Sofie Kobayashi

Sustainable veterinary medical practices in organic farming: a global perspective

Livestock production systems are the focus area of this chapter, where the prospects for an organic approach to veterinary treatment and disease control are discussed in particular. We have taken a case presentation approach to this topic by selecting some widely different farming systems to represent different challenges and opportunities for using and reducing veterinary medical products, as well as developing disease prevention and health-promoting strategies that meet the ideas of organic animal husbandry. The major challenge in organic livestock production systems is to ‘think the organic principles’ into a wide range of diverse systems under a wide range of circumstances and conditions, including systems which are not certified as ‘organic’ at the moment. We recommend that developing organic animal husbandry at all times requires a thorough analysis of the problems, opportunities and existing knowledge. All organic systems should allow animals to perform their natural behaviour as far as possible, and naturalness is an important principle also of organic livestock farming. We consider various organic approaches to breeding for disease resistance (use of indigenous breeds), the role of vaccination, traditional medicine and alternatives to biomedical treatments and other approaches to disease management. We have given particular emphasis on the need for a reduction in the use of antimicrobial veterinary drugs, as we can see some potential for a reduction of dependency on veterinary medicine, and – when successful – the associated problems of drug residues and resistance. The potential for the control of vector-borne diseases in the development of organic systems in tropical areas is also included in the discussion. In North Europe and large areas of the north-western world, production diseases related to high yield and performance dominate, whilst in the tropical regions the risk of infectious and epidemic diseases is a greater concern. The development of organic farming must always be careful not to threaten local and regional disease control programmes, particularly where the diseases are zoonotic in nature, are highly infectious or are of widespread economic importance, e.g Rinderpest and foot and mouth disease. According to experiences from the USA and Europe, effectiveness of organic approaches to health management are not always immediate. Whole communities can benefit from implementing and organizing an organic approach to disease prevention, e.g. in the case of communal grazing systems.

Coaching doctoral students – a means to enhance progress and support self-organisation in doctoral education

ABSTRACT In this paper we focus on individual coaching carried out by an external coach as a new pedagogical element that can impact doctoral students’ sense of progress in doctoral education. The study used a mixed-methods approach in that we draw on quantitative and qualitative data from the evaluation of a project on coaching doctoral students. We explore how coaching can contribute to the doctoral students’ development of a broad set of personal competences and suggest that coaching could work as a means to engender self-management and improve relational competences. The analysis of the participants’ self-reported gains from coaching show that doctoral students experience coaching as an effective method to support the doctoral study process. This study also provides preliminary empirical evidence that coaching of doctoral students can facilitate the doctoral study process so that the doctoral students experience an enhanced feeling of progress and that they can change their study behaviour in a positive direction. The study discusses the difference between coaching and supervision, for instance power imbalances and contrary to earlier research into coaching of doctoral students this study indicates that coaching can impact the supervisor–student relationship in a positive way.

Opportunities to learn scientific thinking in joint doctoral supervision

Research into doctoral supervision has increased rapidly over the last decades, yet our understanding of how doctoral students learn scientific thinking from supervision is limited. Most studies are based on interviews with little work being reported that is based on observation of actual supervision. While joint supervision has become widely used, its learning dynamics remains under-researched and this paper aims to address these gaps in research by exploring learning opportunities in doctoral supervision with two supervisors. The study explores how the tensions in scientific discussion between supervisors can become learning opportunities. We combine two different theoretical perspectives, using participation and positioning theory as a sociocultural perspective and variation theory as an individual constructivist perspective on learning. Based on our analysis of a complex episode we suggest that multiple supervisors can add value to supervision through authentic practice of scientific argumentation.

Building academic staff teaching competencies: How pedagogic continuous professional development for academic staff can be organised and developed in research-intensive universities

The quality of teaching and the pedagogical development of teaching staff is a key issue in higher education. However, university faculty, particularly in research-intensive universities, mostly identify themselves as researchers, and this understanding will to a large degree be supported and reinforced by the universities influenced by league tables based on research performance. While many universities are recognising the importance of a focus on improving teaching, the general value system—from hiring requirements to promotion criteria—and the whole institutional culture still revolve around research. Research is the hard currency and within such a framework teaching competence development will always be difficult to put high on the agenda, be it the agenda of the individual teacher or the university itself. The current chapter considers how two universities—the University of Copenhagen and the University of Edinburg—are responding to this challenge. In the case studies offered, key factors that influence policy and practice with respect to teaching within the institutions are identified, along with their strategies to systematically build teaching competence.