Laura

Cruz Castro

I am Research Professor at the Institute of Public Goods and Policies of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC). My research topic is the research system: the set of social, organizational and political structures and processes that influence the production of knowledge. Studying and characterizing the “actors” is important, but what is essential is to analyze their interactions through some key processes. Some of these key processes are career access and promotion, evaluation and research funding, legitimation mechanisms, and organizational reform and adaptation processes. In my projects and throughout over 80 publications, I have made scientific contributions precisely on these connections and interactions between actors within the framework of processes, contributing to the generation of knowledge in various ways. My research has been funded by competitive national and European sources, being the Principal Investigator of 9 research projects and member of the team of more than 25 projects. I have been visiting fellow at the University of Oxford, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Colorado in Denver, Rutgers University and The Arizona State University.

I am currently the PI of the InnDoc Project “Careers of doctorate holders in Spain: sectors of employment, scientific and Innovation outputs and environment”, funded by the State Research Agency (AEI) PDI2023-149135NB-I00.

My findings have called into question the assumption that there are universal criteria or standards for evaluating and determining quality or value. My most recent contributions have delved into the differences by gender and between scientific areas, with important findings related to the interaction with other variables such as quality. My empirical studies have confirmed that there is no significant relationship between mobility (its absence) and scientific productivity in access to a first permanent position in the Spanish university, in the context of retention strategies within internal academic labor markets.

Acknowledging the relevance of the different institutional contexts of research production, I have also contributed to the field with theoretical and empirical research about different types of R&D organizations. I have worked on an institutionalist approach of the adaptation of R&D organizations to their normative and funding environments, based on the degree and type of autonomy that the centers enjoy with respect to the political system, and the researchers within their organizations, the nature individual incentives, and dependence on organizational and collective resources. This has enabled the production of typologies and taxonomies for the empirical testing of the hypotheses. Methodologically, in an area traditionally dominated by descriptive and cross-sectional approaches, I have introduced innovative methodologies and techniques, such as longitudinal event history analysis and field experiments, in order to generate robust knowledge about causal mechanisms.

I have continuously worked with international and national R&D institutions and international organizations in advisory and transfer of knowledge roles. I have collaborated as an expert and served in committees of the OECD, the European Commission, as well as with the Spanish Ministry of Science and some Regional Administrations. I have also collaborated with private foundations in issues related to innovation, research HHRR or the contribution universities to development, like the FECYT, the COTEC foundation, the Foundation La Caixa, or the Foundation CyD.

I am committed with the training of new generations. I have supervised four several doctoral dissertations in the last ten years, and the research training of several students in the more than 6 years that I served as Head of the Department of Science and Innovation of the CSIC Institute of Public Goods and Policies. I have also supported some Ramon y Cajal and Juan de la Cierva fellows in my research group, with whom I have collaborated and who are now engaged in successful professional careers in prestigious academic institutions, and in prominent positions within international bodies. I regularly collaborate with public and private funding agencies in the evaluation of grants and projects applications. I am engaged in public service for the profession in my roles of member of the Advisory Board of the RN 24 of the European Sociological Association, and as a regular peer reviewer for the most relevant academic journals in my field like Research Policy, Science and Public Policy, Research Evaluation, Minerva, Scientometrics, Quantitative Studies of Science, among others.