Lecturer in Engineering Management | Developing Open Engineering | Researching Innovation Process, Strategic Management, Systems Design and Futures Literacy
//Julia Kasmire and I wrote a short piece about regeneration for Manchester Policy Blogs, as part of a collaboration inspired by Postgraduate Forum in Science, Technology and Innovation Studies (PF-STIS) workshop “What is at Stake?” in December 2017 at SPRU in Brighton.
The blog-post is available here:
What is not to like about regeneration?
//Space is back! Well, back in the news, that is. A spectacular launch (and 2/3 landing) of the SpaceX‘s latest and so far the most advanced system, the Falcon Heavy, was broadcast around the world with an amazing speed and determination. News items heralded a beginning of a new era and some (over)excited reporting even looked upon it as a revival of the Apollo era excitement for Space, helped by the fact it launched from the same launchpad at Kennedy Space Centre as Apollo 11, with one of the first Moon-walkers looking on.
The amazing technical achievement is, of course, a great reason for celebration. Sticking three rockets together and make them work as one is a no mean feat. Getting them back to Earth and landing two of them simultaneously is also awe inspiring, and should, I believe, be shown with a backdrop of classical music, preferably something from the Swan Lake. This picture will, I think, in time become the iconic image marking this transformational moment in human’s space exploration. (And the fact that the core rocket did not quite manage to land on a barge in the middle of an ocean, is really but an insubstantial footnote.)
But then we get to the car… specifically the Elon Musk’s red Tesla Roadster (here pictured in the space payload fitting):
Now, I like the principle behind Tesla (the company) a lot, and the world certainly needs more capable batteries and many more electric cars, though much like SpaceX (over)reliance on public procurement orders, Tesla is still by and large unprofitable and enjoying quite a decent bit of what is called “state aid” everywhere, but in the US. However, launching one of Tesla’s creations into the Outer Space is the exact opposite to the go-green agenda or even good business sense.
I don’t buy into the narrative that this is just a bit of PR for Tesla as, with key limiting factors being slow production and sky-high price tag, I don’t quite envisage a rush for Roadsters materialising in the next few weeks. And even if it does, the un/intended consequences of this payload deployment are far more worrying than just wasting a perfectly good car and $90m on an advertising stunt.
On top of some decent critical analysis, such as Nathan Robinson’s piece in the Observer , noting the emptiness of such move as an investment to “change the world” and Marina Koren’s solid analysis of just what a break from the past universalism in Outer Space exploration this development is, there are two other critical issues, not getting quite as much attention:
Firstly, the environmental impact. Whilst Falcon Heavy’s re-usability (at a reasonably low cost) is a big win for the traditionally wasteful space launch capabilities, its reliance on fossil fuels (in a some contrast to another billionaire’s project, Blue Origin, experimenting with liquid hydrogen), is not to be celebrated. Even more worryingly, though payload (the car) itself will not pollute the low-earth-orbit (one of the most challenging issues for modern space industry is precisely the amount of objects already circling around the Earth, potentially blocking access to Space), sending such purposeless object in Space sends the wrong kind of message as to the attitude industry and public should adopt towards “space junk”.
Secondly, there is a more subtle, though on the long run perhaps an even more important issue – the message it sends as to what humanity’s intentions in space are and who is doing it. As Koren noted in her piece in the Atlantic, geopolitics aside, space race was actually quite considerate in its feats; today, that rule-book has been thrown out of the window. Moreover, this has ostensibly been done to “please” “the geeks” (note references to Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, blasting out Bowie’s Space Oddity, planting circuit boards with secret messages, etc.) – the up and coming engineers, developers and entrepreneurs, who having had a hard time in the US’ sports-obsessed educational system, believe the ultimate realisation of their dreams and aspirations might now lay in working for Elon Musk.
As such, it becomes apparent that Musk’s PR stunt’s audience is the “New Space” workforce, not his automotive customers. By exposing SpaceX as a “fun” geeky paradise and himself as an unashamed geek, as “one of us”, he can in one move placate the overworked and exploited workforce, instilling in them that they are doing something meaningful, as well as on the other hand, exploit that very same culture to justify a free pass to do whatever he wants in Outer Space.
