{"id":590,"date":"2009-03-27T02:41:28","date_gmt":"2009-03-27T09:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.education.uw.edu\/cirge\/c\/?p=590"},"modified":"2014-01-08T17:50:35","modified_gmt":"2014-01-08T17:50:35","slug":"daily-report-day-4-thursday-march-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.education.uw.edu\/cirge\/daily-report-day-4-thursday-march-26\/","title":{"rendered":"Daily Report &#8211; Day 4 &#8211; Thursday, March 26"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: center; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.2; font-size: 25px;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cThe risks are worth taking\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<p><strong>&#8211; <span style=\"color: #000000;\">Alex Quintanilha<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Today in the hometown of the Brothers Grimm (Kassel), scholars from around the world took some risks. They grappled with \u201cPromoting Intellectual Risk-Taking Under Conditions of Globalization\u201d\u2014the focus of Task Force Three.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.education.uw.edu\/cirge\/c\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/thursday-1.jpg\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The blustery, occasionally rainy morning started with a high-risk, high-drama report from Task Force. They displayed their acting skills through three skits illustrating real-life dilemmas confronting doctoral students and faculty. The skits captured the interpersonal dynamics and emotions of how and when to pursue various types of research\u2014or not. See it all on video:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><object width=\"480\" height=\"385\" classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/WDxZi0jCDqA&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed width=\"480\" height=\"385\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/WDxZi0jCDqA&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" \/><\/object><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Highlights of the subsequent Task Force draft findings:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Intellectual risk-taking is not an end in itself; it is a means to foster innovative, potentially transformative research. It is also a way to prepare doctoral graduates to respond flexibly to change in rapidly changing times.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">An unresolved debate: is it advisable or worthwhile to encourage doctoral students to take risks in their research\u2014such as studies that have not been tried before, have a high chance of failure, and\/or are nontraditional or outside the mainstream?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Research funding agencies should develop a reward structure for innovation that accommodates experimentation and occasional failure\u2014which ultimately can bring some researchers closer to success.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Task Force 3 description:<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\"> <object width=\"425\" height=\"344\" classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/C1lx7x8Hv8E&amp;hl=es&amp;fs=1\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed width=\"425\" height=\"344\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/C1lx7x8Hv8E&amp;hl=es&amp;fs=1\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" \/><\/object><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Two experts provided additional input to the work of Task Force Three:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Reinhard Jahn, Director of Abteilung Neurbiologie at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mpibpc.mpg.de\/\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry<\/span><\/a> in G\u00f6ttingen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Alex Quintanilha, Director of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibmc.up.pt\/\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology<\/span><\/a> at the University of Porto, Portugal; Former Chair of the External Advisory Group of the People Programme at the European Union<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Highlights from Jahn\u2019s presentation:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cRisk taking is a mandatory prerequisite for transformative research.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Of all the prize-winning research papers he has reviewed, he estimated that about half considered to be incremental were later seen as more transformative and substantive in advancing disciplines.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Interdisciplinarity is inherently risky\u2014yet essential to production of new knowledge. Doctoral students may have inherent advantages to achieve interdisciplinarity in research because in general they are less encumbered with the disciplinary restrictions and norms faced by faculty.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Key issues for intellectual risk taking in doctoral education, among others: supervision of students; taking care to \u201cdistinguish between risky doctoral research and bad science.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Highlights from Quintanilha\u2019s presentation:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cUnderstanding risk and communicating risk brings different domains of knowledge together. We need to do this.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Sustainability in intellectual risk-taking requires support from many directions. It is not enough for universities alone to foster intellectual risk-taking, \u201c\u2026we need to create societies that value imagination and creativity, and that will promote these ideas in a forceful way.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cYou should encourage a variety of training programs that evolve and change with the times, the needs of students, and the needs of society.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">He cited recent societal commitment to higher education in Portugal, in particular a funding model that rewards graduate students directly, allowing them to choose doctoral programs (rather than funding students indirectly through universities.)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">He strongly encouraged pilot projects in doctoral research that engages risk taking. \u201cBy allowing different, small experiments everywhere, we can find at least some that work.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Many questions and answers and a panel discussion followed. The input from the expert commentators informed the work of Task Group Three as it refined its recommendations for intellectual risk-taking. The day ended with a great deal of intense group directed at the climax of the workshop: final reports and recommendations from each of the Task Forces on Friday morning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The dinner speaker was \u201cExperiences with the German Excellence Initiative\u201d from Hans-J\u00fcrgen Pr\u00f6mel, President of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tu-darmstadt.de\/\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Technical University of Darmstadt<\/span><\/a> and a member of the Forces and Forms network.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThe risks are worth taking\u201d &#8211; Alex Quintanilha Today in the hometown of the Brothers Grimm (Kassel), scholars from around the world took some risks. They grappled with \u201cPromoting Intellectual Risk-Taking Under Conditions of Globalization\u201d\u2014the focus of Task Force Three. The blustery, occasionally rainy morning started with a high-risk, high-drama report from Task Force. They displayed their acting skills through three skits illustrating real-life dilemmas confronting doctoral students and faculty. The skits captured the interpersonal dynamics and emotions of how&#8230;<\/p>\n<div><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.education.uw.edu\/cirge\/daily-report-day-4-thursday-march-26\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Daily Report &#8211; Day 4 &#8211; Thursday, March 26<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[574,666,669,668],"class_list":["post-590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-forces-forms-iii-on-doctoral-education-kassel-germany-2009","tag-kassel","tag-promoting-intellectual-risk-taking-under-conditions-of-globalization","tag-the-risks-are-worth-taking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.education.uw.edu\/cirge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.education.uw.edu\/cirge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.education.uw.edu\/cirge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.education.uw.edu\/cirge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.education.uw.edu\/cirge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.education.uw.edu\/cirge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4351,"href":"https:\/\/www.education.uw.edu\/cirge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions\/4351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.education.uw.edu\/cirge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.education.uw.edu\/cirge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.education.uw.edu\/cirge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}