Quality and quantity in research policy for nursing.

This paper considers two 'mapping' exercises designed to survey research activity within nursing, midwifery and health visiting as a means of ascertaining current strengths and weaknesses in the research capacity. Interviews with key opinion leaders and stakeholders of research have been and are being conducted. Two vignettes are included here for the range of views they express about research in terms of its strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for building capacity for research. One of the themes to emerge is the dominance of medicine as a reference point for analysis and the extent to which the problems of, and prospects for, nursing are shared with other groups. But an argument that follows from this is that fixing the 'gaze' upon medicine distracts researchers of nursing from looking to other disciplines for support and opportunities for coalition building. Prospects for research in nursing may have more in common with other groups who perceive themselves as being perched on the periphery of the dominant culture and therefore can be analysed within that framework. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]