One alternative health device! A methodological proposal to analyze research projects’ orientation towards national health problems

ABSTRACTIn this paper, we present a device to generate assessment tools for research projects oriented to collaborate with national health problems. We made use of the Stokes’ model (1997) for knowledge production as an analytical framework that shows the interaction between two dimensions: the consideration of use and the search of fundamental knowledge. We made an explicit effort to incorporate the social participation in science as a complementary dimension to scientific knowledge production, to generate a device based on the Stokes’ model. When operationalizing it, we presented a set of orienting scales that are useful when dealing with the complex task of generating research projects’ assessment tools. We conclude that methodological proposals for research evaluation are much needed and that devices like this should be taken as a part of human decision-making processes, not as a substitute for them.