future generations to study STEM subjects, attracting 90% of UK undergraduates to study physics, funded 782 PhD students  and 16,800 student training days.
• Between 2009 to 2012 public engagement programmes engaged people on 58 million occasions, with 2 million people engaged in face-to-face activities in 2013 alone.

How is going to be professionalism for RMAs in a post-pandemic era?  Which skills are expected to be in demand? Following these questions, this presentation aims to define what professionalism for today’s RMAs is – consisting of qualifications, associations, and professional frameworks, among others – but, above all, what we could expect this professionalism to be – with its set of skills and expectations - in a post-pandemic future.
For the reasons set above, research managers (RMAs) could be expected to reshuffle their skills and re-invent themselves, not only to cope with an era where even professional knowledge has a limited lifespan, which was already something to expect, according to Barnett (2008); but also to create a new idea of professionalism and up-to-date skills for the times lying ahead.
The presentation is meant to be theoretical, with an empirical part describing cases of skills we could expect to acquire or need. It moves from the search of a definition of RMA to explain the move from administration to management; from here, what skills we can expect to seek in the current age and in an early future. Thus, a variety of sources on skills in HE and other sectors have been considered and compared; and it comes up that the core skills in a post-pandemic age are primarily the soft ones.
Overall, the core message for RMAs is to 'go wider' and focus beyond the field of practice of RMA, so on related fields of HE more broadly and HEM. But also to look at other professional groups and associations since their perspective could strengthen their understanding of themselves, their community, and their profession in today's HE.

Increasingly researchers are emphasizing the role of consumer experiences in marketing of luxury brands. Experiential marketing
essentially describes marketing initiatives that give consumers in-depth, tangible experiences in order to provide them with sufficient
information to make a purchase decision. The objective of this research paper is to develop a conceptual framework of antecedents and
outcomes of brand experience for luxury brands, which would enable luxury marketers to formulate experiential branding strategies for
their offerings in the marketplace.

In the era of the 21st century, the best higher education institutions have more than one role. Not only do they educate and train students but they also create new ideas and knowledge for the short-term contemporary issues as well as long-term complex problems. In the strategic goals, five aspects are critical in higher education: the democratization of knowledge and access, the contestability of the market and funding, the research technologies, the global mobility and the integration with the industry. Universities should have strategic plans including strategic goals. In this study, the strategic models and plans of the public (5) and private (5) universities are analysed from the five different aspects. In order to deeply understand the dynamics at these universities, the phenomenological interpretive analysis is preferred. University leaders
and managerial departments should consider market needs and do strategic plan accordingly. Hence, they should develop the strategic thinking capacity of both their academic staff and researchers for short and long terms need of the industry. Results have shown that most universities have wrong perception regarding the strategic model and plan. Neither private nor public universities possess enough knowledge on the subject.
Keywords: Higher education, university and industry partnership, strategic model and planning, higher education management, financing of higher education.

Higher Education is under attack following a period of transformation and identity crisis; staff in the sector is not exempt from this crucial juncture which, following Barnett, involves re-setting a discourse as modern professionals in an age of super complexity where even knowledge has a limited lifespan. 
Research managers are one of the groups making the professional workforce in this sector and the one under the lens here. This group consists of a good number of hybrid professionals, but they also those professionals who have been building their body of academic and professional literature up constantly.
This paper aims, therefore, to provide an overview of their associations, professional development frameworks and qualifications to show what it has been done to boost these professionals. Their level of overall professionalism appears to be high and widespread, but there is much more lying beyond that. For example, they reflect on the practice, share their reflections in papers and groups of peers, and they carry out research into the practice to be the ones who know and share their knowledge.
To show their level of professionalism, we move from the overview provided by a national report mapping all the professional associations and qualifications globally; before focussing on an example developed in South Africa that clearly shows how much in-depth their understanding of themselves and their competencies have gone.
The paper suggests that associations move toward higher, updated levels of professionalism for their members; and that they do that even by carrying out their research into the practice to cope with the even more complex scenarios to come.

