The Common European Research Information Format (CERIF) is an institution that was formed putting in mind the fact that most nation-states retain publicly supported research programmes. Due to the realization that public sponsorship of development and research leads to creation of wealth and improvement in the quality of life, it has become paramount that nations share information on research. Since there’s involvement of public funding, it is necessary that appropriate governance be in place and also for the information to be availed publicly thus helping making the sharing of information vital to each and every country. This background plays a crucial role in the presentation of this argument. In this paper, the points to be presented are in support of the claim, thereby showing how important sharing of research information between nations is (Jeffery, 2010).
The very first thing will be an explanation of the known fact that research is international. That is to say that a research undertaking in a country is likely based on previous research as seen in other nations. Next will be a description of how the knowledge of the research activity is in a certain country A may affect the research strategy together with priorities and resources made available for country B. This is with a view in building a strong ground in support of the topic. Finally, a look into the challenges this process of sharing research information among nations will wrap up the position paper. The conclusion will cover a feature of globalization in relation to information sharing among nations of the world (Samuels, 2010).
There’s a lot of proof to show that research is international. Familiar models of trans-national research projects comprise climate change, the human genome and others that utilize expensive infrastructure like space science and particle physics. Every nation state has a similar process of research. This entails strategic planning, programme announcement, call for proposals, proposals’ evaluation and awarding, monitoring project result and exploiting it.
Jeffery (2010) asserts that it is necessary that research information is shared across nations. The research strategy, priorities and resources committed for a research activity in country B might be influenced by the mere knowledge of the research activity taking place in country A . Research information in this case is put into use by the media, researchers, research strategists, brokers and research managers. For example researchers might use it to track business competitors to get partners and form mergers or collaborations. The public also takes a lot of interest in such information.
Research sharing in one way or the other has not been a good idea because at the end there is a negative impact to one of the sharing countries or institutions. Example of negative impacts that comes out after sharing research is unsuspected breakdowns of information shared among the partners in research work and also differences in implementations of symbols shared not being recognized and relevant ideas not shared; communication barriers with no trust in each other. Access by different people to research information has been established as one of the powers behind enhanced such as political, economic and cultural in various nations. Inadequate information or even inability to access such information is bound to cause stunted progress or even fail. Normally, research is designed with the hope of solving a particular existent problem; it thus helps us in decision making as it helps people who would otherwise decision making without gathered information base their decisions on such information (Jeffery, 2010).
Every tide has ebb so they say. In such areas as Information and Communication Technology, certain parts of the world view it in a different kind of light, for example in Africa. It is alleged that the ICT activities participated in by Africa normally expose it to uncontrolled exploitation. Samuels (2010) states that the continent thus fails to share its own information and also knowledge. A nation’s native communities take part in research by providing data but receive no relevant feedbacks. In certain cases, feedbacks are offered to the indigenous people but they are highly sophisticated and technical to be easily applied. Also in developed countries like U.S.A and others compete in several ways thus making it hard to partner with others due to prestige over sophisticated research tools and when they participate in joint research definitely information will not be shared equally amongst the countries doing the research.
Sharing research information among nations has a number of shortcomings but too insignificant as compared to the importance. In cases of information and knowledge gaps, a situation of the deepening of poverty levels would hit the people especially due to failed interventions (Samuels, 2010). Sharing research information can sometimes benefit or harm participants but the dangers are more than the benefits or advantages.
Globalization is one very achievable goal as long as nations share research information among them. Generally in the world, to date, the most globalized activities concern knowledge access and sharing. The world is basically a “global village” courtesy of advances in research and information sharing among nations. Through it the less developed countries will have access to modern research tools and be educated in new ways on doing research thus securing trust amongst the countries. In addition to that they will learn new skills in conducting research making it easier to get information while in the field. To conclude sharing research and information requires some set rules to ensure that the countries doing it are safe from any risk and they both benefit from it.
