Werner Ulrich's Home Page: Ulrich's Bimonthly Formerly "Picture of the Month" March-April, 2012 Research, Practice, and Research Practice HOME WERNER ULRICH'S BIO PUBLICATIONS READINGS ON CSH DOWNLOADS HARD COPIES CRITICAL SYSTEMS HEURISTICS (CSH) CST FOR PROFESSIONALS & CITIZENS A TRIBUTE TO C.W. CHURCHMAN LUGANO SUMMER SCHOOL ULRICH'S BIMONTHLY (formerly Picture of the Month) COPYRIGHT NOTE A NOTE ON PLAGIARISM CONTACT SITE MAP "Research practice" My writings often are about "research and professional practice," meaning the practice of research and of professional intervention. I am interested in research as a practice, that is, in the question of how practical circumstances shape the ways research is understood and used. Among the practical circumstances in question are the aims researchers pursue; the conditions under which they work (e.g., financial limitations, institutional pressures, and professional standards); the roles and responsibility researchers assume or are expected to assume in different societal and cultural settings; and others. In addition, there is also a deeper, more philosophical (but by no means less influential) dimension of research that I associate with its "practical" side. I often refer to it in my writings as the "other" dimension of reason (or of rationality), the practical-normative dimension of reason, which in my understanding of good research practice must go hand in hand with its usually dominating dimension, the theoretical-instrumental dimension. I have recently dedicated an entire Bimonthly essay to the question of what practical reason is and why it matters: it responds to the normative core of all practice (see Ulrich, 2011b). What is good research practice? All these aspects come together in the central question that interests me in my current work: What is good research practice? The question interests me particularly in "applied" contexts of research such as they are given in scientific advice to politics or research- based professional intervention in general. It then translates into a closely related question: What is good professional practice? The crucial issue remains the same: What does it mean to be proficient or "competent" in the production and use of knowledge or any other form of special expertise? (By expertise I mean all forms of proficiency regardless of whether they are acquired through research training and practice or through other forms of For a hyperlinked overview of all issues of "Ulrich's Bimonthly" and the previous "Picture of the Month" series, see the site map PDF file Previous | Page 1 of 15 Ulrich's Bimonthly 18.02.2012 http://wulrich.com/bimonthly_march2012.html
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Werner Ulrich's Home Page: Ulrich's BimonthlyF o r m e r l y " P i c t u r e o f t h e M o n t h "
March-April, 2012
Research, Practice, and Research Practice
HOME
WERNER ULRICH'S BIO
PUBLICATIONS
READINGS ON CSH
DOWNLOADS
HARD COPIES
CRITICAL SYSTEMS HEURISTICS (CSH)
CST FOR PROFESSIONALS & CITIZENS
A TRIBUTE TO C.W. CHURCHMAN
LUGANO SUMMER SCHOOL
ULRICH'S BIMONTHLY(formerly Picture of the Month)
COPYRIGHT NOTE
A NOTE ON PLAGIARISM
CONTACT
SITE MAP
"Research practice" My writings often are about "research and professional
practice," meaning the practice of research and of professional intervention.
I am interested in research as a practice, that is, in the question of how
practical circumstances shape the ways research is understood and used.
Among the practical circumstances in question are the aims researchers
pursue; the conditions under which they work (e.g., financial limitations,
institutional pressures, and professional standards); the roles and
responsibility researchers assume or are expected to assume in different
societal and cultural settings; and others.
In addition, there is also a deeper, more philosophical (but by no means less
influential) dimension of research that I associate with its "practical" side. I
often refer to it in my writings as the "other" dimension of reason (or of
rationality), the practical-normative dimension of reason, which in my
understanding of good research practice must go hand in hand with its
usually dominating dimension, the theoretical-instrumental dimension. I
have recently dedicated an entire Bimonthly essay to the question of what
practical reason is and why it matters: it responds to the normative core of
all practice (see Ulrich, 2011b).
What is good research practice? All these aspects come together in the
central question that interests me in my current work: What is good research
practice? The question interests me particularly in "applied" contexts of
research such as they are given in scientific advice to politics or research-
based professional intervention in general. It then translates into a closely
related question: What is good professional practice? The crucial issue
remains the same: What does it mean to be proficient or "competent" in the
production and use of knowledge or any other form of special expertise? (By
expertise I mean all forms of proficiency regardless of whether they are
acquired through research training and practice or through other forms of
For a hyperlinked overview of all issues of "Ulrich's
Bimonthly" and the previous "Picture of the Month" series, see the site map
Journal of Research Practice (JRP). I have reported about this initiative in
one of my last Bimonthlies (see Ulrich, 2011c).
