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 […]
The Power of Nunchi and the Making of a Self-Help Fad
With a little luck, nunchi — billed as ‘the Korean secret to happiness,’ might just become the next mindfulness, spawning a decade-defining self-help trend and sparking a lasting media debate.
Analysis: Indonesia Needs Quality Research to Inform Policy-Making
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.
Why Faith in Science Is Critical: Five Questions for Naomi Oreskes
Science journalist Hope Reese speaks with Naomi Oreskes, author of the new book ‘Why Trust Science?’ about how to trust science that may conflict with our moral or religious values and what we can do to prevent bias in scientific communities, and methodological fetishism, among other topics.
The Perils of Industry Funded Research
Funders from private industry — which represent two-thirds of funding in medical research, for example — can go great lengths to suppress the publication of findings which appear unfavorable. How can academic freedom be protected with this monumental funding shift?
More Must be Done to Preserve the Freedom to Research
I had no reservations about conducting research in the UAE. And I underwent a rigorous ethical and fieldwork assessment and was sure to follow established protocols before and during my trip. Yet I was imprisoned for nearly seven months …
Defending Increasingly Threatened Academic Freedoms Globally
Academic freedom is under threat everywhere. Not only do some countries perpetrate direct attacks on students and scholars. But the internationalization of higher education has also created new global threats for both scholars and students. Here is how to defend academic freedom.
If Academic Freedom is Suppressed There, How Do We Act Here?
New bans and restrictions of research and teaching on topics such as constitutionalism and civil society have impeded independent scholarship in China. How should universities and academics outside of China react?
Social Precognition and Sociology: The Case of Resistentialism and ANT
In the last 20 years or so there has been much excitement, particularly in science and technology studies, about Actor-Network Theory. One of its most distinctive features is the way in which it ascribes agency to material objects. Perhaps we should not be crediting Bruno Latour or Michel Callon with the original insight – but an English humourist, Paul Jennings.
