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 […]
There’s Life Beyond STEM: A Plea from Australia
Academia has long recognized that wicked problems require cross-disciplinary research approaches, yet Australia’s Science and Research Priorities enthrall mainly STEM researchers. This divide puts academia back into silos: those on the sunny side of funding decisions and those under a constant rain cloud.
Stories and Numbers Should Go Together: Alex Clark on Methods
Methods have never been more pragmatic, more eclectic, and more dynamic than they are today, says Alex Clark, the editor of the International Journal of Qualitative Methods.
Big Questions Require Teams That Step Across Lines
‘Interdisciplinarity lies not above the academy, but in its very foundations,’ say the co-authors of a new report looking at this issue.
Malaria Vaccine – Great Science But What’s the Point?
Bully for the researchers who have developed a vaccine can build resistance against some instances of malaria, says Robert Dingwall. But before the WHO recommends for its adoption, he suggests a harder look at user-centered design and cost-benefit analysis may be in order.
Behavior Routinely on Biomedicine’s Back Burner
The challenge of infusing the social sciences into what are generally viewed as biomedical issues has been a long and difficult one, as the recent WHO report on Ebola demonstrates. Oddly, this lesson has been learned many times before, but keeps getting forgotten.
In Defense of Uni-disciplinarity
Interdisciplinarityfor interdisciplinarity’s sake is fraught, argues Merlin Crossley. We should build bridges linking the tops of silos rather than try to break down silos themselves.
Campaigning for Social Science: Public Sociology and ‘Public Sociologists’
The arrival of a report calling for the British government to better support social science has raised questions about the role, responses and responsibilities of a ‘public sociology.’
White House Seeks Second Slate of Social Science Experts
Pleased with its debut team of social and behavioral scientists working to make federal policy better, the White House is seeking more members for its version of a ‘nudge’ unit. The deadline to apply is April 12.
