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 […]
Federal ‘Common Rule’ on Human Study Ethics Changing
Four years in the making, a proposed version of the federal ‘Common Rule’ for research on human subjects includes a full suite of social and behavioral science-influenced directives that past versions of the rule lacked.
Did the REF Ultimately Measure Who Got Most Grant Money?
If the funding allocated to universities on the basis of the REF is correlated to the amount of grant income universities already receive, what is the point of the output assessment process? Jon Clayden suggests this apparent double-counting exercise is not the best we can do.
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 […]