Here is the sticking point – though the now iconic red Roadster might have become the Falcon Heavy’s first payload, because it is a “replaceable loss”, it was then carefully and masterfully transformed as a cultural reference point to legitimise and enshrine SpaceX and its ethics as the new norm in Space Exploration and Industry. It is meant to be a holy shrine of progress to the growing mass of young people, whose work-life balance is to be routinely sacrificed on the altar of “cool tech”, and all for substantial, taxpayer subsidised ego-boosts for the few on top. And that is very worrying indeed.
//As part of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival, I am teaming up with an ex-astronomer and acclaimed science fiction author, Pippa Goldschmidt, to debate the future of human activity beyond the Earth in a show titled: Outer Space – The Next Empire?
Pippa is a Royal Observatory Edinburgh graduate and has later worked both at Imperial College, London, as well as in civil service, including on outer space policy. She has since been writing fiction about science and scientists, including a novel about an astronomer who discovers the Universe and loses her mind, ‘The Falling Sky’ and a collection of short stories ‘The need for Better Regulation of Outer Space’. Pippa has been writer in residence in several science and social science research centres and is currently Visiting Fellow at the Science, Technology and Innovation Studies Group (my “home” department) at the University of Edinburgh.
In an hour of literary drama, comedy and engaging discussion with the audience, Pippa and I will be exploring big questions such as: Who does outer space belong to, and are humans its only intelligent tenants/owner-occupiers? Will colonising space soon become our business-as-usual, and should we be doing it at all? Can we cause any harm to whoever else might be out there or are we likely to be harmed ourselves?
The event is part of the Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas series, which is a joint Beltane Public Engagement Network and Fair Pley production, successfully taking science to the Fringe for the fifth time in 2017. You might even remember that I have done another Cabaret show last year, called “Let Big Brother Watch!”
Hence, I am delighted to be returning to the Fringe with this show, as we are planning to make it as exciting for the audience as any of the big Fringe productions, but with more discussion and engagement. Pippa is an amazing story-teller and I am so honoured to be working with her to create this very special event.
Though we will intertwine fact with fiction to set the scene, we are looking forward to talking about the scientific and social impact of space exploration, whilst also questioning some of the accepted norms and challenging pre-conceptions. Arts, and especially literature, is great in enabling an open and frank discussion about not only the present, but also the future of scientific and technological development.
This is very well illustrated in this review (by Iain Maloney) of Pippa’s collection of short stories, ‘The Need for Better Regulation of Outer Space’: “Science is a tool for understanding the universe, but in Pippa Goldschmidt’s hands it is also a metaphor through which we can better understand ourselves.”
Outer Space – The Next Empire? is on 5th August, 1.50pm, at the New Town Theatre in George Street.
Tickets can be bought via the Fringe Box Office or on-line: bit.ly/OuterSpaceEmpire
//This is a slightly late update on another outreach project I was involved with this Summer. Between 10th-14th July 2016, “Heavy Flavour – Quo Vadis?” workshop was organised by the Particle Physics Group, School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Edinburgh, at the Ardbeg Distillery on Islay.
The aim of the workshop was to the future direction of research for heavy flavour physics, so-called as it involves the study of the heavy beauty and charm quarks that are produced in large numbers at the CERN Large Hadron Collider.
In parallel with the workshop, a series of public outreach events were held at Bowmore High School between 12th-14th July 2016, organised on behalf of the Particle Physics Group by Alan Walker, Director of Particle Physics for Scottish Schools (PP4SS), and the local Science teacher, Russell Pollock. This comprised of three joint exhibitions: Particle Physics for Scottish Schools Exhibition, From Maxwell to Higgs Exhibition (Royal Society Edinburgh) and I-SAT: Islay Space and Astronomy Tour.
The latter, Islay Space and Astronomy Tour (I-SAT), was a new invited project I designed specifically for this event on the basis of an IoP in Scotland Public Engagement Grant. In particular, I was asked to develop an interactive display related to my research, which concerns the applications of basic research and innovation partnerships between scientists and local entrepreneurs in the Space Industry in Scotland and to give a talk about science, technology and innovation in Astronomy and Space Science at the evening public session.
