Could Distributed Peer Review Better Decide Grant Funding?
The landscape of academic grant funding is notoriously competitive and plagued by lengthy, bureaucratic processes, exacerbated by difficulties in finding willing reviewers. Distributed […]
Why Chan and Zuckerberg Cannot Cure All Diseases
We often use the metaphor of a war to describe the human struggle against disease. This is a very unhelpful way of thinking, because it generates the sort of hubris exemplified by the Chan Zuckerberg program.
The Stern Review of the REF – An Economist Against Markets!
In an effort to prevent ‘gaming’ the REF, new recommendation from Lord Stern cuts down on the freedom of academics to move from institution as they see fit. Is the cure worse than the disease?
Brexit: Well-Behaved Liberals Seldom Change History
As Ian McBride has commented in The Guardian, one of the strange features of Britain’s EU referendum is the resignation with which […]
Britain and Europe: Tragedy or Farce?
The result of the second UK referendum on membership of the European Union appeared immediately as a tragedy, says Robert Dingwall. It has rapidly degenerated into a farce, which may yet have tragic consequences.
Response to Nehring: What’s the Point of British Sociology?
Rebutting Daniel Nehring’s recent post asking if sociology still matters in Britain, Robert Dingwall responds that sociology does have a good story to tell about itself, even in the age of austerity.
Zika – What Are the Real Lessons from Ebola?
Another disease in the tropics has the World Health Organisation in a lather, and again biomedicine’s response will not be all that useful in the short term. Social science can help now to address the underlying problems that help the Zika virus to spread — if policymakers will listen.
Common Rule Revision – The Ethics Police Fight Back
Revisions to the U.S. government’s regulations on ethical treatment of human research subjects that would exempt some experiments from direct oversight by institutional review boards are facing pushback from paternalistic guardians, says our Robert Dingwall, who don’t seem to believe subjects are competent to make decisions on their own.
Deregulating Social Science Research Ethics – Clipping the Wings of IRBs?
The Federal Register is surely not everybody’s bedtime reading. It is where the US Government formally publishes certain official documents, including advance […]