To be sure, my work on the notion of good research and professional practice
goes on. In the near future I hope to complete my two uncompleted series of
reflections on "Reflections on reflective practice" (the first essay being
Ulrich, 2008) and on "What is good professional practice?" (the first essay of
which was Ulrich, 2011a), whereby completing the latter is to help me
complete the former. This is how I hope to continue my way, step by step
and with some inevitable detours, towards the long-term vision of a
philosophy for professionals that would be grounded in practical philosophy
and pragmatized through "critical pragmatism" (see Ulrich, 2007b) and in
this way would breathe life into the "new research philosophy" of which I
have been speaking here. It's a long and partly steep way to go, but without
daring to take some small steps at least, no progress can occur. Thanks for
sharing with me the present, small step.
References
Berger, P.L., and Luckmann, T. (1966). The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Checkland, P. (1981). Systems Thinking, Systems Practice. Chichester, UK: Wiley.
Checkland, P. (1985). From optimizing to learning: a development of systems thinking for the 1990s. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 36, No. 9, pp. 757-767.
Checkland, P., and Holwell, S. (2001). Information, Systems, and Information Systems: Making Sense of the Field. Chichester. UK: Wiley.
Checkland, P., and Poulter, J. (2006). Learning for Action: A Short Definitive Account of Soft Systems Methodology and its use for Practitioners, Teachers and Students.Chichester, UK: Wiley.
Checkland, P., and Poulter, J. (2010). Soft systems methodology. In M. Reynolds and S. Holwell (eds.), Systems Approaches to Managing Change: A Practical Guide,London: Springer, in association with The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, pp. 191-242.
Churchman, C.W. (1968a). The Systems Approach. New York: Dell Publishing.
Churchman, C.W. (1968b). Challenge to Reason. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Churchman, C.W. (1971). The Design of Inquiring Systems: Basic Concepts of Systems and Organization. New York: Basic Books.
Churchman, C.W. (1979). The Systems Approach and Its Enemies. New York: Basic Books.
Churchman, C.W., Ackoff, R.L., and Arnoff, E.L. (1957). Introduction to Operations Research. New York: Wiley, and London: Chapman & Hall.
Flood, R.L., and Jackson, M.C. (1991). Creative Problem Solving: Total Systems Intervention. Chichester, UK: Wiley.
Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P., and Trow, S. (1994). The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies. London: Sage.
Jackson, M.C. (1990). Beyond a system of systems methodologies. Journal of the
Ramage, M., and Shipp, K. (eds.) (2009). Systems Thinkers. London: Springer, in association with the Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.
Reynolds M., and Holwell, S. (eds.) (2010). Systems Approaches to Managing Change: A Practical Guide. London: Springer, in association with the Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.
Ulrich, W. (1983). Critical Heuristics of Social Planning: A New Approach to Practical Philosophy. Bern, Switzerland: Haupt (paperback reprint ed., Chichester, UK: Wiley, 1994).
Ulrich, W. (1984). Management oder die Kunst, Entscheidungen zu treffen, die andere betreffen. Die Unternehmung, Schweizerische Zeitschrift für betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung und Praxis, 38, No. 4, pp. 326-346.
Ulrich, W. (1987). Critical heuristics of social systems design. European Journal of Operational Research, 31, No. 3, pp. 276-283.
Ulrich, W. (2000). Reflective practice in the civil society: the contribution of critically systemic thinking. Reflective Practice, 1, No. 2, pp. 247-268.[HTML] http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/14623943.asp (restricted access)[PDF] http://wulrich.com/downloads/ulrich_2000a.pdf (prepublication version).
Ulrich, W. (2003). Beyond methodology choice: critical systems thinking as critically systemic discourse. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 54, No. 4, 2003, pp. 325-342. [HTML] http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jors/journal/v54/n4/ (restricted access)
Ulrich, W. (2006a). Critical pragmatism: a new approach to professional and business ethics. In L. Zsolnai (ed.), Interdisciplinary Yearbook of Business Ethics, Vol. I, Oxford, UK, and Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Academic Publishers, pp. 53-85.