The display included a rolling loop explaining key features and current finding of my research and a selection of relevant info-sheets produced by Science and Technology facilities Council (STFC) and Institute of Physics (IoP).
I was near the display for most of the time exhibition was open and have regularly given short (15min) informal talks small groups of people to explain my work further.
It IS Rocket Science! – Building Scotland’s Space Sector
Building on detailed micro-level studies of innovation process my research suggests that the further development of Scottish Space Sector rests on matching the right people and institutions, who can then trade resources, knowledge and skills
Hence, I am using Social Network Analysis to map out the knowledge network(s) of the Space Industry in Scotland in order to identify its key systemic characteristics and outline the contours of the interactions (knowledge flows) between new product development (NPD) processes and its environment are the key for understanding which external factors most significantly influence the success of commercialisation of emerging Space technologies.
However, illuminating this network and characterising its effects is not trivial – after all, who said it was not rocket science?
The series of events also included a public session with two presentations, one by the organiser of the workshop, Prof Franz Muheim, on “Higgs Bosons, Antimatter and all that” and the other my own on “Astrotechnology – and how it changed the World”. The event was well attended and well received by the local community (see below).
Astrotechnology – and How it Changed the World?
Astronomy research is both driving the technological advances as well as being shaped by them. From ancient telescopes to modern infra-red detectors simulations, the practice of Astronomy is very much rooted in physical objects – most of them located down here on Earth!
Using an example of such an object, an ordinary DSLR camera, this talk will afford a fly-by tour of the key astronomical technologies, how did they come about and what did they do for the science as well as for the society. We will examine the way Space innovation is allowing us to see the past and the future, the distant and the invisible, to experience reality well beyond our imagination and then emerge in the world to change it for the better.
What have the Space ever done for us, again?
Though our initial estimate was to attract about 300 visitors to the exhibition and the evening event combined, this turned out to be relatively ambitious, in particular as the events happen to coincide with unusually good weather for Islay, which led to many (in particular younger) audiences to try and spend more time outdoors. In the end, we have had approximately 100 unique visitors to the events in total, the evening talk being attended by around 30 people. Given the small population on Islay (around 3000 total), this is still a significant turnout.
More importantly, the visitors were very interested in the events and thought them to be of high quality. Some commented:
“Great interactive exhibition.”
“Great initiative – never had anything like that on islands when I grew up.”
“When are you coming back?”
Importantly, we engaged with several groups of high school children, who are thinking about studying science, and have said that this positive experience motivated them even more. Furthermore, noticing the event activities on Twitter (announcements alone reached over 6,700 impressions and 115 engagements), some were already advocating future locations to visit, which we would be more than happy to follow up!
More information (including more photos) about the activities on Islay can be found
Finally, none of this would be possible without financial support from the IoP in Scotland Public Engagement Grant and the Particle Physics Group at the School of Physics and Astronomy, and the generous hospitality of the Islay High School, Bowmore.
//Few and far in-between are times when an interdisciplinary researcher working across different fields, such as myself, find themselves at a conference comfortably covering nearly the entire theme of their work. Most often, I myself sit with two crowds – innovation studies researchers’ meetings cater for participating in academic discussions and I attend the gatherings of the space community to keep up to speed in the trends in my research area, the Space sector.
However, the importance of bringing together of these two crowds has recently been noted within the international Space community and from 23rd to 25th June 2015, I have found myself in Munich attending the “conference of my dreams” – the Global Space Innovation Conference.
For me, the event was two part, as the “main” conference was preceded by the SpaceUp GLIC “unconference”, which provides an alternative platform for facilitating networking and discussions amongst (younger/young at heart!) Space enthusiasts. Little snippets from this event are published separately in the post “Space is Up!”.
The theme of the conference was “From Government Programmes to Entrepreneurial Actions” and was based on two main premises:
1. There is significant appetite, both from the government as well as industry point of view for more private-public partnerships or direct private enterprise to get involved in the (national and international) Space exploration efforts, including but not limited to benefiting from the (civil/non-space) applications of technology originally developed for Space exploration.
