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 […]
Academia to be Accountable for Sustainable Finance
The academic world has the power to transform events in redefining its social mission, by responding to this highly ambitious EU action plan with the emergence of courses that match the expectations not only of businesses but, above all, society.
Environmental Sustainability Begins at Home
David Canter reviews results of studies on the challenges of sustaining natural resources.
A Remedy for Broken Science, Or an Attempt to Undercut It?
A report from the National Association of Scholars takes on the reproducibility crisis in science. Not everyone views the group’s motives as pure.
Five Principles of Science Communication
Effective communication is fundamental to increasing public understanding and for building the bridge between the public and the sciences. Suzi Spitzer outlines five principles of holistic science communication that can facilitate collaborative learning between scientists and the public.
David Spiegelhalter on Communicating Statistics
While they aren’t as unpopular as politicians or journalists, people who work with statistics come in for their share of abuse. “Figures lie and liars figure,” goes one maxim. And don’t forget, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” But some people are the good guys, doing their best to combat the flawed or dishonest use of numbers. One of those good guys is the guest of this Social Science Bites podcast, David Spiegelhalter, professor of the public understanding of risk at Cambridge and current president of the Royal Statistical Society.
Sander van der Linden on Viral Altruism
When online charitable appeals take off, social psychologist Sander van der Linden perks up. He studies ‘viral altruism,’ and in this Social Science Bites podcast he details to host David Edmonds how he studies this phenomenon.
Scientists in Need of Arts Training
How can universities train our scientists, technologists and engineers to engage with society rather than perform as cogs in the engine of economic development? Author Richard Lachman asks for educational system to require STEM students to take art and humanities courses, not as an attempt to “broaden minds” but as a necessary discussion of morals, ethics and responsibility.
Putting Big Data to Big Use
The applications of big data provide a very mixed picture about its uses and abuses, in government, academe and private industry. And while where you stand on the net impact depends, as the cliche goes, on where you sit, a panel at the recent ESRC Festival of Social Science came out qualitatively optimistic about the future.
