Thanks everyone who joined in the second DARE Research Seminar about Engaged Scholarship  that organized in collaboration with the Dutch Platform for Professors UAS on Entrepreneurship and the Hogeschool Utrecht. 

Organizing committee:

• Werner Liebregts
• Lex van Teeffelen
• Neil Thompson

Submission and deadline

You can find Judith van Helverts presentation slides on engaged scholarship DARE – Engaged scholarship Judith

Theme of the seminar: Engaged Scholarship

This seminar shared some of the dilemmas and solutions found in the field of engaged scholarship.

Since 2001, the Universities of Applied Science (UAS) are evolving from education only to mixed educational and research institutes. Though young in tradition and modest in research budgets, over the past fifteen years over 600 professors have been appointed, out of which 124 in the economic domain (Rathenau Instituut, 2018).

Their research is strongly connected with questions originating from the professional field or from societal challenges (De Jonge, 2016). The UAS more or less follow Simon (1976), proposing that a basic challenge for scholars in professional schools is to contribute to both the science and the practice – not either-or.

Specific grant programs (Regieorgaan SIA) have been created to put professional associations, SMEs or societal partners in the lead to define research questions. In the domain of entrepreneurship for example, at least six SMEs must co-finance and belong to the consortium to be able to apply for grants. In total, these SMEs and their representatives must co-finance 50% of the total costs.

As pointed out by Van de Ven (2007), there are different types of engaged research possible. Typically UAS research projects and initiatives are characterized by quadrants 2, 3 and 4 of Figure 1.

 

Figure 1 – Engaged Scholarship (Van de Ven, 2007)

The challenges for researchers are abundant, just to mention a few (Van de Ven, 2010):

• Finding mutual interests, boundary spanning, power sharing, and task coordination between academics and practitioners.
• Multiple models and frames of reference are needed to understand complex reality.
• Producing research that is useful for theory and practice is not a solitary exercise; instead, it is a collective achievement.

During research projects also the perspectives/criterions in the different phases change. This is well illustrated by the Diamond Model of Van de Ven (2007), adopted by Shawcross & Ridgman (2019), in Figure 2.

 

Figure 2 – Diamond Model of Van de Ven (2007) adopted by Shawcross and Ridgman (2019)

 

We cordially invite entrepreneurship researchers to submit work-in-progress papers on (complex) questions brought up by entrepreneurs, their associations or societal parties. Not only the outcomes, but also the process is of interest. In particular, we encourage authors to share their reflections on dilemmas faced during their projects and/or to elaborate on the discussion part of their paper in more detail.

This may include the SME-fields of:

• Finance;
• Growth;
• (Joint) innovation;
• Succession;
• (Joint) product or service development;
• Or any other relevant topic.

 

We look forward to receiving your work and to your attendance on the 14^th of November!

 

References

De Jonge, J. (2016). Feiten en cijfers. Praktijkgericht onderzoek bij lectoraten van hogescholen. Den Haag: Rathenau Instituut.

Rathenau Instituut (2018). Praktijkgericht onderzoek hogescholen. Retrieved from https://www.rathenau.nl/nl/wetenschap-cijfers/geld/inkomsten-uitgaven-van-universiteiten-en-hogescholen/praktijkgericht.

Shawcross, J.K., & Ridgman, T.W. (2019). Linking practice and theory using engaged scholarship. European Journal of Engineering Education, 44(1-2), 35-48.

Simon, H.A. (1976). The business school: A problem in organizational design. Journal of Management Studies, 4(1), 1-16.

Van de Ven, A.H. (2007). Engaged scholarship. A guide for organizational and social research. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Van de Ven, A.H. (2010). Reflections on engaged scholarship. London: London Business School.