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 […]
Ebola – WHO (Still) Don’t Get It: Social Science Saves Lives
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa reminds us of a key lesson in public health, notes Robert Dingwall: Biomedical solutions will always come late, while social science-based interventions can break the cycle much sooner.
Ebola: The Human Cost of Neglecting the Social Sciences
There is a genuine cost from ignoring lessons from social science in the fight against Ebola. What’s even sadder — these lessons were taught in blood three decades ago in the fights against AIDS. Are we ready for the next malady?
Ebola – What’s the Point of the World Health Organisation?
WHO is supposed to be a global health organization, not a global biomedical organization. The Ebola crisis, argues Robert Dingwall, reveals the extent to which it has lost sight of this mission.
The Scottish Referendum: Social Science and National Identity
As the independence vote moves from all-consuming question to historical incident, what are the lessons that Scottish universities and in particular Scottish social scientists should take away?
A Pioneering Behavioral Science Think Tank at the Crossroads
Social Science Space talks to Margaret Levi about her goals for re-imagining the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.
Is Doctor Who a Sociologist?
Doctor Who’s sobriquet implies he’s earned a doctorate in something. The Doctor’s not telling what he might have studied, but his actions and attitudes make a strong case for one discipline …
Tamiflu and the Ethics of the British Medical Journal
No one expected Tamiflu to be a wonder drug, but indications are that it’s moderately useful in fighting a serious public health threat. But that message was lost last week in an ill-starred rush to beat up on ‘wicked’ Big Pharma, argues Robert Dingwall.
Floods, Politics and Science: The Case of the Somerset Levels
Feel-good interventions that don’t provide a practical good, or at least one not supported by evidence, generate questions that hinge specifically on future responses to climate change and more broadly on government decision-making in general.
