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 […]
Ignorance and Interdisciplinary Work: Field Notes from the Social Science Foo Camp
The first-ever “Social Science FOO Camp” was held a couple weeks ago at the Facebook headquarters in California. What’s a Social Science Foo Camp? According to Tom Kecskemethy, director of the AAPSS, “its a hard-to-describe ‘un-conference,’ for the uninitiated.” Follow Tom in this post as he shares his perspective on the FOO camp and explains what he learned.
The State of Gun Research in the US: Six Questions Answered
The research needed to answer questions about the role of firearms in acts of horrific mass violence doesn’t exist – and part of the problem is that the United States government largely doesn’t support it.
New Members Appointed to Canada’s SSHRC
Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, or SSHRC, has announced the membership of its 18-member governing council.
Interrogating Ethnography – and Coming Up with the Wrong Answers?
A recent critique of Alice Goffman’s influential 2014 book, “On the Run,” has, in effect, put ethnography conducted in the United states on trial. Here, our Robert Dingwall argues a case for the defense.
Analyzing a Canadian Approach to Assessing Impact
Efforts to assess scholarly impacts must account for the great diversity of scholarly work and ensure that researchers themselves play a leading role in selecting those indicators that best suit their work. Peter Severinson reports on work published by the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences in Canada that hopes will provide guidance to university administrators, public servants, and other members of the research community undertaking the demanding work of impact assessment.
Social Science Space 2017 Round Up
Last year Social Science Space presented more than 200 articles on the impact, infrastructure and industry surrounding social and behavioral science and research. Looking back over those articles, we’ve chosen a few of special merit. Social Science Space plans to continue to provide the latest that the new year has to offer. Stay up to date with us to see what is in store.
Is There a Need for Novelty in Science?
In a recent survey of over 1,500 scientists, more than 70 percent of them reported having been unable to reproduce other scientists’ findings at least once. Reproducibility of findings is a core foundation of science and realizing how difficult it is to assess novelty should give funding agencies and scientists pause. Progress in science depends on new discoveries and following unexplored paths – but solid, reproducible research requires an equal emphasis on the robustness of the work.
Washington and Social Science: Bullets Dodged in 2017
The House and Senate cleared the final version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was signed into law on December 22. Congress also approved a short-term continuing resolution to keep the government funded through January 19, and cleared a disaster assistance package for victims of hurricanes and wildfires