Nisur nga objektivi strategjik kombëtar, ku duhet të ndryshohet modeli i rritjes i drejtuar vetëm për konsumin e brendshëm tashmë nevojitet të përshtatet rritja e konkurrencës bazuar te paga e ulët për ta vënë në funksion të novatorizmit duke kërkuar nëpërmjet këtij harmonizimi suksesin në tregjet globale.

Today, countries as well as companies face high competition conditions at the global level. In order
to increase the level of competition for both firms and countries, it is vital to implement technological
changes and innovations based on research and development (R&D). In this respect, university-industry
collaboration in R&D has an important role to play in increasing such technological changes and
innovations in order to improve the competitiveness of both firms and countries. In this context, the
main aim of this study is to analyze the effects of university-industry collaborative R&D on the global
competitiveness of countries throughout the world using statistical techniques. This study finds that the
global competitiveness of countries increases in proportion to increased university-industry collaborative
R&D. Therefore, the study seeks to help decision makers at both the firm and national levels to design
better policies and strategies for university-industry R&D collaboration to achieve sustainable global
competitiveness and economic growth

This research was funded by, and implemented within, a UK national research organisation, while the author was the KE and Impact Evaluation Manager responsible for assessing impact on a £15m UK government-funded research programme.

This work was also submitted as the authors MBA dissertation which was accepted and awarded in 2009.

ABSTRACT: A methodology and methods ‘toolbox’ is proposed for conducting impact research and assessment from within research programmes. The emphasis is upon how to clarify and assess the wider impacts from the early stages onwards.

The approach explicitly acknowledges, and attempts to address, the known issues and challenges of impact assessment while drawing upon the resources and opportunities available to research managers and researchers within such programmes.

The study has two triangulating foundations. Firstly, it examines the academic literature to help identify and design the pilot methodology and methods. Secondly it trials these in a real programme to both test and improve them.

The study was conducted over one year within one leading UK research organisation, where two research programmes (and around 60 research projects of £15m total value) were being assessed for their impacts. The study draws upon actual impact management experience and reflection, prospective (ex ante) and retrospective (ex post) assessments, participatory contributions from leading researchers undergoing assessment, and consultation with external users. The findings of this study outline the pilot and its first iteration. Recommendations are made for improvement to the methodology and methods.

A subsequent follow-on bid to UK government incorporating the impacts identified from implementing this methodology, successfully led to a further £15m of government funding.

It is expected the pilot methodology and methods will be applicable to other organisations, conducting and funding such research programmes, required to research and assess the wider research impacts.

Although primary focus of implemetation trials was upon research in physical sciences, technology, high-tech engineering, computing/IT, and environment, the wider literature study, the methodology design and justification, the methods proposed and used, and the resulting general recommendations and lessons are expected to apply more broadly to many other research areas, where the impact is to be found more widely in the society, economy, government or public sector or within organizations, policies, professions or the public.

Interest in this work is expected from research programme managers, impact managers and assessors, management consultants advising in this area, and government funding managers, all seeking to embed a developing approach to understand, capture, and enhance wider impact.

For India, Rural improvement has been a basic piece of rural financial advancement. Provincial improvement can at no time in the future be related to insignificant increment in Gross National Product or even per capita national income. An expanded wage ought to be conveyed in order to bring about critical decrease of disparities of salary and riches. Each provincial family ought to have its sensible offer in the era of GNP and sharing expanded per capita pay. In this paper, researcher reviews broadly Government’s initiatives through government schemes and programs to accelerate the process of rural development from the period of 1995 to 2017 respectively and design strategies for rural development. All schemes are aimed to reduce the gap between rural and urban people which would help reduce imbalances and speed up the development process.

Why should we do research into the profession? What is professionalism in today's research management and administration? How can we envisage professionalism for RMAs in a post-pandemic age? How can research into RMA help the build-up of professionalism in our daily job?
Following these questions, this presentation aims to move from a definition of professionalism for today’s RMAs - consisting of qualifications, associations, professional frameworks, skills - to the explanation of actions that can be useful for the development of a professional portfolio in a pandemic and post-pandemic age.
Coupled with the points above, we look at how research into RMA can lead to short and long-term benefits. So we look at some selected papers found in the academic literature to make connections with everyday tasks and show what to search for in these papers that can be highly beneficial in the practice of RMA.
A final list of actions may help the reader find their own ways of engaging with issues surrounding the profession and even to build up a fresh view of it from a different perspective.

