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 […]
Meet Dinglebat, P. Brain and Nutter: The Academics in Kid’s Picture Books
Academics in children’s picture books tend to be elderly, old men, who work in science, called Professor SomethingDumb. Michelle Terras argues it matters if children are shown that researchers are male, mad and muddleheaded.
A Sheepskin Isn’t the Same as a Balance Sheet
The generation of knowledge by professors. The transformative conversations that happen outside of the classroom. The advancements in our understanding of society. How can you put a value on any of these things?
Where is UK Government Getting Its Research?
Anyone under the impression that universities are the dominant suppliers to the United Kingdom government of commissioned research, advice, and knowledge, think again. Open data on government spending shows the relative dominance of other suppliers and mediators of knowledge to government – not least the private sector and think tanks. Simon Bastow presents some preliminary government-wide data.
In UK, Fewer Researchers Supported But More Research
Jane Tinkler breaks down the key findings from the UK government report on the impact of research council funding over the last year. With income cuts playing a significant role, the number of principal investigators and research fellowships with research council funding have both gone down–even as the remainder’s output has gone up.
Wanna Turn Heads in Washington? Here’s How
A survey of White House advisers from three administrations reveals that what they want from researchers is less options than opinions, and less journal citations than citations by journalists.
Embed With Our Enemies: Making Process Itself a Calling Card
While academic social science is extremely effective at generating public value, it is less adept at communicating this value. Sam Baars believes researchers should reflect on the ways in which social value is created not just from the findings of our research, but also the way in which it is conducted. He pushes for the adoption of a more ‘embedded’ approach to research which involves working more closely with the public, and public institutions, at a local level.
Include Me In: Social Sciences and the Innovation Deficit
With a little more wiggle room in the U.S. budget this year, proponents of strong federal support for R&D and higher education are trying to get their message out about America’s lagging innovation. Social science and the STEM fields are making common cause in the campaign.
How to Carefully Choose Useless Titles for Academic Writing
An informative title for an article or chapter maximizes the likelihood that your audience correctly remembers enough about your arguments to re-discover what they are looking for. Without embedded cues, your work will sit undisturbed on other scholars’ PDF libraries, or languish unread among hundreds of millions of other documents on the Web. That must be what what we want, based on on what we do.
