The knowledge base of the bioeconomy 207
3 Not all project participants were included in the granted applications. We
noted that project CVs tended to include those contributors with the
longest track- records and favoured PhD holders over non- PhD holders,
due to requirements of the funding agency. The teams were also subject
to change, especially in the longer projects. Researchers changed jobs or
retired, which left the actual composition of the team quite different to
its composition at the time of application. A small number of CVs were
also not available in our analysis due to formal reasons.
4 CVs are notoriously labour intensive to work with, although techniques
are improving. There are recognised challenges associated with nonstandardised formats of the documents themselves (Cañibano & Bozeman,
2009; Dietz, Chompalov, Bozeman, Lane & Park, 2000). In addition,
there are several types of translation involved that may lead to nonstandardised categorisations. For example, career descriptions vary
according to institution, country and disciplinary context. The type of
unification problem this creates can make the integration of sectors, seniority and fields of science a challenge.
10.6.2 Future paths of research
This study builds on a composite set of linked data, involving basic project
data, information about participant entities and the CVs of individual
researchers. This approach has proved to be time- consuming and has involved
formal hurdles as well as the practical challenges of compiling the datasets,
especially the CV data. However, data- extraction tools are continuously
improving (see Geuna et al., 2015). This is taking analysis in a direction
where the challenges of extracting and coding data from CVs will be reduced.
This can help to make CV studies an important source of information that
can help shape the national bioeconomy agenda going forward.
In this context, our chapter represents an explorative starting point which
can open the way for other studies. We see several avenues available to explore.
The first broad avenue is to more fully exploit the information from the combined dataset. A unique aspect of the dataset that we developed here is that it
combines information about the project participant (‘researcher’), information
about the affiliated enterprise or institute and information about the collaborative project. This combination affords a number of potential vistas for exploration, including studies of the subsequent direction of collaboration and careers
of involved researchers, or of the publication or patenting profiles of their affiliated organisations. There is further scope to explore how research is organised
in a formative meta- sector like the bioeconomy. This line of study can help
indicate potential links between research sectors and the private enterprise
sector and other stakeholders. This would then have implications, for example,
in terms of identifying which configurations work well in which contexts.
A second broad avenue involves using more specific information from the
CVs. So far, we have primarily looked at current affiliation and latest degree,
3 Not all project participants were included in the granted applications. We
noted that project CVs tended to include those contributors with the
longest track- records and favoured PhD holders over non- PhD holders,
due to requirements of the funding agency. The teams were also subject
to change, especially in the longer projects. Researchers changed jobs or
retired, which left the actual composition of the team quite different to
its composition at the time of application. A small number of CVs were
also not available in our analysis due to formal reasons.
4 CVs are notoriously labour intensive to work with, although techniques
are improving. There are recognised challenges associated with nonstandardised formats of the documents themselves (Cañibano & Bozeman,
2009; Dietz, Chompalov, Bozeman, Lane & Park, 2000). In addition,
there are several types of translation involved that may lead to nonstandardised categorisations. For example, career descriptions vary
according to institution, country and disciplinary context. The type of
unification problem this creates can make the integration of sectors, seniority and fields of science a challenge.
10.6.2 Future paths of research
This study builds on a composite set of linked data, involving basic project
data, information about participant entities and the CVs of individual
researchers. This approach has proved to be time- consuming and has involved
formal hurdles as well as the practical challenges of compiling the datasets,
especially the CV data. However, data- extraction tools are continuously
improving (see Geuna et al., 2015). This is taking analysis in a direction
where the challenges of extracting and coding data from CVs will be reduced.
This can help to make CV studies an important source of information that
can help shape the national bioeconomy agenda going forward.
In this context, our chapter represents an explorative starting point which
can open the way for other studies. We see several avenues available to explore.
The first broad avenue is to more fully exploit the information from the combined dataset. A unique aspect of the dataset that we developed here is that it
combines information about the project participant (‘researcher’), information
about the affiliated enterprise or institute and information about the collaborative project. This combination affords a number of potential vistas for exploration, including studies of the subsequent direction of collaboration and careers
of involved researchers, or of the publication or patenting profiles of their affiliated organisations. There is further scope to explore how research is organised
in a formative meta- sector like the bioeconomy. This line of study can help
indicate potential links between research sectors and the private enterprise
sector and other stakeholders. This would then have implications, for example,
in terms of identifying which configurations work well in which contexts.
A second broad avenue involves using more specific information from the
CVs. So far, we have primarily looked at current affiliation and latest degree,