Mayra has been part of our sister project R/quest since 2020, which she joined after finishing her doctoral studies at the University of Manchester. In her PhD thesis, Mayra explored the effects of Conacyt's Scholarship Programme, an international mobility policy that sponsors Mexican citizens' advanced scientific training in the best foreign universities.
During her PhD, Mayra was involved in research projects that enriched her academic experience by learning new methodologies and exploring novel research questions. She also taught several undergraduate courses at Manchester Business School and collaborated in research consultancy projects with non-academics.
Mayra's research interests revolve around science, technology, and innovation policy, particularly the dynamics between scientific research and policy, research quality, research evaluation, and research impact. Scientific mobility is another of her interests, along with the changes in scientific careers.
Gemma is an Associate Professor (Higher Education) at the Centre for Higher Education Transformations (CHET) at the University of Bristol.
Gemma’s research focuses on the political of knowledge production and its evaluation, especially through peer review processes and national audit frameworks. She also examines the dynamics of research culture as a global exercise including measurements of scientific and societal impact, and the interplay with considerations of excellence and issues of equity and diversity.
At OSIRIS she is working with colleagues to address the following questions; (1) The interplay between funding councils and their peer review processes in negotiated and standardised evaluation of research excellence. (2) Modelling evaluation decision-making paradigms within peer review panels. (3) The role of evaluation systems in a post COVID-19 research recovery.