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 […]
Andrew Leigh on Randomistas
When Angus Deaton crafted the term ‘randomista’ to denigrate the rampant use of randomized controlled trials in development economics, Angus Leigh saw an opportunity to make lemonade out of lemons. In this Social Science Bites podcasts he explains how he turned randomista into a compliment and promotes the use of trials to improve social programs worldwide.
Golden Goose Award Recognizes Implicit Bias Work
U.S. government-funded research that on its face looked only at fame, names and gender turned out to be pioneering work into implicit bias. This year a Golden Goose Award went to three researchers who developed the concept of implicit bias and then made a huge impact on popular culture by giving the world a test to measure it.
Africa Takes Steps in Using Evidence to Inform Policy
Africa has a real challenge when it comes to using academic research and evidence to design policies. “The problem is twofold,” says author Ruth Stewart, “policymakers sometimes don’t call on available research, while for their part academics don’t know how to engage with policymakers.” But this isn’t stopping the continent from taking strides in the right direction.
Achieving Impact for Early-Career Researchers
For many early-career researchers, the practicalities of how to successfully influence policy processes can be elusive, causing problems. Megan Evans and Chris Cvitanovic provide some practical tips and suggestions that can help to empower ECRs to create their own pathways to impact that best suit their individual goals, circumstances, interests, and strengths.
Communicating NSF’s Value to Elected Officials
The Coalition for National Science Funding hosted a webinar titled “Communicating the Value of NSF to Elected Officials”; Focusing on the need to engage with elected officials while they’re at home in their district. An issue of importance as US Government continues to go back and forth on its funding for the next fiscal year.
Why the Chinese Government Should Read Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer’s examination of ‘militant’ societies, argues our Robert Dingwall, proves to be a cautionary tale for the present Chinese government and its attempts to micro-manage society through the ‘social credit’ scheme.
Paying for the Good Stuff
When Robert Dingwall was younger, sociology departments routinely taught a course on ‘industry,’, ‘work’ or ‘economic life.’ “Most of this turf has now been abandoned to business schools in the form of organization studies, where it increasingly struggles to resist the expansion of finance and accounting studies,” he says, and to our detriment.
Evidence-Based Policy: Do Knowledge Brokers Help?
We need to bridge the gap between academic research and public policy. Sarah Quarmby takes a look inside a knowledge brokering organization, the Wales Centre for Public Policy, to see how its day-to-day workings tally with the body of knowledge about evidence use in policymaking.
