Cutting NSF Is Like Liquidating Your Finest Investment
Look closely at your mobile phone or tablet. Touch-screen technology, speech recognition, digital sound recording and the internet were all developed using […]
December 15, 2021
Has COVID Created a ‘Lost Generation’ of Early Career Researchers?
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Getting a Handle on Both Societal and Scientific Impact
In this post, Jorrit Smit and Laurens Hessels, draw on a recent analysis of different impact evaluation tools to explore how they constitute and direct conceptions of research impact. Finding a common separation between evaluation focused on scientific and societal impact, they suggest bridging this divide may prove beneficial to producing research that has public value, rather than research that achieves particular metrics.
Does Research Being in a Review Article Cannibalize Your Citations?
Review papers play a significant role in curating the scholarly record. Drawing on a study of close to six million research articles, Peter McMahan, shows how review papers not only focus and shift attention onto particular papers, but also serve to shape entire research domains by linking them together and outlining core concepts. As such, the constitutive role of review papers and those who write them warrant further attention.
Paths from a PhD to the Private Sector
The impact of the pandemic on all sectors is only beginning to emerge and given the need for greater flexibility, adaptability and […]
Impact Looks Different Across Disciplines So Let’s Acknowledge That
Drawing on a linguistic analysis of REF Impact statements from 2014, Andrea Bonaccorsi, highlights key differences between statements being made by scholars in STEM and SSH disciplines and suggests differences in the causality of impact between the disciplines warrant a reconsideration of how these statements are produced and judged.
Can We Encourage Public Self-Correction in the Scientific Record?
Correcting mistakes in light of new data and updating findings to reflect this is often considered to be a key characteristic of scientific research. Commenting on the ‘Loss-of-Confidence Project’, a study into self-correction amongst psychologists, Julia M. Rohrer, suggests that in practice self-correction of published research is, infrequent, difficult to achieve and perceived to come with reputational costs. However, by reframing and changing the static nature of academic publications, it may be possible to develop a research culture more conducive to self-correction.
We Know More Than What is Measured About Gender Inequality in Academia
In academia gender bias is often figured in terms of research productivity and differentials surrounding the academic work of men and women. Alesia Zuccala and Gemma Derrick posit that this outlook inherently ignores a wider set of variables impacting women, and that attempts to achieve cultural change in academia can only be realised, by acknowledging variables that are ultimately difficult to quantify.
On the Persistence of Motivated Ignorance
The idea that ignorance is the outcome of a deficit of correct information is persistent. Daniel Williams argues that to understand how research and evidence are strongly resisted by certain groups, we need to reflect on how motivated ignorance is deeply embedded in our identities and social connections.
Can We Have Open Science Where No Scholar Is Left Behind?
While the dominant model of open access using article processing charges lowers financial barriers for readers, it has erected a new paywall at the other end of the pipeline, blocking access to publication for less-privileged authors.
