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Panel 7 – ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT (LUSEM)
for the significance or operation of these to be assessed. International
exchanges (3.2) were few in number, but given the Unit’s relatively recent
growth (and the newness of its PhD program) this is perhaps unsurprising.
9.5 Research activity and teaching
Undergraduate teaching accounts for one tenth of RPI’s activities and
income and serves as an important channel for research dissemination.
9.6 Future plans
The panel has not given any specific comments. (Information added by the
RQ08 Project Office.)
9.7 Future potential and possibilities
The Unit defines its sphere of interest very broadly. The intention is to
continue to focus on the three themes around which work to date is
structured, but “to promote greater integration of its research in these
three areas”. Three topics are proposed, said to permit this to be achieved:
globalization and knowledge, environmental and climate policies, and
bio-politics and health care. All of these are important, and each may
well cross the older thematic lines. But how these plans are to be realized
is unclear, and the desirability of so broad a programme, given the Unit’s
size, must be questioned. Clearer strategic choices need to be made,
bearing RPI’s size and its proximity to CIRCLE in mind. These could involve
a clearer disciplinary focus (eg historical and/or sociological studies
of STI), or a more limited choice of thematic areas (clearly distinguished
from those of CIRCLE), or an enhanced responsibility for postgraduate
teaching across the field of STI.
9.8 Gender and equal opportunity issues
The panel has not given any specific comments. (Information added by the
RQ08 Project Office.)
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