In welchen Einsatzbereichen, mit welchen Inhalten und für welchen Zeithorizont kommen Roadmaps in Unternehmen zum Einsatz? Welche Unternehmensbereiche sind für die Konsolidierung verantwortlich und welche Prozesse sind definiert? Welche Informationsquellen werden genutzt und durch welche Methoden werden Roadmaps in den teilnehmenden Unternehmen ergänzt? Wo liegen die größten zukünftigen Herausforderungen und welche Methoden, Strukturen oder Prozesse sind als erfolgsversprechend weiterzuempfehlen? Welche Position haben die Teilnehmer im Unternehmen inne, aus welchen Branchen kommen die vertretenen Unternehmen und welche Größe haben diese?

At research-intensive universities, building human resources management (HRM) capacity has become a key approach to enhancing a university’s research performance. However, despite aspiring to become a research-intensive university, many teaching-intensive universities in developing countries may not have created effective research-promoted HRM policies. This study investigates the extent to which four leading universities in Vietnam have motivated their academics to improve research performance. By analysing policy documents and 55 semi-structured interviews with university leaders, managers and academics, the study found that compared to the “ideal” research-enhanced HRM policies employed by research-intensive universities, the four case study Vietnamese universities have shown their recognition of academic research; however, their HRM policies are not powerful enough to encourage academics to do research to the best of their potential. In realizing their vision of becoming research-oriented universities, the four Vietnamese universities should employ a long term HRM capacity-building strategy by providing stronger remuneration packages for academics, applying explicit indicators in assessing lecturers’ research performance; and building a comprehensive staff development agenda for research team building. However, for the four universities to implement these recommendations, changes must also be made at the system level. The Vietnamese government must allocate more research funding and confer a higher level of autonomy to universities so that they can implement their desired HRM policies to accelerate institutional research capacity and performance.

Over the past two decades, the Republic of Somaliland was struggling to maintain peace and stability. The reconstruction and implementation of a functioning government was one of the major concerns of the country. Although this remarkable progress was laid down through a cooperative action by the different levels of the society, but still the country is suffering from weak or perverse Institutions. Institutions are the ones, who structure the transaction among the society-opportunity via constrain. People have different preferences, but still they have interdependencies, with regard to this, the institutions that coordinate and control these different preferences and interdependencies should be in place and perform better. Institutions identify the opportunity sets of interdependent transacting parties. Accordingly, in order to realize better economic performance the country needs strong institutions who can achieve the desired goals. In Somaliland most of our government institutions are not structured in a way that reflects people's needs and priorities. The mode of the formal economic institutions like laws, administrative regulations and court systems are the ones who shape the kind of transformation you are willing to achieve. So the question is, does Somaliland institutions who can transform us into prosperous country where the people of all kinds enjoy high quality of life is in place? The answer is clear, it is no. If that so, are we in a position to equip ourselves to establish effective institutions? Not yet! So, what and who are we waiting for? No body. " Cidna uma Maqna Ceelna uma Qodna " , we have to stop waiting and waiting, we have to realize, it is the time for reshaping our country, it is a journey, it is not a one day task, but we need to establish the initiatives. It is the role of the government to take the lead of these initiatives, but the role of educated people is also the one who can push these initiatives into place, the voice of the educated people is the wakeup call for every nation, it is the time to put the knowledge into practice, to put the ideas into actions, no matter how it will take, Rome was not built in a day, what we need is to contribute the journey and do our best. In this day and age, we have many challenges as a result of these weak institutions whether they are political institutions or economic institutions. Our market economy is not performing well; we see the higher inflation rates that affect our people, why all these issues are coming repeatedly, what is the root cause of such higher inflation rates and other economic problems that challenged us? These challenges are attributable to absence of institutional frameworks that foster the market economy, the proper regulation that was intended to control the transecting parties are not in place. We see so many times a postponed elections, the same applies, if our political institutions are not strong enough to perform their duties, if our constitutional bodies are incapable of managing such issues, it is fair to see these challenges and obstacles again and again. Without a doubt, it is my feeling, that still we have opportunities; there is a way forward that we can manage our institutional problems. To my suggestion these are one of the way forwards:  To take collective actions for both the organized (e.g government institutions) and unorganized sectors (e.g individuals or groups among the society). These collective actions my influence the way institutions may respond to population demands.

