2. Organisational forms
2. Organisational forms
How are Science Shops organised?
There is not one dominant organisational structure defining a Science Shop. How Science Shops are organised and operate is highly dependent on their local and national context. You can find detailed information about the organisational forms in SCIPAS report 1. Also additional information can be found here.
The basic requirements for a Science Shop are a demand for research, supply of research capacity, staff to mediate and link both, and last but not least a roof over your head.
In a university, you can usually supply research capacity by working with students (in their curriculum) under staff supervision. Also, an office can be organised in universities and they are able to appoint staff (or re-allocate working hours of teaching/research staff). Inside university, Science Shops can be placed anywhere; from the central administration to inside a working group. If you have a central office in university, it is clear for society groups where to go. Inside university, you will have to make sure that you stay aware of who is who in the different faculties, and make sure you are not seen as part of university ‘bureaucracy’. If you are organised inside a faculty, you are close to the students and staff, and it may be more easy to get them involved in your projects. However, it may be more difficult for civil society groups to approach you. Who knows exactly where chemistry ends and physics starts? By having a good network you can always re-direct of course. Between these two extremes (central / de-central) there are all kinds of possibilities, i.e. having both a central front-office and some back-offices or at least contact persons in the different faculties.
If you organise yourself outside university, you may use subsidies or income from other activities to either pay researchers or interns to work for civil society. This gives you more freedom on the one hand (from university bureaucracy), but can also create financial vulnerability. There are some examples of Science Shops that are organised as an NGO inside university; these can aim at funding on both sides (programs for governmental/public organisations and to private/non-governmental organisations).
Mostly, there will not be a single best place to organise your Science Shop. Your choice may depend on the local situation and on which people are in charge in various departments.
Do Science Shops have an Advisory Board?
Some have, some don’t. An Advisory Board can be helpful to keep scientifically sound and societally relevant.
Some Advisory Boards discuss all requests for research while other concentrate on strategic issues. Most Boards cover the fields of expertise of the Science Shop, and its members represent relevant research groups. Some also include relevant administrative units (like student affairs) and students.
How can I start a Science Shop at my university?
Usually you can do Science Shop-like projects before making an office which is open to all kinds of requests. If you are a teacher you can decide to use problem-based learning in your courses, practical placements can be used for service-learning, and thesis’s can have a subject coming from outside university. Most likely, there will be some professors that are favourable to this approach (or are doing similar projects themselves). By grouping together, you can start a Science Shop bottom-up (also including the power of interested students). From these “pilot” projects you could use testimonials to convince university policy makers of the relevancy of a Science Shop at their university.
If you are not yet doing Science Shop-like projects, take a pilot project with ‘low-risk’ (i.e. more or less clear that there will be a certain outcome), with a civil society partner, which does not take too long and has a high publicity factor; and include students to do the work.
To institutionalise a Science Shop, you can organise a scenario workshop to decide on best organisational form, financing, way of working etc.. More information on this method can befound in the PERARES documentation.
You can also get support from experienced Science Shop staff through the Living Knowledge discussion list and the Science Shops Summer School, that will be announced on the LK website, in the LK Newsletter and also via the discussion list.
How can I start a Science Shop outside the university?
Before you can make a start with a Science Shop you have to be aware of your local context, including commitment of organisations around you, funding opportunities and your actual work and position etc.. You can read more about these contexts in SCIPAS report 2 (Success and Failure in starting Science Shops).
To institutionalise a Science Shop, you can organise a scenario workshop to decide on best organisational form, financing, way of working etc.. More information on this method can befound in the PERARES documentation.
You can also get support from experienced Science Shop staff through the Living Knowledge discussion list and the Science Shops Summer School, that will be announced on the LK website, in the LK Newsletter and also via the discussion list.
How do Science Shops fit in the third mission of universities?
Science Shops have a special place in linking all three university missions: education, research, and knowledge transfer to society (outreach).
Towards individuals, there is a supply of existing information from university to society. Concerning service to organisations, science shops generally take care of non-commercial contract-research, whereas transfer bureaux or business service centres cover commercial research.
The reasons that universities do support Science Shops are many. Next to “pro deo” or PR reasons, universities will also support Science Shops as a way to obtain interesting research topics for scientists and students, and create social awareness. Even though professors and students are doing what they should be doing anyway (supervising and learning, respectively), Science Shop projects are a little more work to organise than text-book cases, which can give problems within the decreasing university budgets and trends towards commercialisation of science. Still, by linking to education and research Science Shops can be implemented at low additional costs.
In the UK, as in The Netherlands, Science Shops can be seen as relating to the so-called third mission activity in higher education, which is outreach. All managers from the universities involved in the UK Interacts case studies recognised that these issues were now on the agenda of government, and expressed a personal interest in developing them, and publicising staff expertise visibly to external bodies. University managers increasingly accept that teaching and learning must be combined with community outreach in order to justify public funding.
You will find more details about how to start a Science Shop inside or outside your university or how a Science Shop fits into the 3rd mission under this link.