2. There are important (negotiated?) roles for all stakeholders (public, private, academic, non-profit, etc.) in the entrepreneurial system the industry is embedded in. This system was defined along the lines of (Gnyawali and Fogel, 1994):
These five elements were also the themes of the GLIC’s five key discursive panels (2-6):
The key findings, in my view, are that stakeholders have to work to reduce the burdens on the entrepreneurs by, on one hand, (public and private) funders increasing investment in early-stage technology development and on the other, providing clever institutional support (mainly in business development) to the entrepreneurs. In theory, this should also lead to a (more) competitive and dynamic Space economy, including breaking corporate monopolies currently supported by targeted government procurement.
However, the appreciation of the complexity of the products in the Space sector is necessary and my own research here is in many ways an embodiment of the above programme and an expression of the anxiety associated with it in particular with respect to the need for a more detailed understanding of the product development processes (NPD) and the role the different stakeholders play in it. In particular, the entrepreneurial networks through which expertise and action are channelled play a crucial role here as, the project complexity requires an increased knowledge flow into the NPD or innovation process.
In fact, this was the main part of my contribution to the event, made in the context of the SpaceUp GLIC, where I outlined these important concerns and my plans to address them in the context of my research in Scotland/UK.
More of those plans to follow in a white paper draft to be published later this year…
//The publication of Prof Mariana Mazzucato‘s study “A mission-oriented approach to building the entrepreneurial state” for Innovate UK made me think of one of my short essays (Vidmar 2015).
How do we make the politicians/founders think like this as well?
//To start building a (more) coherent picture of impact evaluation in science and technology programmes, we need to look for a constellation of many different methods to provide a meaningful insight into the need for, and success of, an intervention. Consequently, evaluation research is/should be organisational modus operandi, rather than a set of separate top-level exercises.
I propose a new paradigm in impact evaluation of investment and development in science, technology and innovation, namely Quantified Correlated Impacts (QCI). This approach is based on both quantitative as well as qualitative data collection, as bibliometric and econometric figures are correlated with ethnographic methods – interviews, focus groups and surveys – to determine the perceived causal contribution of the different factors, with particular focus on those pertaining from the intervention.
At it’s core, QCI are underpinned by a logic model; which is connecting the intervention with the evidence justifying the planned outputs; and leads form the inputs through action towards short-, mid- and long- term outcomes.
As part my research project, for example, I am involved in an intervention driving economic growth in the UK/Scotland through stimulating the collaboration across the UK/Scottish Space industry by increasing sectoral networking. This is a particularly important part of my research in business incubation in the Scottish space sector and the related (sectoral) systemic properties, such as institutional framework, networks of actors, and knowledge creation and dissemination (following Malerba’s Sectoral Systems of Innovation approach (Malerba, 2005)). Also, there is a wealth of evidence about the importance of networking for the success (and growth) of small businesses (Brüderl and Preisendörfer, 1998; Ostgaard and Birley, 1996).
The suggested action to generate these positive effects is to support the growth of small to medium sized businesses by integrating them in a wider network across the sector and wider. This will be facilitated by the creation of, and enrolment of actors into, an on-line database/forum/platform to provide easy access to contacts. Having established that, there are also provisions to host networking events (thematic or generalist), to solidify the ties and introduce more actors into the network, particularly from the non-core businesses.
In terms of evaluation, key facilities need to be established prior to the beginning of the evaluation of outputs (database and its uptake, and the networking events). The database growth can be analysed quantitatively (i.e. number of enrolled individuals, organisations, etc), while the networking event qualitatively (i.e. interviews, feedback, ethnography).
The key next step is to tie the intervention with the outcomes/impacts through an advanced cost benefit analysis. In the example given, this can be done by analysing the investment made with respect to the growth and revenue of the companies most interconnected within the newly established network, comparing to the more peripheral ones, or ones outside the network.
The last part is the crucial correlation, which provides tangible benchmarking for the overall success of a programme (within the cost benefit analysis). This is done by comparing the noticed trends in key parameters (in our case job creation, revenue growth, etc.) with corresponding regional, sectoral, national or global trends. The key objective is to trace any significant difference which can then be (in part! – see below) attributed to the intervention.