Se presenta la base de datos, conteniendo información recolectada a través de entrevistas estructuradas, de estudiantes a cargo de proyectos de investigación, en la División de Ciencias Sociales, Economicas y Administrativas de la UQROO en Chetumal.  En un ambiente académico formal que gira sobre el profesor, estas investigaciones, a menudo no reconocidos como tal,  adoptan la forma de trabajos parciales y finales de cursos, tesis, monografías, informes de estancias e informes de servicio social, entre otros.

To facilitate recycling, not only R&D but also
the creation of efficient recycling systems—collection and
processing of recyclates as well as finding appropriate end-
uses—is essentially important. PVC has a particular
advantage in regards to mechanical recycling when com-
pared to other major plastics. However, there is no one-
size-fits-all approach to a solution. Specific situations of
used or off-cut products and their applications need to be
well studied. Vinyl industry in Japan has devoted itself for
many years to the promotion of recycling of vinyl products.
It started an R&D support program in 2007 and seven
projects have been completed since then. Some of the new
developments include mechanical recycling for products
like wall covering and tarpaulin which were considered
difficult to recycle in the past. Progress in chemical recy-
cling has been made with a technology for the removal of
chlorine from shredder dusts. Recovery of chlorine is a
challenge for the future. Collaboration among the various
players involved in the recycling of a specific product is
essential for obtaining a successful result.

While building innovation capabilities is now clearly understood as a key element in the inclusive growth and sustainable development. Amongst the components of innovation dynamics, the issue of design Engineering (D&E) is drawing more and more attention by international organization and a growing corpus of researchers both in the North and in the South. Yet, D&E raise various questions related to the concepts, the tools and the instruments it uses, to the links with R&D and innovation capabilities and finally, to the practices of D&E and the interactive learning at the enterprise level. This article raises the question: what is the state of development of D&E in Africa and Algeria in particular at firm level? To do that a field work involving twenty Algerian firms were surveyed. The findings show that D&E is largely neglected function at firm level as a result of lack of awareness, lack of implication of experienced workers and low practice of reverse engineering.

Six public agencies conduct agricultural research in Togo. The Togolese Agricultural Research Institute (ITRA) is the largest by far, accounting for more than 70 percent of Togo’s fulltime equivalent (FTE) agricultural researchers in 2011. The three higher education agencies that conduct agricultural R&D—the Advanced School of Agronomics (ESA), Faculty of
Science, and Advanced School of Biological and Food Technology (ESTBA)—all fall under the University of Lomé (UL) and together employed 32 FTE agricultural researchers in 2011. ESA is the largest of the three (22 FTEs in 2011) and conducts research on plant virology, biotechnology, soil fertility management, farm mechanization, postharvest and agricultural economics. After a period of steady decline, the national number of agricultural researchers in Togo increased rapidly in response to a general public-sector recruitment competition in 2009, which prompted the influx of a large number of researchers. Total agricultural R&D spending in Togo fell by nearly half during 2000–2011. The country’s 2011 intensity ratio (at 0.42 percent) was well below the 1-percent minimum investment target recommended by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development and the United Nations Unlike their university-based counterparts, ITRA’s researchers are not given official status but are instead categorized as public servants. This means that their salaries are significantly lower, which makes it extremely difficult for ITRA to attract and retain well-qualified researchers. Government funding to ITRA is insufficient, and barely enough to cover the institute’s salary bill. As a result, ITRA is highly dependent on funding from donors and development banks.
The government is advised to guide ITRA in instituting strategies to attract, retain, and motivate researchers focusing on increasing government funding levels to enable ITRA to operate more competitively, both in terms of researcher salaries and benefits, and facilities and equipment.

