Research areas and projects

Within this research area, we explore and test the potential in terms of benefits and costs of involving crowds (e.g., members of the public or specific stakeholder groups such as patients in medical research) at different stages of the scientific research process and with different levels of engagement (i.e., from contributory to co-created projects). Completed and ongoing research projects relate to

• Developing a framework for understanding the complementary contributions of crowds, scientists and artificial intelligence in the scientific knowledge production process
• Testing the crowd’s complementary knowledge contributions to generating research questions and related facilitation mechanisms
• Investigating the role of crowds in generating and evaluating scientific research questions and proposals
• Investigating when, how and under which conditions co-creation between crowds of non-professional scientists and professional scientists affects productivity and impact of scientific research
• Analyzing the drivers of continued and recurrent participation of citizens in crowd science projects
• Investigating the role of crowdsourcing for initiating collaborations between science and industry

Recent paper: Beck, S., Brasseur, T., Poetz, M.K., Sauermann, H. (2022). Crowdsourcing research questions in science, Research Policy, 51(4).

Within this research area, we investigate the effects of organizational design on the implementation of different open and collaborative research practices in scientific research institutions, with a view to identifying the relationships between organizational-level factors and scientists’ behavior and determining relevant contingency factors. Completed and ongoing research projects relate to

• Conceptualizing organizational design for openness and collaboration in science
• Exploring relevant organizational design factors that support or block the implementation of open and collaborative research practices in scientific research institutions
• Understanding the role of autonomy vs. control in organizational design for open and collaborative knowledge production in science
• Investigating how organizational design triggers legitimacy building towards open and collaborative research
• Exploring the complementary role of digital infrastructures for facilitating university-industry collaborations

Recent paper: Beck, S., LaFlamme, M., Poetz, M.K. (2022). Organizing for inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration in science: the role of autonomy vs. control. Academy of Management Proceedings, 2022(1).

Within this research area, we study how individual-level factors influence scientists’ and non-scientists’ willingness and ability to engage in open and collaborative research, analyze how processes and outcomes of scientific knowledge production are affected by individual-level determinants and test interventions for facilitating inter- and transdisciplinary collaborations in scientific knowledge production. Completed and ongoing research projects relate to

• Identifying individual-level determinants of effectively co-producing scientific knowledge
• Investigating how the values of scientists affect their willingness to engage in external knowledge sourcing
• Exploring how scientists capture value from scientific knowledge dissemination
• Studying the preferences of innovators related to engaging with scientific knowledge
• Understanding the role and value of building capabilities for openness and collaboration in science
• Testing interventions for facilitating collaborations between scientists and non-scientists
• Exploring the drivers of data reuse in science

Recent paper: LaFlamme, M. Poetz, M.K., Spichtinger D. (2022). Seeing oneself as a data reuser: How subjectification activates the drivers of data reuse in science. PLoS ONE 17(8).

Within this research area, we study how different forms of openness and collaboration affect the outcome of scientific knowledge production with respect to productivity and impact and investigate new forms of assessing the impact of scientific research. Completed and ongoing research projects relate to

• Exploring the role of artificial intelligence for measuring the impact of scientific research
• Developing and testing a new form of measuring the societal impact of scientific research by applying artificial intelligence-based semantic processing
• Assessing the effects of open and collaborative practices to science on outcome and impact of scientific knowledge production

Recent paper: Distel, A., Grimpe, C., Körner, S., Landhäusser, M., Poetz, M.K. (2021). Measuring the innovation impact of scientific research: exploring the potentials of artificial intelligence. Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings, 2021(1).