November 5, 2015
By Meghan Guidry
How can the political ideologies of American lawyers be
quantifiably measured? What can London’s developmental history teach us about
sustainability and policy-making? And how well do middle school math
initiatives prepare students for college?
These are just a few of the questions being asked by HKS faculty in the Faculty Research Working Paper Series (FRWP), the Kennedy School’s forum for cutting-edge social research in progress. Since its founding in 2001,
the FRWP has published nearly 700
working papers, many of which go on to become books, journal articles, and the
foundations of major research initiatives.
While the scholarship and research evident in these papers
is a boon to the University, the true power of the series is that it
gives researchers the opportunity to share insights on work-in-progress, and to
collaborate with colleagues and stakeholders around the world. This real-time
collaboration helps generate new insights and new hypotheses across the social sciences by engaging scholars,
practitioners, and informed citizens in an ongoing dialogue about the impact of
new research.
Take Professor Maya
Sen, for instance. Her paper “The
Political Ideologies of American Lawyers” was originally published jointly
by the FRWP and the University of
Chicago. Sen’s ambitious paper offered the first comprehensive study of the
political ideologies of American lawyers. But for Sen, getting her
research out into the world was only the beginning. “Very astute readers from
around the world have emailed us with comments and questions. It's been very
productive, very public exchange.” Using reader comments, Sen and her
co-authors further revised “The Political Ideologies of American Lawyers,”
which is now slated for publication in The
Journal of Legal Analysis.
In order to promote new research and scholarship by Kennedy School faculty, the HKS Research
Administration Office, in collaboration with the HKS Office of Communications and Public Affairs, has
been increasing its efforts to bring new readers to the Faculty Research Working Paper Series. Using the @HKS_Research
Twitter handle, the RAO promotes every
new working paper to thousands of followers around the world. Coupled with the
quarterly Social Science Research Network E-Journal, which showcases six HKS
faculty working papers, the RAO hopes to bring even more attention to the
cutting-edge research being generated by the HKS faculty.
For more information
about the working paper series, or other questions about research publications
and dissemination, please contact Meghan Guidry: Meghan_Guidry@hks.harvard.edu