This presentation was delivered in May 2021 to a group of students at NOVA University in Lisbon learning about research management and administration within the foRMAtion project.
It was particularly interesting to explain what my studies into RMA have investigated so far (including the current and prospective lines of inquiry) and to reply to their questions about the complexity of the profession in RMA and the multitasking set of skills that RMAs are expected to have. They also raised insightful questions about the boundaries between research and research management, which is something worth exploring, not to say one of the tricky reality leading (or not) to the recognition of the profession.

This presentation points to the importance of doing research on the profession, and consequently on all those who work in it, in today’s research management and administration (RMA).  Institutions, directors of divisions, heads of office, and RMAs should all be engaged with this research.
As a first step, to show the importance of this form of research, which we could call institutional research or institutional self-study, we look at Burton Clark as the leading figure starting off research into HEM in US in 1950s. Clark was the one paving the way to further development of the sociological research into HE; he was concerned with comparative, international research and with research into the academic profession as well.
The second step goes further to dig into our idea and understanding of professionalism, since we cannot design any professional pathway without gaining the understanding, first, of what we want to attain. Ronald Barnett is the one showing us one facet of professionalism, which is about re-creating the discourse of competencies, qualifications, and professional frameworks having in mind that we all live in an age of super complexity. The modern, creative professional, according to Barnett, is the one who knows, practices, and is the one who explores the doing ... And she is in action with courage, in today’s fragile domain of professionalism. She dares to be the pioneer or the creator of these new discourses (Barnett, 2008:206).  Examples of professionalism can be found in the qualifications and PD frameworks developed by professional associations; the Italian report (Romano, Albanesi et al, 2021), commissioned by CODAU, maps all these examples and even suggests the degree of professionalism achieved by each association globally. This shows that professionalism is something concrete in today’s profession that can be already measured to some extent. 
A third step considers research into RMA and so recaps how this research can be found in professional journals as well as in the academic literature. Professional journals are more likely to be easier readings for those in the profession; while the academic literature may require upskilling their competences to engage with reading or doing more robust pieces of research.
Finally, a selection of academic papers come to be considered and analysed, two in relation to RMA and one to the broader field of HEM; a comparative table helps navigate these papers and spot the benefits that each of us can gain by their reading. These papers are full of information and views that all of us can hardly deny as something likely to affect their daily job. This is exactly what we want to show, the benefits arising from these readings and the practicality that emerges in which many RMAs can probably find common ground of discussion.
A last point is about explaining what institutional research is, that’s to some extent the kind of research into the profession I’ve been suggesting here explaining why we should care about it particularly in relation to professional development and motivation for RMAs (but also skills and how to upskill, careers, and much beyond). And also suggesting that we may regard the capability of engaging with this research on the profession as one of the skills in demand for the tough times lying ahead.

The challenges of managing radical innovation in hypercompetitive environments require a critical re-evaluation of R&D practices. Among these R&D practices, the management of technical staff (i.e. researchers, scientists and engineers) is increasingly crucial for science-based organizations. Indeed, a key challenge is to be able to anticipate and to accelerate the renewal of knowledge, competencies and expertise in a context of uncertain dominant design, while controlling resources. Today, the dual ladder system is the main technical staff management system used by the most organizations. Paradoxically, though this management device has been strongly criticized by practitioners and researchers, it is still the same for over 50 years. This paper discusses the relevance of the dual ladder system and its limitations in situation of radical innovation, by using recent advances in design theory. Recent advances in design theory highlight a new way of thinking about innovation far beyond ...

This presentation was delivered as a workshop at the NARMA conference in Stavanger (Norway) in Feb 2020. Its aim is to shed light on some of the main concepts in use to describe today's RMAs and discussing them in the light of three studies using these concepts for the exploration of varied communities of RMAs. Only the main concepts have been showcased in this short presentation with the intention of triggering interest and building updated, more relevant pieces of research on these as well as on still unexpressed skills for tomorrow's RMAs.