Crucial information, however, comes from the collected qualitative data which maps the action to its value for the participants, i.e. what was the contribution of a specific intervention to the overall change. For instance, in the example above we investigate the effect/importance of the networking on business success. This data can only be obtained by interviewing the participants in networking events, and running surveys and focus groups with representatives of the companies/individuals on the database. The key questions to ask will be: What made the difference?; How?; and How significant was it? We can then comment on the part the intervention played in the difference found between the participants performance and correlated trends.
Overall, this approach enables the evaluator to marry the desirable clarity of cost benefit analysis, where standards of success/failure can be contested, with a more balanced set of criteria and tangible links. The key features are quantified data (engagement figures, costs, returns, growth, etc) about the intervention, which is qualitatively (interviews, focus groups, etc.) examined as a contribution towards the difference in participants’ performance with respect to correlated background trends (sector growth, national job creation, GDP, etc.) – revealing the impact of the programme.
As said, this new, Quantified Correlated Impacts (QCI), framework is currently under development and I am sincerely opening its tenets to comments and suggestions. (And, please, do have a look at the other posts in the series, too: ER1, ER2, ER3.)
Many thanks in advance!
//In order to frame this enquiry, let’s begin with a small the exploration of the motivations behind commissioning and performing the evaluations in the first place. Though examples here are from social research, these are easily compared with parallels in any intervention, including investment in the development of the science, technology (and business support facilities and services (for example STFC, 2014:5-7).
Firstly, an important part of the evaluation research is process evaluation (Rossi, 1972:34), used in order to improve on the delivery of the intervention, or – as beautifully listed in an interview with Waverley Care (a Edinburgh charity) CEO – “what we need to stop doing, what we want to keep doing and what we are not doing that we should be doing”. When working along this strand of evaluation, it is crucial that the researcher provides recommendations that can be acted upon. The best way to carry out such evaluation is often to focus on a specific small area of the intervention, for example how does an organisation collect feedback and implement changes reflecting the concerns raised by internal and external customers. Having said that, conclusions and recommendations can often be very general.
In the process evaluation, there is further check on the identifying emerging needs and (geographical, social, economic) individualisation of the delivery of outputs. This is particularly important for social projects (such as the Waverley Care), where there is significant variation across the different locales in which they work. However, this is also important in terms of social and geographical inclusiveness of science and technology investment. Hence, evaluation research in this context can provide important checks on the “fairness” of the intervention whilst it is underway.
Then there is the often missed – but in my opinion very important objective in evaluation – the inward facing component, i.e. the improvement of morale of the people engaged in the programme/intervention/organisation by celebrating their success. It is very important for the staff to appreciate the whole picture, “take a step back” to frame their work within a wider context. This is both a good motivation for future work as well as a huge morale boost as one can see how they personally and as a team are making a significant difference to people’s lives.
Finally, the primary motivation for impact evaluation is (always?), to understand the impact/difference an intervention/organisation is making. Evaluation is often considered important for funding applications, i.e. both assessing the need for the intervention as well as monitoring the delivery of outcomes (to evaluate the VALUE generated).
My research is similarly linked to the need for accountability when spending public money (Nutley, Walter and Davies, 2007:254) and in particular the effectiveness of the investment in natural sciences research (mainly cost benefit analysis), which is currently epitomised in cost benefit analysis, but that is already the topic of the next post…
//Hello, finally a “proper” post after a while!
In fact, this post may not be so “proper” after all, as it is only marking a start of a short series about impact evaluation, an important part of my research in science, technology and innovation.
The plan is to have four posts (ER1-4): (1) an introduction to my research in (impact) evaluation; (2) an exploration of key themes in evaluation research; (3) an analysis of the cost benefit analysis model, dominant in the policy sphere; and (4) an outline of a new methodology -Quantified Correlated Impacts (QCI).
This is very much work in progress so, perhaps, more posts will appear later on and I would very much like to hear your comments on any of it!
Importantly, this effort is part of 2015 incarnation of Evaluation Research Methods course, a postgraduate course in the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh.
Please, do spare a minute or two and have a look at a host of other contributions at our collective blog and follow our Twitter discussion marked with: #evalres15.
