Talks by Aygen Kurt Dickson
This poster aims to address blended professionals, a concept developed by Whitchurch describing t... more This poster aims to address blended professionals, a concept developed by Whitchurch describing those who 'cross internal/external institutional boundaries and contribute to the development of new forms of third space between professional and academic domains' 1 ; and how they are placed in different contexts of higher education in Europe. With reference to the Dutch and UK HE sector and national research policy frameworks, the practical focus is on Tilburg University and LSE. An introduction underlying blended professionals will explore these profiles from the outset of their development. It will mention policy contexts driving universities to be more strategic, and academics to upskill themselves in winning grants and generating impact. Since there is a visible increase in the HE sector for blended professionals as research and knowledge brokers; and professional (closed) networks emerging both in the Dutch and UK terrains, it is significant to capture how this concept works in practical terms.
Conference Presentations by Aygen Kurt Dickson
EARMA Conference Malta 2017
The aim of this session is to present the results of a three-fold case study that was performed i... more The aim of this session is to present the results of a three-fold case study that was performed in Italy (University of Bologna), the United Kingdom (London School of Economics) and The Netherlands (University of Tilburg).
The case study was taken up to be able to look at how the role of 'Blended Professionals' (BPs) is conceptualised in practice, following the work of Celia Whitchurch who was one of the first to introduce this concept.
There are many definitions of what a BP can be and even so many manifestations of them, however, in the context of this case study we have chosen to define BPs as those persons in academia that 1) have received a PhD but have decided to leave the academic profession and have taken up a job in administration or support staff; 2) are engaged in a professional PhD track, expressing the wish to combine both academic and professional work and expertise and/or 3) can be described as 'hybrid researchers', moving between the realms of academic knowledge, on the one hand, and non-academic knowledge, on the other hand. Contextual circumstances and developments in higher education policy, such as the decrease of academic positions combined with an increase in the number of people acquiring a PhD, the increase in the demand of generating societal impact in scientific research and the call upon universities to collaborate with non-academic partners, lead to a steady rise of BPs in nowadays academia. BPs form a group of highly skilled professionals in nowadays academia, but seem nonetheless to have their 'identity' challenged, as they don't fit easily into either an academic or administrative/professional role but they are more likely to be in between the two depending on the job.
The threefold case study consisted of face-to-face semi-structured interviews with a total of 15 respondents. Research questions were related to 1) identity and perception of belonging to either the academic realm or the professional/administrative one, or both; 2) issues of freedom and control; 3) the perception of the unique and indispensable contribution that BPs make to their Higher Education Institutes.
With the session, we aim at not only presenting the results of the case study but also to discuss the outcomes with the audience. Discussion helps us to assess whether the case study findings resonate with the EARMA members (many of them BPs as well) and provides the opportunity to bring the research further in terms of new research questions and new theoretical insights.
Papers by Aygen Kurt Dickson
The conceptualization of this research report (she gives back) started from Mama Cash' encoun... more The conceptualization of this research report (she gives back) started from Mama Cash' encounters, collaborations and partnerships with black, migrant and refugee women's rights activists and organizations in the Netherlands. The information presented in this report is therefore at the crux of two areas of increasing policy and research interest: the role of migrants as philanthropists for social change and the role and contributions of migrant women specifically
Science and Public Policy, 2010
IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, 2012
Failures to consider the ethical aspects of technology development and design have resulted in si... more Failures to consider the ethical aspects of technology development and design have resulted in significant negative impacts on individuals over the last decade. In consequence we have seen the emergence and growing interest in technology design movements such as "value sensitive design" and "privacy by design" aimed at specifically addressing issues of social and ethical impact. However, there is still a long way to go in raising awareness of ethical issues in technology design. This paper presents research undertaken as part of the European co-funded project "EGAIS' which addresses precisely this issue of ethics consideration in technology development. A key component of the awareness raising initiative in technology design is the use of scenarios to prompt thinking across a range of stakeholders, and with this in mind the authors conducted a workshop at this IFIP Summer School using a scenario to stimulate discussion and promote 'context aware' thinking. A summary of the discussions, key points, and suggestions for further work are included here.
Ethical Governance of Emerging Technologies Development
With an increasing focus on the inclusion of considering the ethical and social impact of technol... more With an increasing focus on the inclusion of considering the ethical and social impact of technology developments resulting from research in the European Union, and elsewhere, comes a need for a more effective process in technology development. Current ethics governance processes do not go far enough in enabling these considerations to be embedded in European Union research projects in a way that engages participants in technology development projects. Such a lack of engagement not only creates a distance between the technology developers and ethics (and ethics experts) but also undermines the legitimacy of decisions on ethical issues and outcomes, which in turn has an impact on the resulting innovation and its role in benefitting individuals and society. This chapter discusses these issues in the context of empirical work, founded on a theoretical base, undertaken as part of the EGAIS (Ethical Governance of Emerging Technologies) EU co-funded FP7 project.
