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.
With the advent of the new Research on Research Institute, our Robert Dingwall notes that while research on research fills a gap in the world of knowledge. However, it is important not to confuse it with the research enterprise itself or to assume that this will benefit from being made so planned, rational and evidence-based that the result is to squeeze innovation out of the system.
As part of a SAGE project to demonstrate, measure and promote this impact, we’re looking for short write-ups from members of the social science community that we can share widely to make the case that our disciplines routinely provide knowledge that can be used to improve the human condition.
Oscar Williams recounts his experience traveling to the Houses of Parliament with Sense about Science’s “Evidence Week” initiative.
Drawing on a study of Crossref DOI data, Martin Eve finds evidence to suggest that the current standard of digital preservation could fall worryingly short of ensuring persistent accurate record of scholarly works. To feel able to contribute to climate action, researchers say they need to know what actions to take, how their institutions will support them and space in their workloads to do it. A longitudinal research project project covering 31 villages in rural South Africa has led to groundbreaking research in many fields, including genomics, HIV/Aids, cardiovascular conditions and stroke, cognition and aging. By carefully interrogating the system of economic incentives underlying innovations and how technologies are monetized in practice, we can generate a better understanding of the risks, both economic and technological, nurtured by a market’s structure. You’ve likely heard the hype around artificial intelligence, or AI, but do you find ChatGPT genuinely useful in your professional life? A free course offered by Sage Campus could change all th Euan Adie, founder of Altmetric and Overton and currently Overton’s managing director, answers questions about the outsized impact that SBS makes on policy and his work creating tools to connect the scholarly and policy worlds.
EXPLORE
Impact
Digital Scholarly Records are Facing New Risks
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Survey Suggests University Researchers Feel Powerless to Take Climate Change Action
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Three Decades of Rural Health Research and a Bumper Crop of Insights from South Africa
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Innovation
To Better Forecast AI, We Need to Learn Where Its Money Is Pointing
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Free Online Course Reveals The Art of ChatGPT Interactions
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Why Social Science? Because It Makes an Outsized Impact on Policy
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