ABSTRACT
This chapter considers wider tension between research quality and relevance by focusing on the particular case of the Research Councils Co-operative Awards in Science and Engineering (CASE) studentship programme. It suggests that it is also important to consider the process as much as the substantive products of collaborative research. Unlike conventional forms of contract research, which are concerned solely with the production of a discrete research product, CASE also involves a training element. The important effects of collaborative research are not the discrete research findings whose ownership and commercial exploitation are the subject of so much attention in policy circles, but the new roles and relationships that can emerge through the process of engaging in collaborative research. The roles and power relations involved in a collaborative studentship project study can be complex. In practice, the CASE research student can often serve as the bridge between academic supervisors based at the higher education institutions (HEI) and collaborators at the non-academic organisation.