London merged in the autumn of 2004 to constitute the School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultur... more London merged in the autumn of 2004 to constitute the School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies. The merger brought together almost 50 registered PhD students in each School. This seemed an ideal opportunity to organise PhD student seminars which would explore the boundaries between the disciplines which had traditionally been represented in the two different Schools of the university. Since October, 2004, therefore, there have been five discrete series of seminars which have attempted to provide a framework within which PhD students can situate their personal research in relation to the research of others and in relation to different intellectual perspectives within the broad field of the Humanities and Social Sciences. These seminars have been framed in slightly different conceptual ways in part to meet the needs of students at different stages in their research, differentiating mainly, for instance, between the initial stage in which a research project is proposed for registration and the subsequent stages in which research is undertaken and findings are prepared for submission. The five series were: the seminars in the context of discussion of the way in which Bourdieu had made use, in Homo Academicus (Bourdieu, 1984, 1988), of Kant's text on the 'Conflict of the Faculties'. The point of Yearbook II is to move on from the symbolic interactionist emphasis of Yearbook I to explore what might be the implications for the production of research of the ways in which historically the boundaries between disciplines have been constructed. My Introduction to Yearbook II represents the case-studies examined in the seminarsespecially the historical production of social research by Mannheim in the immediate post-World War II period in the UK, and then the development of Cultural Studies by the New Left in the 1960s as a form of socio-political critique. The intention is that these two publications will stimulate the production of annual Yearbooks which will represent ongoing dialogue between research students and, through them, between academic discourses.
Professor and researcher in epistemology, philosophy and ethics at ICAM (engineering school) and ... more Professor and researcher in epistemology, philosophy and ethics at ICAM (engineering school) and CETS (Centre for Ethics, Technology and Society) within the Polytechnicum of Lille, France. He has been involved over the past years in several European research projects funded by FP6 and FP7 (The Cultured Engineer, EGAIS) and in one French research project funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (Parthage). His current research areas are: public debates on technical and scientific projects, philosophy of engineering, ethical governance of nanotechnology. He is also an expert for ANSES (French National Agency for Sanitary Safety) on the topic of nanomaterials.
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Talks by Aygen Kurt Dickson
Conference Presentations by Aygen Kurt Dickson
The case study was taken up to be able to look at how the role of 'Blended Professionals' (BPs) is conceptualised in practice, following the work of Celia Whitchurch who was one of the first to introduce this concept.
There are many definitions of what a BP can be and even so many manifestations of them, however, in the context of this case study we have chosen to define BPs as those persons in academia that 1) have received a PhD but have decided to leave the academic profession and have taken up a job in administration or support staff; 2) are engaged in a professional PhD track, expressing the wish to combine both academic and professional work and expertise and/or 3) can be described as 'hybrid researchers', moving between the realms of academic knowledge, on the one hand, and non-academic knowledge, on the other hand. Contextual circumstances and developments in higher education policy, such as the decrease of academic positions combined with an increase in the number of people acquiring a PhD, the increase in the demand of generating societal impact in scientific research and the call upon universities to collaborate with non-academic partners, lead to a steady rise of BPs in nowadays academia. BPs form a group of highly skilled professionals in nowadays academia, but seem nonetheless to have their 'identity' challenged, as they don't fit easily into either an academic or administrative/professional role but they are more likely to be in between the two depending on the job.
The threefold case study consisted of face-to-face semi-structured interviews with a total of 15 respondents. Research questions were related to 1) identity and perception of belonging to either the academic realm or the professional/administrative one, or both; 2) issues of freedom and control; 3) the perception of the unique and indispensable contribution that BPs make to their Higher Education Institutes.
With the session, we aim at not only presenting the results of the case study but also to discuss the outcomes with the audience. Discussion helps us to assess whether the case study findings resonate with the EARMA members (many of them BPs as well) and provides the opportunity to bring the research further in terms of new research questions and new theoretical insights.
Papers by Aygen Kurt Dickson
The case study was taken up to be able to look at how the role of 'Blended Professionals' (BPs) is conceptualised in practice, following the work of Celia Whitchurch who was one of the first to introduce this concept.
There are many definitions of what a BP can be and even so many manifestations of them, however, in the context of this case study we have chosen to define BPs as those persons in academia that 1) have received a PhD but have decided to leave the academic profession and have taken up a job in administration or support staff; 2) are engaged in a professional PhD track, expressing the wish to combine both academic and professional work and expertise and/or 3) can be described as 'hybrid researchers', moving between the realms of academic knowledge, on the one hand, and non-academic knowledge, on the other hand. Contextual circumstances and developments in higher education policy, such as the decrease of academic positions combined with an increase in the number of people acquiring a PhD, the increase in the demand of generating societal impact in scientific research and the call upon universities to collaborate with non-academic partners, lead to a steady rise of BPs in nowadays academia. BPs form a group of highly skilled professionals in nowadays academia, but seem nonetheless to have their 'identity' challenged, as they don't fit easily into either an academic or administrative/professional role but they are more likely to be in between the two depending on the job.
The threefold case study consisted of face-to-face semi-structured interviews with a total of 15 respondents. Research questions were related to 1) identity and perception of belonging to either the academic realm or the professional/administrative one, or both; 2) issues of freedom and control; 3) the perception of the unique and indispensable contribution that BPs make to their Higher Education Institutes.
With the session, we aim at not only presenting the results of the case study but also to discuss the outcomes with the audience. Discussion helps us to assess whether the case study findings resonate with the EARMA members (many of them BPs as well) and provides the opportunity to bring the research further in terms of new research questions and new theoretical insights.