Ulrich, W. (2006b). Rethinking critically reflective research practice: beyond Popper's critical rationalism. Journal of Research Practice, 2, No. 2, Article P1.[HTML] http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/64[PDF] http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/download/64/120
Ulrich, W. (2007a). The greening of pragmatism (i): the emergence of critical pragmatism. (Reflections on critical pragmatism, Part 4). Ulrich's Bimonthly, March-April 2007. [HTML] http://wulrich.com/bimonthly_march2007.html[PDF] http://wulrich.com/downloads/bimonthly_march2007.pdf
Ulrich, W. (2007b). Philosophy for professionals: towards critical pragmatism. Viewpoint, Journal of the Operational Research Society, 58, No. 8, 2007, pp. 1109-1113.[DOI] http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602336 (restricted access)[HTML] http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jors/journal/v58/n8/ (restricted access)
Ulrich, W. (2008). Reflections on reflective practice (1/7): The mainstream concept of reflective practice and its blind spot. Ulrich's Bimonthly, March-April 2008.[HTML] http://wulrich.com/bimonthly_march2008.html[PDF] http://wulrich.com/downloads/bimonthly_march2008.pdf
Ulrich, W. (2011a). What is good professional practice? (Part 1: Introduction). Ulrich's Bimonthly, March-April 2011.[HTML] http://wulrich.com/bimonthly_march2011.html
Ulrich, W. (2011b). What is good professional practice? (Part 2: The quest for practical reason). Ulrich's Bimonthly, May-June 2011.[HTML]http://wulrich.com/bimonthly_may2011.html[PDF] http://wulrich.com/downloads/bimonthly_may2011.pdf
Ulrich, W. (2011c). Towards a taxonomy of research practice. Ulrich's Bimonthly,November-December 2011 (rev. version, 18 Feb 2012).[HTML] http://wulrich.com/bimonthly_november2011.html[PDF] http://wulrich.com/downloads/bimonthly_november2011.pdf
Ulrich, W. (2012a). Operational research and critical systems thinking – an integrated perspective. Part 1: OR as applied systems thinking. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 63 (forthcoming; advanced online publication, 14 Dec 2011).[DOI] http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/jors.2011.141 (restricted access)[HTML] http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jors/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/jors2011141a.html(restricted access)[PDF] http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jors/journal/vaop/ncurrent/pdf/jors2011141a.pdf(restricted access)
Ulrich, W. (2012b). Operational research and critical systems thinking – an integrated perspective. Part 2: OR as argumentative practice. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 63 (forthcoming; advanced online publication, 14 Dec 2011).[DOI] http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/jors.2011.145 (restricted access)[HTML] http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jors/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/jors2011145a.html(restricted access)[PDF] http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jors/journal/vaop/ncurrent/pdf/jors2011145a.pdf(restricted access)).
Ulrich, W., and Dash, D.P. (2011). Introducing a concept hierarchy for the Journal of Research Practice. Journal of Research Practice, 7, No. 2, Article E2.[HTML] http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/279[PDF] (forthcoming).
Ulrich, W., and Reynolds, M. (2010). Critical systems heuristics. In M. Reynolds and S. Holwell (eds.), Systems Approaches to Managing Change: A Practical Guide,London: Springer, in association with The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, pp. 243-292.[PDF] http://oro.open.ac.uk/21299/
Zeeuw, G. de (1992). Soft knowledge accumulation, or the rise of competence. Systems Practice, 5, No. 2, pp. 193-214.[PDF] http://www.springerlink.com/content/q742l674243707pg/fulltext.pdf (restricted access)
Zeeuw, G. de (2001). Three phases of science: a methodological exploration. Systemica, 13(special issue), pp. 433-460. [PDF] http://www.cict.demon.co.uk/threephases01.pdf
Zeeuw, G. de (2005). The acquisition of high quality experience. Journal of Research Practice, 1, No 1, Article M2. [HTML] http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/8/16[PDF] http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/8/15
Zeeuw, G. de (2011) Improving non-observational experiences: channelling and ordering. Journal of Research Practice, 7, No. 2, Article M2. [HTML] http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/273/242[PDF] (forthcoming).
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Picture data Digital photograph taken on 27 April 2010 around 5 p.m. ISO
100, exposure mode aperture priority; aperture f/5.0, exposure time 1/800
seconds, exposure bias -0.70; focal length 64 mm (equivalent to 128 mm
with a conventional 35 mm camera); metering mode center-weighted,
contrast soft, saturation high, sharpness soft. Original resolution 3648 x 2736
pixels; current resolution 700 x 525 pixels, compressed to 140 KB.
„What claims to knowledge mean and how valid they are is a function not just of theory but also of practice – another way to say that it makes sense to understand research as a form of practice.”
(From this Bimonthly reflection)
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Last updated 18 Feb 2012 (first published 18 Feb 2012)http://wulrich.com/bimonthly_march2012.html