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A New Era in Focus Group ResearchReflections on Outsourcing and Applying for Funding

A New Era in Focus Group Research: Reflections on Outsourcing and Applying for Funding [In agencies aiming at formulating recommendations to policymakers, such as the Belgian Health Care Knowledge Centre (KCE), data collection – especially in qualitative methods – is often outsourced to academic teams or private companies, consultants, commercial agencies or research consultancies. This chapter focuses on comparing the approach to using focus groups taken by academic and non-academic research teams. More specifically it assesses: (i) the kind of expertise they bring to bear in responding to tenders; (ii) their skills with regard to working in several languages (important in a multi-lingual country such as Belgium); (iii) the proposed cost; (iv) their scientific approach; (v) their capacity to recruit participants; and (vi) their analysis and reporting skills. They were found to differ with regard to their specific strengths. Such collaboration takes time and requires a pragmatic focus (i.e. developing policy recommendations) rather than a theoretical focus. Thus, academic teams should not seek funding to pursue their own fundamental research, while non-academic teams would be well-advised to include a topic expert in their team.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A New Era in Focus Group ResearchReflections on Outsourcing and Applying for Funding

Editors: Barbour, Rosaline S.; Morgan, David L.
Kohn, Laurence; Christiaens, Wendy
Springer Journals — Jun 24, 2017
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23 pages

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Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Copyright
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017. The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
ISBN
978-1-137-58613-1
Pages
35 –58
DOI
10.1057/978-1-137-58614-8_3
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[In agencies aiming at formulating recommendations to policymakers, such as the Belgian Health Care Knowledge Centre (KCE), data collection – especially in qualitative methods – is often outsourced to academic teams or private companies, consultants, commercial agencies or research consultancies. This chapter focuses on comparing the approach to using focus groups taken by academic and non-academic research teams. More specifically it assesses: (i) the kind of expertise they bring to bear in responding to tenders; (ii) their skills with regard to working in several languages (important in a multi-lingual country such as Belgium); (iii) the proposed cost; (iv) their scientific approach; (v) their capacity to recruit participants; and (vi) their analysis and reporting skills. They were found to differ with regard to their specific strengths. Such collaboration takes time and requires a pragmatic focus (i.e. developing policy recommendations) rather than a theoretical focus. Thus, academic teams should not seek funding to pursue their own fundamental research, while non-academic teams would be well-advised to include a topic expert in their team.]

Published: Jun 24, 2017

Keywords: Outsourcing; Commercial teams; Policy context

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