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 […]
Taliban Kills Social Scientist in Hotel Attack
Paula Kantor, an American social scientist working to improve the lot of women and children in Afghanistan, was among 13 civilians killed Thursday in an attack on a guesthouse in Kabul.
NSF Cites Mixed Messages in Current COMPETES Bill
The National science Foundation sees a number of contradictions in the funding reauthorization bill known as America COMPETES that it reckons would reduce the nation’s competitiveness.
Too Much Crime Fiction at the Election: Politicians Warned Over Misleading manifesto Claims
The general election manifestos of five of the UK’s biggest parties contain sweeping claims about the causes of crime and policies to reduce it. Experts are warning today that such broad statements are nearly always wrong, and are calling on politicians to stop misleading voters.
Latest COMPETES Bill Heads to House Floor
A bill which essentially halves National Science Foundation spending on the social sciences passed its first legislative test Wednesday on a party-line vote.
Awaiting Academic Success? When Frogs Fly
Critics of various bits of research often go to great lengths to make the studies seem silly, not serious. But ‘silly’ endeavors often result in serious societal gains — and maybe a boost for your career.
To Better Social Policies, Listen to Beneficiaries
Who would have more valuable feedback than the people being assisted about how or why a program is meeting their genuine needs or not. Using ‘behavioral mapping,’ researchers can design better interventions based on real-life data and not the researchers’ own assumptions.
What do MPs Think of Randomised Controlled Trials?
A survey of MPs’ attitudes has found unexpected support for using randomised controlled trials (RCTs) to test social policy. It also found […]
Democracy’s Statistician: Janet L. Norwood, 1923-2015
Unflappable and nonpartisan, the late economist Janet Norwood blazed a path as a pioneering female statistician and bureaucrat who served multiple presidents as the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
