Cutting NSF Is Like Liquidating Your Finest Investment
Look closely at your mobile phone or tablet. Touch-screen technology, speech recognition, digital sound recording and the internet were all developed using […]
The Rule of Optimism – Thirty Years On
Not many social scientists introduce a phrase into the English language and its subsequent history is instructive about the ways in which the impact of successful sociology becomes invisible. It is also a nice example of how ideas become assimilated into a societal environment that finds it hard to accept the sociologist’s focus on systems and organizations.
Statement by AAU on Support for the Social and Behavioral Sciences
We are pleased to report that this statement came out just today from the American Association of Universities: […]
De profundis
At the moment, some universities do seem to be very happy with quite a lot of inequality. Apparently, universities are even more likely than other employers to make extensive use of zero-hour contracts. This coincides in a striking manner with reports about a growing elitism in British academia.
Weekly Overview of Social Science News
The “US effect”: problems with social science research in America Boston. Tech companies turn to social science The Missoulian Boys whose fathers […]
140 Thoughtless Characters Cost Dear in Academia
The censuring of an academic in the US for sending out an offensive tweet has led many university tweeters to pause for thought.
Oh the humanities: Oxford graduates do well, but what about the rest?
A study of 11,000 alumni from the University of Oxford has shown that humanities graduates went on to work in the UK’s major growth sectors. The Oxford study can’t tell us much about the fate of graduates at other universities around the UK. But it does prompt a closer look at the stigma surrounding humanities subjects in the UK.
How Scholars Can Be Strategic Communicators
As academics, we are not usually trained – or even encouraged – to seek an audience for our research beyond the world of peer review. This leaves us ill-equipped for the policy world, a competitive place in which scholars enjoy few advantages. To bring our ideas and findings into the policy arena, we must adopt a style of engagement that enable us to compete effectively with these other groups for the attention of decision-makers.
The Psychology of the “Psychology Isn’t a Science” Argument
Every so often the internet is set ablaze with opinion pieces on a familiar question: Are “soft” sciences, like psychology, actually science?
