Social Science Space

Around the world, face-to-face teaching has ceased, campuses are closed and empty, a sudden shift to pervasive online has generated little enthusiasm among students, travel restrictions have drained the lucrative flow of international students to a trickle, and many universities have reported significant financial problems. So what do I do with my freshly minted PhD?

The negative consequences of relying too heavily on metrics to assess research quality are well known, potentially fostering practices harmful to scientific research such as p-hacking, salami science, or selective reporting. To address this systemic problem, Florian Naudet, and collegues present six principles for assessing scientists for hiring, promotion, and tenure.

In a society in which the remit of critical public debate is  narrowing, in which protest and dissent are increasingly being criminalised, in which public space is being supplanted by private and commercial space, and in which the meaning of democracy is now altogether questionable, critically and politically engaged scholars may come to be figures of suspicion.

First, do great work. Second, make sure your great work is visible.

‘It’s not what you know but who you know’ is a trope that’s common in many careers but which the academy often claims to avoid. Except that in many cases it doesn’t.

So what exactly are the rules by which academic careers work? Where does one learn them? How does one learn them? And how, exactly, is playing by the rules to the benefit of one’s career?