This study examined the implication of land conflicts on food security in the Dorimon Traditional Area of the Wa West District of Northern Ghana. The study used a phenomenological research design approach, employing both qualitative and quantitative methods in data collection and analysis. Primary data were sought from interviews with household heads, key informants and focus group discussions. Various methods were combined to sample a total of 221 respondents from eight communities and four institutions for the study. The study revealed the existence of numerous land conflicts in the area, prominent among them are the land boundary conflict between the Guse and Dontanga Clans, land ownership conflict between Guo-Nayiri and Guo-Katung Clans and that of land ownership conflict between Charile and Nyimbale communities. Other forms of land conflicts were user conflicts between neighbouring land users and some form of limited access due to discrimination against women and settlers. The main drivers of these land conflicts were greed and selfish interest by individuals, the lack of clear land boundaries between clans, rising population pressure and the weakening of traditional institutions. Meanwhile, the study revealed that 62 per cent of household in the Dorimon Traditional Area were food insecure. It was established that land conflicts affect food security negatively as it leads to low food production, loss of income, destruction of food systems, disruption of herbal health delivery and also depletion of food stalk as a result of sale of food staff in pursuit of conflicts. Customary system of conflict resolution is the most popular system of conflict resolution in the area. In order to improve on the efforts at managing land conflicts and also mitigating their effects on food security, it is recommended that; alternative source of livelihoods should be provided to the people, traditional institutions should be strengthened, land boundaries between clans or communities should clearly be defined, demarcated and documented and, also, there should be strong stakeholder collaboration in land administration.
Keywords: Land, Conflicts, Food, Security, Ghana.

La investigación doctoral de la aquí se da cuenta y razón, que tuvo como contexto el macrosistema al que pertenece el sistema nacional de ciencia, tecnología e innovación venezolano y cuyo acometimiento fue motivado por graves distorsiones en la dinámica relacional allí observada, se llevó a cabo con el propósito de construir una teoría que explique de mejor manera las debilidades y vacíos relacionales en la investigación, desarrollo e innovación nacional acometida con la participación de actores de las universidades autónomas; una teoría con la que se espera propiciar el surgimiento de iniciativas que, en los próximos años, impulsen un trabajo científico e innovador en estructuras reticulares articuladas en torno a esas casas de estudio y de tal envergadura que coadyuve de un modo significativo al progreso del país. Para la consecución de aquel objetivo se concibió y siguió una ruta que hizo posible la construcción de tan importante aporte a partir de los insumos, de carácter explicativo, obtenidos en el contexto de un estudio de campo mixto en el que un conveniente diseño multimétodo permitió abordar aspectos macro y microsociales una vez definidas las unidades de análisis, observación e información de cada uno de estos niveles, las variables generales del primero, con sus respectivas dimensiones e indicadores, y las categorías orientadoras iniciales del segundo, y los demás elementos metodológicos necesarios para el hallazgo de explicaciones válidas al fenómeno estudiado, lo que se tradujo en una estructura operativo-analítica, fundamentada en unos supuestos teóricos sustantivos previamente aceptados, que facilitó, en el nivel macro, el análisis de la naturaleza del trabajo científico institucional de las universidades autónomas del país (y del resto de las organizaciones venezolanas que, junto con estas, desarrollaron las actividades investigativas y de innovación de las que derivaron los productos que se emplearon para la reconstrucción de sus complejas relaciones), el de su marco estructural de vinculación, desde la perspectiva de las redes sociales, y uno estadístico inferencial en el que lo relacional jugó un papel central, y, en el micro, el análisis de contenido cualitativo de la información obtenida de un selecto grupo de expertos a través de entrevistas en profundidad. La ulterior integración, gracias a una estrategia de complementación, de lo hallado en ambos niveles de tal dimensión explicativa, constituyó precisamente el pilar de la mencionada construcción que, en cuanto nuevo conocimiento y aporte original de este trabajo, asumió la forma de una teoría cuyas potenciales aplicaciones podrían contribuir, entre otras cosas, a la consecución de lo ya indicado

