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 […]
Social Science in the News
Should the Government Fund Only Science in the “National Interest”? National Geographic Texas lawmaker steps up a fight over control of […]
Washington Update: SBE Vacancies, No Clarity From Midterms
NSF’s SBE Directorate Seeks to Fill Numerous Leadership Posts The Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences of the National Science Foundation […]
OMG, Zambia’s New Interim President Is … an Economist
A lot has been made about Guy Scott being a white man. But Stephen Chan argues that’s one of the less remarkable aspects of Zambia’s fill-in leader.
Is Big Data Galloping to a ‘Horsemeat Moment’?
Big data is ultimately a big boon for both researchers and the public. But without some reasonable and quick regulation, argues Duncan Shaw, scandals arising from its misuse could turn the public’s stomach.
Ebola – What’s the Point of the World Health Organisation?
WHO is supposed to be a global health organization, not a global biomedical organization. The Ebola crisis, argues Robert Dingwall, reveals the extent to which it has lost sight of this mission.
Social Science in the News
ESRC Sheffield Festival of Social Science Sheffield Hallam University Social science is everywhere. From helping us to make sense of our finances […]
Tweet Nothings? Academic Freedom and Private Rants
At what point to private (and perhaps unpalatable) opinions expressed off-campus impinge on a scholar’s employment? This abstract question has been made concrete in two recent cases.
Shaken and Stirred: Christakis on Re-ordering Social Science
With one foot firmly planted in natural science and one in social science, Yale’s Nicholas A. Christakis looks at the landscape of the latter and wonders why it’s changed so little in the past century. Is it time for a common-sense, and yet radical, reshuffling of the institutional frameworks that we tend to accept as permanent?
