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 […]
September 8, 2015
Federal ‘Common Rule’ on Human Study Ethics Changing
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Life Itself is One Big Exercise of the Prisoner’s Dilemma
The professor whose use of the ‘prisoner’s dilemma’ in his class went viral here explains how that same piece of game theory can help bridge liberal and conservative differences.
Even an Imperfect Metrics Regime Has Value
Jane Tinkler argues that if institutions like HEFCE specify a narrow set of impact metrics, more harm than good would come to universities forced to limit their understanding of how research is making a difference. But, she adds, qualitative and quantitative indicators continue to be an incredible source of learning for how impact works.
Giving Euroscepticism an Honest Hearing
A remarkably prescient special issue of the journal ‘International Political Science Review’ examines Euroscepticism’s migration ‘from the margins to the mainstream.’ Social Science Space talks to one of the issue’s guest editors.
Bill: Make ‘National Interest’ Explicit in NSF Grants
In February officials with the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the National Science Board trooped up […]
Malaria Vaccine – Great Science But What’s the Point?
Bully for the researchers who have developed a vaccine can build resistance against some instances of malaria, says Robert Dingwall. But before the WHO recommends for its adoption, he suggests a harder look at user-centered design and cost-benefit analysis may be in order.
Making Sense of Screening: Public Expectations About Screening Still Don’t Match What Screening Programmes Can Deliver
Misconceptions about how screening works, its limitations and possible harms are still being perpetuated by media stories and high profile cases, such […]
Ebola: WHO and the Consequences of Ignoring Social Science
A new report from the World Health Organization on the response to the African Ebola outbreak backs up what our Robert Dingwall has been writing all along — by downplaying social science lives have been lost. The question now is whether a new WHO can improve.
Open Letter on Innovation Urges Real Support for Basic Research
More than 250 universities and scholarly groups and the CEOs of 10 corporations have released an open letter urging American policymakers to “heed the warnings” about the nation’s waning commitment to basic research.
