Student or educator? Sign up with your school email and get 6 months of Pro free.
CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 2

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 1 of the 1 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

The gravity of the status quo: the response of research governance to system-level shocks

Derrick, G. E., Robson, J., Oancea, A., Xu, X., Stan, M. R.·2025·Higher Education
DOI 10.1007/s10734-024-01309-8
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Using interviews with global research stakeholders, this research explores how stakeholders within research-system-level research governance organisations conceptualised, responded to, and reasoned the realities of disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and how they positioned procedural changes to their governance mechanisms. Given that system shocks present critical challenges to established practices and embedded institutional norms, we use neo-institutional theory as a heuristic device to examine the relationship between the exogenous shock of COVID-19, trajectories of institutional norms and cultures, and the role institutional stakeholders play in managing responses. Across all the research systems studied (with particular focus on the UK, Australia, Norway, New Zealand, Hong Kong SAR, and Italy), participants were concerned about how the shock provided by COVID-19 had both revealed and entrenched deep inequalities inherent in their research systems and globally. There were tensions in how participants centralised the concept of the ‘normal’ as part of a process of recovery permeating all system-level responses, often with a sense of wistful affection for pre-pandemic structures, modes of operation, and embedded norms. Aspirations for short-, medium,- and long-term plans for research change echoed a dependency on returning to ‘normal’ and an inevitable pull of the norms of the pre-pandemic status quo. Despite the desire to ‘build back better’, the pull of institutional norms and the gravitational force of the status quo appeared too strong for meaningful change in recovering research systems.

