Blog posts and resources demonstrating the impact of the social and behavioral sciences in policy , society and academe.
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.
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.
Vicky Randall, a political scientist whose research into how marginalized populations – such as women, the aged, and those outside the First World – can and do interact in politics, died on November 22. The emeritus professor of government at Essex University was 74.
COSSA is now seeking nominations for the 2020 COSSA Public Impact Award. If you know of individuals, groups, or organizations that are using social and behavioral science research to affect real change in society, consider nominating them!
Our study, Doing Research Assessment, shows Indonesian policy-making is predominantly informed by research with poor theoretical engagement, with no strong tradition of peer review and with legal threats to academic freedom.
While considerations of the impact of science and the military often focuses on weaponry, social science has also contributed to the lives of the warriors themselves. Here, Leanne Knobloch and Steven Wilson outline four specific contributions on this Veterans’ Day.
Looking back on its most impactful articles of the last 20 years, the American Journal of Medical Quality says, “we can appreciate the advances we have made. … As much as these articles reflect the progress we have made, there is still a great deal of work to be done.’
As part of their impact agenda, universities increasingly promote and train academics to carry out research collaborations across disciplines and with non-academic partners. While this can be impactful, Helen B. Woods argues that attempts to direct research in this way can produce inauthentic collaboration, and suggests an ideas-led approach.
“Many people die without getting a transplant because there aren’t enough organs for the people who need them, living donor organs included. Sometimes, you might love someone enough to give him a kidney but you can’t give a kidney to the person you love, because kidneys have to be very well-matched. Kidney exchange is a way of getting some transplants done, even when patients and their donors are not well matched.”
Remembering criminologist Joan Petersilia who spent her career examining the agencies that conduct U.S. criminal justice, and whose solidly evidence-based work was a major influence in affecting corrections and sentencing reforms.
Rom Harré, a philosopher deeply engaged in critically examining the attributes and vulnerabilities of the social sciences, and who was both an early computational researcher and an incredibly prolific academic author, died October 17 at age 91.
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2019 (commonly known as the Nobel Prize for Economics) has been awarded to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.” Through the award, the Nobel committee recognized both the significance of development economics in the world today and the innovative approaches developed by these three economists.
