How Do I Know Thee? Let Me Count the Ways

Jeff Alexander and Patrick Lambe

ReConnect15

2

Propositions

• Communities/institutions classify all the time• Standards proliferate AND compete• Classifications of R&D – univalent or multivalent? Homogeneous and

optimised for purpose or heterogeneous and containing redundancies?• R&D as an ecosystem involving interacting agents/communities and

shared boundary objects• R&D as a value chain/ value cycle – artifacts and interpretations

produced, shared and recycled by many stakeholders at each stage in the value cycle

• How do classifications serve multivalent needs? Is standardization REALLY the way forward?

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Our Environments

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Taxonomy Functions

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R&D as an Ecosystem

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R&D as a Value Cycle

R&D as a Value Cycle

9

Propositions

• Communities/institutions classify all the time• Standards proliferate AND compete• Classifications of R&D – univalent or multivalent? Homogeneous and

optimised for purpose or heterogeneous and containing redundancies?• R&D as an ecosystem involving interacting agents/communities and

shared boundary objects• R&D as a value chain/ value cycle – artefacts and interpretations

produced, shared and recycled by many stakeholders at each stage in the value cycle

How do classifications serve multivalent needs? Is standardization REALLY the way forward?

10

Recommendations• “Deep dive” into decision-making needs of multiple communities

– Policy-makers– Managers & executives– Analysts/assessors– General public

• Understand new classification tools & approaches– Management systems– Machine-based classification– Semantic interoperability

• Derive best practices from successes & failures– Importance of processes as well as products– Taxonomies for communication as well as description

THANK YOU

jeffrey.alexander@sri.complambe@straitsknowledge.com