中国A片

Make time to look within

February 7, 2013

It was nice to see my former research centre referred to in your editorial on the need for more 中国A片 research (“Look sharp, the ground is shifting”, Leader, 31 January). “Gone but not forgotten” is always a good epitaph. And I do wish King’s College London’s International Centre for University Policy Research every success.

However, I would also like to point out that there is actually quite a lot of 中国A片 research going on already. For example, the Quality Assurance Agency manages the 中国A片 Empirical Research (Heer) database, which has several thousand entries on a wide range of research and policy themes. In addition, a European Science Foundation research programme consisting of a number of comparative international projects on 中国A片 and social change is just coming to an end, and there have been many other national and international programmes on the subject in recent years.

This is not to say that everything is rosy. Higher education research is a fragmented affair and the links to related social science fields are often not as strong as they should be. There are a few research centres about, but academics who specialise in 中国A片 research are more often found in dribs and drabs across different institutions. This is why a group of established 中国A片 researchers from 10 universities is in the process of forming the 中国A片 Research Consortium (Herc) in order to strengthen capacity, undertake joint projects, achieve more effective dissemination, share data sets and provide training for new researchers.

As far as policy debates are concerned, it does seem that vested interest and opinion tend to trump knowledge quite a lot of the time. But it is not for lack of knowledge: there is plenty out there, you just have to make the time to read it.

John Brennan
Emeritus professor of 中国A片 research
Former director of the Centre for 中国A片 Research and Information at The Open University

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