A space to explore, share and shape the issues facing social scientists
With the advent of the new Research on Research Institute, our Robert Dingwall notes that while research on research fills a gap in the world of knowledge. However, it is important not to confuse it with the research enterprise itself or to assume that this will benefit from being made so planned, rational and evidence-based that the result is to squeeze innovation out of the system.
As Australia’s government focuses on innovation and commercializing research in its academic agenda, it should not forget about the humanities, arts and social sciences.
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.
There is no point in improving the innovation pipeline for antibiotics, argues Robert Dingwall, if the drugs that come out at the end all fall into the same chaotic patterns of use as today.
I have studied racial profiling, and I can assure you that this work is not about the claim “that people are racially biased.” I can also assure you that, whatever it is we have learned, it’s not true that “everyone knows” it.
Studying ourselves is something the British do exceptionally well: specialists flock here from all over the world seeking answers to fundamental questions from our unique series of cohort birth studies, and no one else has anything quite like them.
Universities are starting to look like the behemoths of the US auto industry of the 1980s, with highly-paid CEOs buried in their offices looking only at numbers.
