Author: Professor Creso Sá

Patricia Gaviria chaired the panel discussion ‘Methodological and research developments in comparative education’ and presented her paper entitled From contextual comparison methodology to methods: Doing research in Nunavut and Greenland at the 56th Annual Conference of the Comparative and international Education Society (CIES) in April. In this paper she discusses how contexts shape methods from the moment the literature is chosen to the time findings are written. The presentation was a reflection of her research: Self-determination and Postsecondary Education: The Inuit in Nunavut and Greenland. Under the supervision of Creso Sá, this research receives support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

In April, Andrew Kretz presented findings from research conducted with Creso Sá and Merli Tamtik on the use of evidence and expertise in major research funding agencies at the 2012 Annual Conference of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES).  In the presented paper, The Role of Research Funding Agencies: Expertise and Evidence in Program Design, authors Creso Sá, Merli Tamtik, and Andrew Kretz reveal processes of evidence-use at major research funding agencies in the United States, Canada, and the European Union, and provide a conceptual orientation for understanding how these agencies design, implementation, and review research funding programs and supported projects.

In April, Merli Tamtik presented findings from research conducted with Creso Sá on European Union research policy at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the Biennial Conference of the European Community Studies Association – Canada (ECSA-C).

The American Educational Research Association (AERA) held its Annual Meeting in Vancouver, BC, April 13-17, 2012. This year’s conference theme “Non Satis Scire: To Know Is Not Enough” emphasizes the importance of active use of educational research for improving educational policies. Merli Tamtik presented a research paper “Policy Learning in the European Union’s Research Policy “, co-authored with Creso Sá that focuses on examining policy learning as a tool for policy change. The paper demonstrates that policy learning is a long-term process with immediate outcomes at the individual level and only secondary policy implications at the country or European policy-making level.

The European Community Studies Association – Canada (ECSA-C) had its Biennial Conference in Ottawa, ON, in April 26-28, 2012. The conference brought together scholars investigating EU related issues in public policy and beyond. Merli Tamtik was provided a graduate student travel grant to attend the conference and present her research paper co-authored with Creso Sá “Policy Learning and Enhancing EU’s Research Policies: Expectations and Implications” as part of a panel focusing on the Integration of Innovation and Human Capital in the New Knowledge Economies of Europe.

In late 2011, Amy Lemay was awarded a Mitacs Accelerate internship. From January to April 2012, Amy will be working with the Consortia Advancing Standards in Research Administration Information (CASRAI) to explore questions related to the ways in which policy and practice decisions are informed and how research can be linked to its uses. CASRAI will use the results of this research to improve its evolving catalogue of data elements for measuring the societal impact of research. for more information on this project, see the full project description in the Projects section.