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 […]
Do We Value Unfunded Research Properly?
Unfunded research takes time and money for already stretched academics. Yet it makes up over a quarter of all research carried out in British universities. Rosalind Edwards spoken to academics about why they do unfunded research.
Kathy Charmaz, 1939-2020: Developer of Constructivist Grounded Theory
Sociologist Kathy Charmaz, whose experience as an occupational therapist led her to develop a new take on the qualitative research methodology known as grounded theory, died of cancer on July 27. A professor emerita at Northern California’s Sonoma State University, she was 80.
Impact in Action: Relational Learning to Serve Non-Reading Adults
Lynn Thigpen’s institutional review board asked whether she intended to research a vulnerable population, but they said nothing about the impact of interviewing on her own vulnerable heart and soul. So the former laboratory scientist acquired a new skill – qualitative research and listening for the important immeasurables.
Social Science ‘Spinouts,’ An Underappreciated Pathway to Impact?
One means of fixing and making ideas tangible, often scorned and neglected in the social sciences, but widely used in STEM, are spinouts. For universities, a spinout is a company formed on the basis of intellectual property from a university or research institute.
Why the h-index is a Bogus Measure of Academic Impact
Although experts in bibliometry have pointed out the dubious nature of the h-index, most researchers do not always seem to understand that its properties make it a far-from-valid index to seriously and ethically assess the quality or scientific impact of publications.
Why Social Science? Because We Will Need to Do Better in the Next Crisis
Without research in social, organizational, and behavioral sciences, argues John Haaga, as serious as the investment in biomedical research, the United States may be no better off when the next acute crisis hits.
Might Commercializing Social Science Be a Road to Impact?
As the world emerges from the COVID-19 lockdown many opportunities have arisen to rethink how and for whom our societies operate. In this post, Julia Black argues that social sciences can play a unique role in the post-COVID-19 recovery by forging new relationships with business and commerce and outlines how initiatives, such as the Aspect network, are seeking to bridge the divide between the social sciences and business.
A Giant in Mentoring Political Leaders: Lucius Barker, 1928-2020
Political scientist Lucius Barker, a pioneering African-American academic whose influence in fields like constitutional law and civil liberties has been amplified by the high-profile leaders he mentored, died on June 21. He was 92.
