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 […]
Monika Krause on Humanitarian Aid
Humanitarian aid organizations often find themselves torn by reasonable expectations – to address a pressing crisis and to show that what they are doing is actually helping. While these might not seem at odds, in practice, says sociologist Monika Krause, they often do. Krause, is the author of The Good Project, an award-winning book from 2014, and guest of this Social Science Bites podcast.
Hate Speech on Social Media Undermines Important UN Declarations
Evidence suggests that one effect of the growing phenomenon of online hate speech is that it fosters varied forms of inequalities (e.g. class, race, gender, and place of origin) and, consequently, also (in)directly undermines important United Nations declarations promoting human rights.
What Can We Afford to Forget If Machines Do Our Remembering?
Outsourcing our memories — or actually forgetting once-vital skills that no longer matter in our daily lives — has always been with humanity. But how does the drift to artificial intelligence reflect what’s always been the case versus what should be a special case?
Thoughts on Gender in the 21st Century University Environment
In May 2017 a small band of researchers at Bournemouth University organized a workshop on “Gender and Sexuality in the 21st Century.” The participants’ openness to a discussion on sexuality, gender, and emotion began to expose this latest generation’s “ambivalence,” even “dissonance,” regarding concepts such as “gender” and “sexuality.”
Whatever Happened to Conservative Social Thought?
In the wake of Brexit, Robert Dingwall asks a series of probing questions about the eclipse of Conservative Social Thought at universities, such as when did the social sciences last have a serious engagement with the institutions of the bourgeoisie, even though by income and status many of us would belong to that class?
Might Campus Free Speech Laws Muzzle Some Speech?
Some language in campus speech legislation may be largely symbolic and not change what many colleges are already doing. But, argues Neal Hutchens, some provisions in legislation could change campus speech rules in important ways.
What’s That? The Replication Crisis is Good for Science?
The ‘replication crisis’ certainly is uncomfortable for many scientists whose work gets undercut, and the rate of failures may currently be unacceptably high. But psychologist and statistician Eric Loken argues that confronting the replication crisis is good for science as a whole.
At a Glance: The UK’s Twin-track Approach to Measuring Impact
In his second article in a series on impact, Louis Coiffait looks at how REF and KEF treat impact in the UK.
