The National Science Foundation (NSF) will be accepting applications for the Science and Technology Studies (STS) Program. With an estimated program funding of 6,200,000 (to be awarded among 40 different researchers), this is an opportunity worth considering.

Over the last three decades randomized trials have become an increasingly popular way of testing interventions designed to address developmental challenges. But do RCTs generate reliable results – or even retard progress?

The higher education system rests on the principle of meritocracy, with entry into the ‘top’ Russell Group universities supposedly the product of ability. This is despite growing attention to the over-representation of independent school students studying at the ‘top’ universities, with state school students and disadvantaged groups less likely to secure admission.

Benedikt Fecher and Sascha Friesike present the first chapter of a work in progress and invite readers to contribute to a larger collaborative writing project seeking to reframe the way we currently think about research impact.

Universities in effect, argues our Robert Dingwall, are asked to exercise all the responsibilities of parents and to act as a secular equivalent of the medieval church as the conscience of the nation.

Brexit seems likely to extend the hostility of the UK immigration system to scholars from European Union countries — unless a significant change of migration politics and prevalent public attitudes towards immigration politics took place in the UK. There are no indications that the latter will happen anytime soon.

Rupert Brown, the biographer of Henri Tajfel, talks about the pioneering explorer of prejudice in this Social Science Bites podcast. Brown reviews the roots of Tajfel’s research arising from the Holocaust, and the current repercussions of Tajfel’s personal misdeeds.