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 […]
Margaret Atwood: Please Don’t Censor Science Communication
A concern for free expression and respect for science journalism are two themes Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood expounds on in an article in the newest edition of ‘Index on Censorship.’
Weighing the Impact Agenda: Does Knowledge on Its Own Matter?
Academics in the United Kingdom and in Australia interviewed about the impact agenda show fears that the balance between applied and basic knowledge may be tilting too far in one way.
British Sociology and the Conservative Backlash: A Sociology of Sociology More Necessary than Ever
In academic institutions that value hierarchies and compliance and seek to understand scholarship in terms of its economic value, argues our Daniel Nehring, there is little space for a discipline that aims to critically interrogate the intersections of structure and agency and the social production of inequalities.
Can Artificial Intelligence Improve Peer Review and Publishing Itself?
The founder of StateReviewer outlines a future where humans are written out of the publication process by artificial intelligence. But is the goal of eradicating bias and other malignancies potentially opening the door to a new set of ills?
Intolerance Threatens Free Inquiry in India’s Universities
The only way out of the current state of tension for Indian universities, argues political scientists Aftab Alam, is for the institutions to learn to tolerate everything except intolerance.
Three Views on Addressing the ‘Reproducibility Crisis’
A survey by Nature found that 52 percent of researchers believed there was a ‘significant reproducibility crisis’ and 38 percent said there was a ‘slight crisis.’ Here, three experts give their views on the issue.
Not What It Used to Be: Academic Capitalism and Sociological Futures in the UK
Sociology today, argues our Daniek Nehring, is defined by a fundamental contradiction between its everyday labor practices and its imaginary ethos.
March for Science: Should Scientists Engage in Activism?
With science on the defensive for the time being, and the the fear of retribution palpable, the long-standing question of whether scientists should ever become advocates has come into sharper focus.
