Research Group on History, Current Practices and New Challenges of the Scientific Knowledge Transfer

Description

The research group develops its research activity focused on scientific communication in three areas.

The first one is related to scientific communication from a historical point of view. In particular, it focuses on the circulation of ideas and books between Spain and Europe during the 18th century through the reconstruction of the libraries of the Valencian erudites. These libraries not only give us information about the owner of the library and their readings, but also about the processes of cultural and scientific transfer at that time. The reconstruction of the catalogues of these libraries is fundamental to understand the entry of ideas, authors and books of marked modernity in Spain, in fields such as History, Philosophy, Science and Humanities, among others. It also allows us to reconstruct the channels of circulation of books and their main protagonists: printers, booksellers, intermediaries and customs agents, who anonymously made it possible for international scientific mainstreams to enter Spain.

The second area has to do with the practices that shape current science, both from the institutional point of view and from the perspective of scientists. Thus, this group works on the assessment of research developed and/or financed by specific public institutions by obtaining bibliometric indicators related to production, scientific collaboration and research impact. This has materialised in recent years in the implementation of various research contracts signed with academic institutions and public administration bodies. In addition, from the point of view of national research policies, patterns of scientific communication are studied, both from a quantitative and qualitative standpoint, in the context of a new communication model determined by the increasing use of social media and the Open Access to science movement. From the researcher’s point of view, this implies the requirement to disseminate the results of their publicly funded research through systems that ensure open access to this information. For this reason, it is also necessary to evaluate compliance with these mandates, designing the most appropriate procedures for this purpose. These procedures are designed on the basis of a study of the editorial policy of the journals through which the results of publicly funded research are disseminated, as well as by investigating the behaviour of researchers with respect to scientific communication and the characteristics that may favour the adoption of this innovation.

Finally, the third research area of this group is the new challenges facing academic and research institutions and scientists themselves. Specifically, it is the management of research data, which is a new step in the OA movement in which access to research data is promoted in order to favour the good management of public investment, create value chains in the field of innovation and increase international cooperation, among others. In this context, this group maintains a stable collaboration with various European research groups focused on the study of researchers' data literacy. The aim is to diagnose and then promote a culture that favours open access to data among the academic and research community.

Goals CT

To describe the circulation of books and scientific ideas between Spain and Europe from a historical point of view.
To evaluate the results of current research at institutional and individual level.
To investigate current practices of dissemination of research results in new media and scientific journals.
To identify the research data management skills of the scientific community and promote policies that favour this movement.

Research lines

Open production, assessment and dissemination of science
Research of the changes in the process of scientific publication and dissemination due to technological advances in information retrieval and open access policies, through the different metrics and tools for scientific evaluation at national and international level.
Researchers’ scientific information search and dissemination practices
New practices in information search and dissemination processes in the new social media and collaborative architecture and in an open science environment, with qualitative research to understand what factors favour the adoption of innovations in this new scenario.
Circulation of ideas and books between Spain and Europe during the 18th century
Reconstruction of the libraries of Spanish intellectuals who, mantaining relations with France or England, formed libraries with thousands of books that reflect the way in which European scientific ideas and culture reached Spain in the 18th century.

Management