Answering questions and questioning answers

摘要

To clarify and expand upon the above editorial title, let me first cite a sentence from my editorial in BEPAM 7.2: "One task that I have found interesting as an Editor, is to identify and map the linkages between the themes covered in an issue (and indeed, at times, across issues), so as to demonstrate potential synergies and even trigger cross-cutting research questions that may inspire subsequent R&D exercises and useful findings". Moving on from that observation in Issue 7.2: the initial answers to any research questions would of course need testing and validation; and in the special cases of the aforementioned wider theme-straddling questions, the answers may need to be "questioned" even more rigorously, i.e. critiqued from all possible perspectives, "double-tested" and refined if needed, before any validation.