Overview

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1007/s10734-024-01309-8

Cites

1 of 1 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Verification

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Citations

Cites

Show all 1 references

Research works printed but not linked: 45

  1. Alvesson, M., & Spicer, A. (2019). Neo-institutional theory and organization studies: A mid-life crisis? Organization Studies, 40(2), 199–218. · DOI · Paper page
  2. Bicchieri, C. (2006). The grammar of society. Cambridge University Press. · DOI · Paper page
  3. Borup, M., Brown, N., Konrad, K., & Van Lente, H. (2006). The sociology of expectations in science and technology. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 18(3–4), 285–298. · DOI · Paper page
  4. Brislin, R. W. (1970). Back-translation for cross-cultural research. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 1(3), 185–216. · DOI · Paper page
  5. Cai, X., Fry, C. V., & Wagner, C. S. (2021). International collaboration during the COVID-19 crisis: Autumn 2020 developments. Scientometrics, 126(4), 3683–3692. · DOI
  6. Campos, R., Leon, F., & McQuillin, B. (2018). Lost in the storm: The academic collaborations that went missing in hurricane Issac. The Economic Journal, 128(610), 995–1018. · DOI
  7. Chen, K., Zhang, Y., & Xiaolan, F. (2019). International research collaboration: An emerging domain of innovation studies? Research Policy, 48(1), 149–168. · DOI · Paper page
  8. Derrick, G. (2020). How COVID-19 lockdowns could lead to a kinder research culture. Nature, 581(7806), 107–108. · DOI
  9. Derrick, G. E., et al. (2022). The relationship between parenting engagement and academic performance. Scientific Reports, 12(1), 22300. · DOI
  10. DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American sociological review, 48(2), 147–160. · DOI · Paper page
  11. Etzion, D., Gehman, J., & Davis, G. F. (2022). Reimagining academic conferences: Toward a federated model of conferencing. Management Learning, 53(2), 350–362. · DOI
  12. Fecher, B., & Friesike, S. (2014). Open science: One term, five schools of thought. Opening Science: The Evolving Guide on How the Internet Is Changing Research (pp. 17–47). Collaboration and Scholarly Publishing. · DOI · Paper page
  13. Frank, D., & Meyer, J. (2020). The university and the global knowledge society. Princeton University Press. · DOI
  14. Fry, C. V., Cai, X., Zhang, Yi., & Wagner, C. S. (2020). Consolidation in a crisis: Patterns of international collaboration in early COVID-19 research. PLoS ONE, 15(7), e0236307. · DOI
  15. Funtowicz, S., & Ravetz, J. (2018). Post-normal science. In Companion to Environmental Studies: Routledge. · DOI
  16. Funtowicz, S. O., & Ravetz, J. R. (1993). Science for the post-normal age. Futures, 25(7), 739–755. · DOI · Paper page
  17. Greenland, F., & Fabiani, M. D. (2021). Collaborative practices in crisis science: Interdisciplinary research challenges and the Syrian war. Sociological Science, 8, 455–479. · DOI
  18. Hall, P. (2010). In J. Mahoney & K. Thelen (Eds.), Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency and Power (pp. 204–225). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  19. Hüther, O., & Krücken, G. (2016). Nested organizational fields: Isomorphism and differentiation among European universities. In the University under Pressure, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 53–83, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20160000046003(October3 · doi:10.1108/s0733-558x20160000046003(october3
  20. Immergut, E. M. (1998). The theoretical core of the new institutionalism. Politics and Society, 26(1), 5–34. · DOI · Paper page
  21. Kuhn, T. S. (1996). The structure of scientific revolutions (3rd ed.). University of Chicago Press. · DOI · Paper page
  22. Lambrechts, A. A., et al. (2021). Why research productivity among women in academia suffered during the early stages of COVID-19 crisis: A qualitative analysis. https://edarxiv.org/3awdq/. May 31, 2022. · DOI
  23. Lee, J. J., & Haupt, J. P. (2021). Scientific globalism during a global crisis: Research collaboration and open access publications on COVID-19. Higher Education, 81(5), 949–966. · DOI
  24. Lessing, J. N., et al. (2020). Academics in absentia: An opportunity to rethink conferences in the age of coronavirus cancellations. Academic Medicine, 95(12), 1834–1837. · DOI
  25. Liu, M., Bu, Y., Chen, C., Xu, J., Li, D., Leng, Y., ... & Jeong, M. (2020). Can pandemics transform scientific novelty? Evidence from COVID-19. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2009.12500 · DOI
  26. Machlis, G. E., & Ludwig, K. (2014). Science during crisis: The application of interdisciplinary and strategic science during major environmental crises. In M. J. Manfredo, J. J. Vaske, A. Rechkemmer, & E. A. Duke (Eds.), Understanding Society and Natural Resources: Forging New Strands of Integration Across the Social Sciences (pp. 47–65). Dordrecht: Springer, Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8959-2_3 June 9, 2023. · DOI
  27. Mahoney, J., & Thelen, K. (2010). In J. Mahoney & K. Thelen (Eds.), Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency and Power (pp1–38). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  28. Marginson, S. (2022a). Global science and national comparisons: Beyond bibliometrics and scientometrics. Comparative Education, 58(2), 125–146. · DOI
  29. Marginson, S. (2022b). Space and scale in higher education: The glonacal agency heuristic revisited. Higher Education, 84(6), 1365–1395. · DOI
  30. Marginson, S. (2022c). What drives global science? The four competing narratives. Studies in Higher Education, 47(8), 1566–1584. · DOI
  31. Marginson, S., & Rhoades, G. (2002). Beyond national states, markets, and systems of higher education: A glonacal agency heuristic. Higher Education, 43(3), 281–309. · DOI · Paper page
  32. Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83(2), 340–363. · DOI · Paper page
  33. Nilakant, V., et al. (2016). Dynamics of organisational response to a disaster: A study of organisations impacted by earthquakes. Routledge. · DOI
  34. Robson, J. (2022). (2022) ‘Stigma and spoiled identities: Rescripting career norms for precariously employed academic and research staff.’ British Journal of Sociology of Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2022.2137464 · DOI
  35. Rotolo, T., & Frickel, S. (2019). When disasters strike environmental science: A case–control study of changes in scientific collaboration networks. Scientometrics, 120(1), 301–317. · DOI
  36. Shrum, W. (2010). Negotiating neutrality in controversy: Engineering studies after Hurricane Katrina. Engineering Studies, 2(2), 109–124. · DOI
  37. Skjesol, I., & Tritter, J. Q. (2022). The Norwegian way: COVID-19 vaccination policy and practice. Health Policy and Technology, 11(2), 100635. · DOI
  38. Sugimoto, C. R., & Larivière, V. (2023). Equity for women in science: Dismantling systemic barriers to advancement. Harvard University Press. · DOI
  39. Thelen, K. (2004). How institutions evolve: The political economy of skills in Germany, Britain, the US and Japan. Cambridge University Press. · DOI · Paper page
  40. Tierney, K. J. (2007). From the margins to the mainstream? Disaster research at the crossroads. Annual Review of Sociology, 33(1), 503–525. · DOI · Paper page
  41. Torres-Salinas, D. (2020). Daily growth rate of scientific production on Covid-19. Analysis in databases and open access repositories’. El Profesional de la Información 29(2). http://arxiv.org/abs/2004.06721. June 9, 2023. · DOI
  42. Wagner, C. S., Cai, X., Zhang, Y., & Fry, C. V. (2022). One-year in: COVID-19 research at the international level in CORD-19 Data. PLoS ONE, 17(5), e0261624. · DOI
  43. Watermeyer, R., et al. (2021). “Pandemia”: A reckoning of UK universities’ corporate response to COVID-19 and its academic fallout. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 42(5–6), 651–666. · DOI
  44. Zajdela, E.R., et al. (2021). Catalyzing collaborations: Prescribed interactions at conferences determine team formation. arXiv. http://arxiv.org/abs/2112.08468. May 31, 2022. · arXiv
  45. Zucker, L. G. (1977). The role of institutionalization in cultural persistence. American sociological review, 726–743. · DOI · Paper page

Cited by

Metadata

Authors
Derrick, G. E., Robson, J., Oancea, A., Xu, X., & Stan, M. R.
Venue
Higher Education
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2024-09-26
Volume
90
Issue
1
Pages
89-108
ISSN
  • 0018-1560
  • 1573-174X
DOI
10.1007/s10734-024-01309-8
Cited by
2
References
1
Language
en
Licence
Funders
Economic and Social Research Council (ES/T014768/1)

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review

Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.