IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v185y2017icp137-146.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Confined to a tokenistic status: Social scientists in leadership roles in a national health research funding agency

Author

Listed:
  • Albert, Mathieu
  • Laberge, Suzanne

Abstract

The idea of interdisciplinarity has been taken up by academic and governmental organisations around the world and enacted through science policies, funding programs and higher education institutions. In Canada, interdisciplinarity led to a major transformation in health research funding. In 2000, the federal government closed the Medical Research Council (MRC) and created the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). From the outset, CIHR's vision and goals were innovative, as it sought to include the social sciences within its purview alongside more traditional health research sectors. The extent to which it has been successful in this endeavour, however, remains unknown. The aim of our study was to examine how CIHR's intentions to foster inclusiveness and cooperation across disciplines were implemented in the agency's own organisational structure. We focused on social scientists' representation on committees and among decision-makers between 2000 and 2015, one of the key mandates of CIHR being to include the social sciences within its remit and support research in this area. We examined the composition of the Governing Council, the Institute Scientific Directors, the Chairs of the College of Reviewers, and two International Review Panels invited by CIHR. We targeted these committees and decision-makers since they hold the power to influence the field of Canadian health research through the decisions they make. Our findings show that, while CIHR was created with the mandate to support the entire spectrum of health-related research—including the social sciences—this call for inclusiveness has not yet been materialized in the agency's organisational structure. Social scientists, as well as researchers from neighbouring disciplines such as social epidemiology, health promotion and the humanities, are still confined to low levels of representation within CIHR's highest echelons. This imbalance limits social scientists' input into health research in Canada and undermines CIHR's interdisciplinary ambition.

Suggested Citation

  • Albert, Mathieu & Laberge, Suzanne, 2017. "Confined to a tokenistic status: Social scientists in leadership roles in a national health research funding agency," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 137-146.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:185:y:2017:i:c:p:137-146
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.05.018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795361730312X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.05.018?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Albert, Mathieu & Paradis, Elise & Kuper, Ayelet, 2015. "Interdisciplinary promises versus practices in medicine: The decoupled experiences of social sciences and humanities scholars," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 17-25.
    2. Laudel, Grit & Gläser, Jochen, 2014. "Beyond breakthrough research: Epistemic properties of research and their consequences for research funding," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(7), pages 1204-1216.
    3. Foster, George M., 1987. "World Health Organization behavioral science research: Problems and prospects," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 24(9), pages 709-717, January.
    4. Braun, Dietmar, 1998. "The role of funding agencies in the cognitive development of science," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(8), pages 807-821, December.
    5. Barrett, Bruce, 1997. "Identity, ideology and inequality: Methodologies in medical anthropology, Guatemala 1950-1995," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 44(5), pages 579-587, March.
    6. Albert, Mathieu & Laberge, Suzanne & Hodges, Brian D. & Regehr, Glenn & Lingard, Lorelei, 2008. "Biomedical scientists' perception of the social sciences in health research," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(12), pages 2520-2531, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mostafa Torabi, 2023. "Interdisciplinary Approaches in Business Studies: Applications and Challenges," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 18(5), pages 1-33, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Conor O’Kane & Jing A. Zhang & Jarrod Haar & James A. Cunningham, 2023. "How scientists interpret and address funding criteria: value creation and undesirable side effects," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 799-826, August.
    2. Albert, Mathieu & Laberge, Suzanne & Hodges, Brian D. & Regehr, Glenn & Lingard, Lorelei, 2008. "Biomedical scientists' perception of the social sciences in health research," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(12), pages 2520-2531, June.
    3. Fernandez Martinez, Roberto & Lostado Lorza, Ruben & Santos Delgado, Ana Alexandra & Piedra, Nelson, 2021. "Use of classification trees and rule-based models to optimize the funding assignment to research projects: A case study of UTPL," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1).
    4. Auranen, Otto & Nieminen, Mika, 2010. "University research funding and publication performance--An international comparison," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 822-834, July.
    5. Benedetto Lepori & Emanuela Reale & Stig Slipersaeter, 2011. "The Construction of New Indicators for Science and Innovation Policies: The Case of Project Funding Indicators," Chapters, in: Massimo G. Colombo & Luca Grilli & Lucia Piscitello & Cristina Rossi-Lamastra (ed.), Science and Innovation Policy for the New Knowledge Economy, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Julia Heuritsch, 2023. "The Evaluation Gap in Astronomy—Explained through a Rational Choice Framework," Publications, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-26, June.
    7. Wallace, Matthew L. & Ràfols, Ismael, 2018. "Institutional shaping of research priorities: A case study on avian influenza," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(10), pages 1975-1989.
    8. Balietti, Stefano & Riedl, Christoph, 2021. "Incentives, competition, and inequality in markets for creative production," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(4).
    9. Lepori, Benedetto, 2011. "Coordination modes in public funding systems," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 355-367, April.
    10. Laudel, Grit & Gläser, Jochen, 2014. "Beyond breakthrough research: Epistemic properties of research and their consequences for research funding," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(7), pages 1204-1216.
    11. Kok, Holmer & Faems, Dries & de Faria, Pedro, 2022. "Pork Barrel or Barrel of Gold? Examining the performance implications of earmarking in public R&D grants," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(7).
    12. Arnott, James C., 2021. "Pens and purse strings: Exploring the opportunities and limits to funding actionable sustainability science," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(10).
    13. Thomas, Duncan Andrew & Ramos-Vielba, Irene, 2022. "Reframing study of research(er) funding towards configurations and trails," SocArXiv uty2v, Center for Open Science.
    14. Suominen, Arho & Peng, Haoshu & Ranaei, Samira, 2019. "Examining the dynamics of an emerging research network using the case of triboelectric nanogenerators," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 820-830.
    15. Tim Flink, 2022. "Taking the pulse of science diplomacy and developing practices of valuation [The Perverse Effects of Competition on Scientists’ Work and Relationships]," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 49(2), pages 191-200.
    16. Rock, Melanie & Buntain, Bonnie J. & Hatfield, Jennifer M. & Hallgrímsson, Benedikt, 2009. "Animal-human connections, "one health," and the syndemic approach to prevention," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(6), pages 991-995, March.
    17. Leila Jabrane, 2022. "Individual excellence funding: effects on research autonomy and the creation of protected spaces," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-9, December.
    18. Eva Barlösius & Kristina Blem, 2021. "Evidence of research mastery: How applicants argue the feasibility of their research projects [Concepts of originality in the natural science, medical, and engineering disciplines: An analysis of r," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 30(4), pages 563-571.
    19. Clemens Blümel, 2018. "Translational research in the science policy debate: a comparative analysis of documents," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 45(1), pages 24-35.
    20. Jia Zhou & Aifang Guo & Yutao Chen & Jin Chen, 2022. "Original Innovation through Inter-Organizational Collaboration: Empirical Evidence from University-Focused Alliance Portfolio in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-18, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:185:y:2017:i:c:p:137-146. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.