The CNS-ASU Program

RTTA Program 4: Reflexivity, Assessment & Evaluation

Goal: To understand how the knowledge generated by CNS-ASU influences the values and choices made by NSE researchers and others, and to assess and evaluate the impact of CNS-ASU activities more generally.

Activity 1: Reflexivity Assessment: Given that NSE is in the earliest phases of its evolution, and given the relatively bottom-up character of academic research, University scientists will particularly influence the directions of NSE, by making choices about which problem to work on, how to frame research, from whom to seek funding, with whom to collaborate, what intellectual property arrangements to seek, etc. We will interview the NSE researchers in the CNS-ASU network and a comparable number of NSE researchers at other institutions and in other sectors. These interviews – bolstered by documentary evidence – will elicit the subjects’ narratives about such choices in their work. We will probe the extent to which relevance to societal outcomes is or is not a part of research programs, and if, why, or how this type of orientation was introduced. These narratives then become data for understanding how and why research programs change and a baseline from which to assess if change is attributable to CNS-ASU. In years 3 and 5, we will ask these same researchers to update their narratives. In addition to interviews with NSE researchers, we will use before-and-after surveys of NSE graduate students and faculty participating in public engagement activities, ethnographic study, and web logs and diaries to monitor our impacts.

Activity 2: Assessment and Evaluation: 1.) We will conduct two focus groups for each year’s activities in Scenario Development, InnovationSpace, and CriticalCorps, drawing on selected participants in those activities from all sectors, to reflect on the scenarios, new venture proposals, and other material generated. 2.) Educational programs include an assessment and evaluation component. 3.) CNS-ASU will engage in international collaboration (INSN) that will provide comparative learning opportunities from other groups involved in research, education, and engagement in the societal aspects of NSE. 4.) Recognizing that the study of the societal implications of NSE may become an object of public and scholarly scrutiny in its own right, ASU Archives will retain CNS-ASU records and develop projects necessary and appropriate for the Center (e.g., coordinating data retention and searching across the collaborating universities).

Reflexivity, Assessment, and Evaluation Program Leaders: Kevin Corley (ASU) and Anne Schneider (ASU)
 

RTTA Program 1: Research and Innovation System Analysis (RISA)
RTTA Program 2: Public Opinion and Values

RTTA Program 3: Deliberation and Participation