Social Science Space

Kathryn Oliver discusses the recent launch of the United Kingdom’s Areas of Research Interest Database. A new tool that promises to provide a mechanism to link researchers, funders and policymakers more effectively collaboratively and transparently.

The double-blind review process, adopted by many publishers and funding agencies, plays a vital role in maintaining fairness and unbiasedness by concealing the identities of authors and reviewers. However, in the era of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data, a pressing question arises: can an author’s identity be deduced even from an anonymized paper (in cases where the authors do not advertise their submitted article on social media)?

Considering a series of proposed policy changes by the National Institutes of Health, Micah Altman and Philip N. Cohen, argue they highlight wider systematic gaps in the evaluation of operational science policies and signal an urgent need to increase funding for metascience.

Researchers regularly observe gender differences in favor of men in various parts of academia, such as fewer women in senior academic positions, fewer publications, lower citations rates and lower funding of women. However, researchers also observe differences in favor of women, such as more women being elected in NAS, more favorable peer review and higher funding rates of women.

Here are five ways I have found Altmetrics to be useful beyond a simple numerical score and just telling us which journal papers are receiving attention.

The Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment offers a window of opportunity to transform evaluation systems across Europe. However, in order to implement the qualitative style of evaluation proposed, it will be necessary to modify the processes and sites of evaluation in those countries relying on centralised evaluation system

Reflecting on their work on the recent BIAS project, the authors traced some of the challenges we faced carrying out interdisciplinary research and the strategies we developed to mitigate them.

Reflecting on their work on Sage’s recent Wikipedia edit-athon, Mariah John-Leighton and Hannah Jane Pearson discuss how the project has increased the representation of women social scientists on the platform.

Drawing on a study of physicists, Harry Collins and Will Mason-Wilkes argue in-person meetings are still vital in creating and sustaining academic communities.

Reflecting on the ongoing professionalisation of academic communication and increased opportunities for researchers to engage, Andy Tattersall argues researchers and research funders should be mindful of the communication requirements of their projects and factor them into their bids and tenders.

Simone Natale and Leah Henrickson draw on their research into computational creativity and introduce the concept of the ‘Lovelace Effect’, to explain how creativity is often a product of social conventions and why as a consequence, educators and researchers should think carefully about what constitutes good writing in their fields.

Historically, there has been a tight link between journals, journal publications and a community of scholars working in specific fields of research who contribute to and manage them. Aileen Fyfe asks if we should rethink the structure of the learned societies that underpins this.