It’s hoped open peer review could improve the speed and quality of reviews, but, not all academics are comfortable with open peer review and remain fearful of their comments and views being subject to public scrutiny. Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva argues this may prevent the open review system from being truly inclusive.

In ‘How to be a Happy Academic: A Guide to Being Effective in Research, Writing and Teaching,’ Alex Clark and Bailey Sousa aim to support fellow academic workers at all career stages to become more efficient, successful and happier through focusing on fostering good habits over and above talent or skills. Eddy Li welcomes this insider perspective on seeing, doing and – most importantly – taming academic work, even if it leaves open the question of how exactly we measure and define “success”.

In launching its first-ever task force report on Monday, the 95-year-old Social Science Research Council made clear it gets by with a little help from its friends. Collaboration, said sociologist Alondra Nelson Nelson, the president of the SSRC, is the byword of the report, To Secure Knowledge: Social Science Partnerships for the Common Good.

A new process developed by Princeton’s Matthew Salganik for reviewing academic manuscripts allows the world at large to examine and weigh in on a book at the same time the manuscript is undergoing peer review.

As Brexit Britain appears headed straight for a chaotic exit from the European Union, its universities are raising questions about their future with growing alarm. The consequences which post-Brexit nationalism will have for universities, students, and scholars are hardly being discussed at all.

Arbitrary choices –all those political considerations that twist and constrain scholarship without adding to it in intellectually meaningful ways — are rife in contemporary academic sociology, says our Daniel Nehring. Tired of trying to pointlessly argue against them in hopes they disappear, he asks that we make these choices explicit and visible.

Graduate research candidates are the powerhouse of research in universities, yet many have reported feelings of isolation, burnout, and career uncertainty. Karen Barry reports on a study of Australian research candidates which found that increasing numbers are suffering from heightened levels of depression, anxiety, and stress, often citing reasons related to academia’s general work processes, such as writing or publishing research or maintaining motivation while working alone on a single topic.

The literature review is a staple of the scholarly article. But when reviews misrepresent previous studies or suggest there’s a paucity of information when there isn’t, doesn’t,this degrade the knowledge base? Richard P. Phelps argues that, given the difficulty of verifying an author’s claims during peer review, it is best that journals drop the requirement for a literature review in scholarly articles.

Drawing on their new SAGE book for students and academics “How to be a Happy Academic,” Alex Clark and Bailey Sousa share strategies for successful student-supervisor meetings.

A report from the National Association of Scholars takes on the reproducibility crisis in science. Not everyone views the group’s motives as pure.

Anthropologist and sociologist Mariya Ivancheva has viewed modern higher education from a number of global perches, whether in Eastern Europe or South Africa, the strapped Bolivarian University of Venezuela, and in Ireland and the UK. Her vantages have left her no fan of the neoliberal reforms — or perhaps, ‘reforms’ — that characterize western-influences higher education.

In this second of a series of interviews conducted by Social Science Space’s Daniel Nehring, Ewan Mackenzie explains why he joined the May 4 ‘Reclaiming’ event at Newcastle, discusses hallmarks of the modern academic institutions and details some of the events that lead him to believe in both resilience and resistance.