Graduate Institute of Journalism, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.
Department of Communication and Media Research, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
PLoS One. 2021 May 21;16(5):e0251051. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0251051. eCollection 2021.
Scholars from different theoretical schools have posited that in recent decades, science and society have moved closer together, and the concept of academic engagement has been proposed to capture one part of this approximation empirically. This study analyzes the academic engagement of individual scholars towards politicians, industry representatives and journalists. It uses comprehensive survey data on Swiss professors from all disciplines, all the country's universities and from associated research institutes. It assesses, firstly, the degree to which these professors have professional contacts to journalists, politicians and industry representatives. Secondly, it explains the extent of these contacts, using multi-level modelling that incorporates individual factors as well as organizational and institutional contexts. Our study shows that academic engagement is quite common with strong differences between disciplines. Furthermore, professors with higher academic productivity, positive personal attitude towards communication activities as well as a leadership position have more outside contacts. The gender and nationality of the professors, however, only play a role for some of the contacts with non-scientific actors.
不同理论学派的学者提出，近几十年来，科学和社会越来越紧密地结合在一起，提出学术参与的概念是为了从经验上捕捉这种接近的一部分。本研究分析了个体学者对政治家、业界代表和记者的学术参与。它使用了来自瑞士所有学科的教授、全国所有大学和相关研究所的综合调查数据。它首先评估了这些教授与记者、政治家和业界代表建立专业联系的程度。其次，它使用包含个人因素以及组织和制度背景的多层次模型来解释这些联系的程度。我们的研究表明，学术参与是相当普遍的，不同学科之间存在很大差异。此外，学术产出较高、对交流活动持积极态度以及担任领导职务的教授有更多的外部联系。然而，教授的性别和国籍仅对与非科学行为者的一些联系起作用。