This research aims at (1) generating a prototype design aid tools that can be used to swing in swinging training for beginner and advanced level of woodball male athletes, (2) testing the design of swinging training aid tools whether or not be effectively used to improve the skills of athletes’ swinging motion. Here are steps of developmetal procedures: (1) research and information collection, (2) planning, (3) develop preliminary form of product, (4) preliminary field testing (5) main product revision, (6) main field testing by 6 athletes, and (7) operational product revision, (8) operational field testing by 10 athletes, (9) final product revision, (10) dissemination and implementation. The result of this research is a product and this final product is a training aid tool of swinging training which is so-called “swing trainer” that can be used for swinging practice. The tool’s validation result is obtained from an assessment rubric from woodball experts and tools experts with the score 92 (exact). Meanwhile, the efectiveness of this prototype was obtained from an assessment result by woodball experts in a small scale experiment and a large scale experiment. From those experiments, the average score of athletes performed that most athletes can do the whole swing motion and there are 16 athletes clarified that the training aid tool “swing trainer” is an effective tool to be used in swinging practice.

Industries with a focus on custom-built products are facing constantly changing requirements for product and process specifications with regard to the development and production of each single product. These changing requirements influence the development, integration and application of technologies. Due to the growing level of technological complexity of custom-built products in particular, the importance of a structured method to help evaluate, store and communicate information on technologies for their development, application and integration is becoming more and more important for industries with a focus on custom-built products. In this context, the growing importance of the Internet as an information source in technology monitoring, and the increasing use of social software on the Internet, provide new approaches for the collaborative evaluation, storage and communication of information. However, no industry-specific solutions are available in technology monitoring that respond to the specific requirements of industries with a focus on custom-built products or that take into consideration the new collaborative approaches provided by the Internet and the application of social software.
This paper aims to develop an integrated method for social software-supported technology monitoring that responds to the specific requirements of industries with a focus on custom-built products. Based on this objective, the key questions that are answered in the context of this paper can be formulated as follows:
What are the key factors that distinguish technology monitoring for industries with a focus on custom-built products from other industries with a focus on mass production?
What are the specific requirements for technology monitoring in industries with a focus on custom-built products and what methods of technology monitoring are currently used?
How do existing instruments of technology monitoring comply with the specific requirements of these industries and how do they have to be complemented, further developed, or integrated?
How can the mechanisms of social software support technology monitoring for industries with a focus on custom-built products?
To answer these questions, this paper is split into four major steps: The first step is the scientific classification of the topic in which relevant areas are described and further defined. The second step involves analysing the state-of-the-art and identifying requirements for technology monitoring for custom-built products in literature and through qualitative analysis. The third step focuses on developing the integrated method which is then tested and validated in three industrial companies in the fourth step.In the context of this paper, the construction industry is considered a sample industry with a focus on custom-built products. Therefore the qualitative analysis of the requirements for technology monitoring for custom-built products, and the development activity, concentrate on this industry. To highlight how the method developed can be transferred to other industries, a company from the field of industrial automation is involved in testing and validating the method.

Africa is a youthful continent: nearly 41% of its population is under the age of 18. To address the unique challenges of this demographic structure, the African Union (AU) has adopted a 50-year Agenda 2063 to help guide the socioeconomic transformation of the continent with particular reference to the youth. One of the objectives of Agenda 2063 is to reposition the continent as a strategic player in the global economy through improved education and application of science and technology in development. The AU’s Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa, 2024 (STISA-2024) provides an initial 10-year framework for pursuing this goal. Achieving the objectives of STISA-2024 will require aligning education, research and innovation with long-term socioeconomic objectives. This paper argues that the AU’s Specialized Technical Committee on Education, Science and Technology (STC-EST) is well-positioned to play a strategic role in guiding and fostering the reforms needed to improve the integration of education, research and innovation. The paper proposes the creation of “Innovation Universities” that combine research, teaching, community service and commercialization in their missions and operations. They would depart from the common practice where teaching is carried out in universities that do little research, and where research is done in national research institutes that do not undertake teaching. Under this model, there is little connection with productive sectors. The idea therefore  is not just to create linkages between those activities but to pursue them in a cordinated way under the same university structure. Innovation universities can be created in diverse fields such as agriculture, health, industry, services, and environment to advance sustainable development and inclusive growth.