Patrick Dunleavy

Jane Tinkler

This is an invaluable guide to better research communication within and beyond academia. With many years of research experience, the authors provide scholars and scientists with systematic advice on how to ensure their research reaches its potential, and grows the recognition, influence, practical application and public understanding of science and scholarship. It begins by examining how citations work and evaluating the different measures of academic influence, from legacy bibliometric systems to altmetrics and digital metrics. Subsequent chapters show readers how to craft impactful journal articles, work effectively with co-authors, create a portfolio of publications and build a digital strategy that promotes knowledge exchange. Checklists help readers decide how and in what format to publish, enabling them to get their research in front of the right people. Throughout, the authors illustrate impact with data drawn from a wide range of disciplines. Maximizing the Impacts of Academic Research is ideal for PhD students and early career researchers taking their first steps into academic research, experienced researchers mentoring the next generation of scholars and scientists and established academics looking to systematically review and upgrade their existing impact practices.

Maximizing the Impacts of Academic Research

Leandro Carrera

'Carrera and Dunleavy provide a crystal clear and comprehensive account of the complex issues involved in how best to improve the productivity of government services. They offer a nuanced but powerful explanation of productivity puzzles, conundrums and dilemmas in the public sector. But they also offer solutions to many of these problems. Finally, I have found a text on public economics that makes sense, gives genuine management insights and offers real suggestions to practitioners as to what to do next.' - Barry Quirk, Chief Executive, London Borough of Lewisham, UK

Growing the Productivity of Government Services

Helen Margetts

Simon Bastow

Government information systems are big business (costing over 1 per cent of GDP a year). They are critical to all aspects of public policy and governmental operations. Governments spend billions on them - for instance, the UK alone commits £14 billion a year to public sector IT operations. Yet governments do not generally develop or run their own systems, instead relying on private sector computer services providers to run large, long-run contracts to provide IT. Some of the biggest companies in the world (IBM, EDS, Lockheed Martin, etc) have made this a core market. The book shows how governments in some countries (the USA, Canada and Netherlands) have maintained much more effective policies than others (in the UK, Japan and Australia). It shows how public managers need to retain and develop their own IT expertise and to carefully maintain well-contested markets if they are to deliver value for money in their dealings with the very powerful global IT industry. This book describes how a critical aspect of the modern state is managed, or in some cases mismanaged. It will be vital reading for public managers, IT professionals, and business executives alike, as well as for students of modern government, business, and information studies.

IT Corporations, the State, and e-Government

Digital Era Governance

 Alice Park

 Ros Taylor

The UK’s Changing Democracy presents a uniquely democratic perspective on all aspects of UK politics, at the centre in Westminster and Whitehall, and in all the devolved nations. The 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU marked a turning point in the UK’s political system. In the previous two decades, the country had undergone a series of democratic reforms, during which it seemed to evolve into a more typical European liberal democracy. The establishment of a Supreme Court, adoption of the Human Rights Act, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish devolution, proportional electoral systems, executive mayors and the growth in multi-party competition all marked profound changes to the British political tradition. Brexit may now bring some of these developments to a juddering halt. The UK’s previous ‘exceptionalism’ from European patterns looks certain to continue indefinitely. ‘Taking back control’ of regulations, trade, immigration and much more is the biggest change in UK governance for half a century. It has already produced enduring crises for the party system, Parliament and the core executive, with uniquely contested governance over critical issues, and a rapidly changing political landscape. Other recent trends are no less fast-moving, such as the revival of two-party dominance in England, the re-creation of some mass membership parties and the disruptive challenges of social media. In this context, an in-depth assessment of the quality of the UK’s democracy is essential. Each of the 2018 Democratic Audit’s 37 short chapters starts with clear criteria for what democracy requires in that part of the nation’s political life and outlines key recent developments before a SWOT analysis (of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) crystallises the current situation. A small number of core issues are then explored in more depth. Set against the global rise of debased semi-democracies, the book’s approach returns our focus firmly to the big issues around the quality and sustainability of the UK’s liberal democracy.

The 2018 Democratic Audit

The UK's Changing Democracy

R.A.W Rhodes

This new reader is designed to break the mould of core executive studies by broadening the focus of analysis from the conventional concentration on the relative power of Prime Minister and Cabinet to assess the whole battery of mechanisms which co-ordinate policy and manage conflict. It brings together chapters introducing new theoretical perspectives and assessing the changes in executive structure and decision making from Wilson to Thatcher with in-depth case studies of the executive in action.

Prime Minister, Cabinet and Core Executive

The impact agenda is set to shape the way in which social scientists prioritise the work they choose to pursue, the research methods they use and how they publish their findings over the coming decade, but how much is currently known about how social science research has made a mark on society? Based on a three year research project studying the impact of 360 UK-based academics on business, government and civil society sectors, this groundbreaking new book undertakes the most thorough analysis yet of how academic research in the social sciences achieves public policy impacts, contributes to economic prosperity, and informs public understanding of policy issues as well as economic and social changes. The Impact of the Social Sciences addresses and engages with key issues, including: identifying ways to conceptualise and model impact in the social sciences developing more sophisticated ways to measure academic and external impacts of social science research explaining how impacts from individual academics, research units and universities can be improved. This book is essential reading for researchers, academics and anyone involved in discussions about how to improve the value and impact of funded research. You can read a snapshot of the results, Visualising the Data, free online. To download a PDF click here, or to browse a flipbook, click here.

How Academics and their Research Make a Difference

The Impact of the Social Sciences

Discusses Pluralist, New Right, Elitist, Marxist and Neo-pluralist theories. Provides summary of intellectual origins, methodology and key strengths and weaknesses with examples from United States, Western Europe, etc.

The Politics of Liberal Democracy

Theories of the State

Authoring a PhD is a complex process. It involves having creative ideas, working out how to organize them, writing up from plans, upgrading the text, and finishing it speedily and to a good standard. It also includes being examined and getting published. Patrick Dunleavy has written Authoring a PhD based on his supervision experience with over 30 students. It provides solid advice to help your PhD students cope with both the intellectual issues and practical difficulties of organizing their work effectively. It is an indispensable and time saving aid for doctoral students in the humanities, social sciences, education, business studies, law, health, arts and visual arts, and related disciplines, and will also be a great help to supervisors.

Patrick Dunleavy

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