Research

My first experience as a graduate student in UC Davis’ political science department is now nearly 16 years ago.  In a lot of ways it was an eye opener for me because the culture of research coming from a teaching college was very different.

Political science in the research areas is not the study of politics; rather it is a study of political systems and political actors.  Critics might be stunned at how apolitical the field is in most ways because the focus is on hard quantitative research, where statistical analysis and complicated mathematical models dominate the leading journals, and methods dominate over outcomes.

She writes, “The steadfast support of the state of California has been a foundation of our success, and the university in turn has educated generations of California residents and been an engine of economic development.”

In January of 2009, UC Davis announced that the Chevron Corporation had given UC Davis $2.5 million to create a permanent leadership position for the campus’s Energy Efficiency Center.

UC Davis’ then-Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef, speaking at the event, announced, “Chevron’s endowment will ensure long-term strategic leadership for the Energy Efficiency Center. By bridging long-term research with real-world applications, the director will guide the center in its goal of commercializing groundbreaking technologies, powering economic progress and helping to conserve resources.”

Last week, the UC Davis released results from the Washington Advisory Group (WAG), analyzing its research portfolio and its strengths and weaknesses.  The university spent over a quarter million on this report, which, while hopeful, was quite critical of the university, calling to task the culture of the university as “risk-averse, modest, and insular.”

We know from local discussions in city politics that the city has looked to forge partnerships with the university to bring in high-tech spinoffs, but the report hit on this as a university problem, as well.  According to the report, “relationships with industry on research or joint programs were frowned upon by former administrations as counter to what a university is all about. As a consequence, collaborative programs with industry are new to Davis and are in response to government agency requirements or suggestions.”

Doctoral Candidate and former UC Davis (UCD) nurse researcher Janet Keyzer has filed a lawsuit against the Regents of the University of California, alleging that she and her husband were terminated from their employment at UC Davis after Ms. Keyzer reported research violations.

According to the suit filed on September 18, Ms. Keyzer began working within the Community Oriented Pain Management Exchange (COPE) in April 2006, which was created to evaluate pain diagnosis and treatment at California State Prisons. It was a federally-funded collaborative effort between UCD, the California Department of Corrections (CDC), and the Correctional Medicine Network at UC San Francisco (UCSF).