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 […]
In the Anthropocene, Every Discipline Has a Role
Grappling with climate change going forward won’t be so much grappling with climate as it will be grappling with human reactions to the forces already in motion. Universities have a role to play in marshaling all their disciplines in this endeavor, says Matthew Nisbet.
MOOCs + Meetups = Better Learning
The man behind the ‘Beyond Silicon Valley’ MOOC is very enthusiastic about these massive online courses, but he sees adding a dash of the human touch as making the resulting learning experience even better.
Make a Charitable Donation of Your Personal Data
You donate your money to charity, your blood to other and your time to special causes. So why not give of your data for science research?
When Chasing Prestige Becomes the Prize
A survey by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics suggests that researchers appreciate the benefits of competition but also fear how it can emphasize prestige over quality
Colin Firth: Author, Actually
Authorship of an article seems like it ought to be straightforward, but of course it’s not. Even with greater scrutiny, abuse of the process — both adding the wrong people and subtracting the right ones — continues.
Playing the Game of REF
A very strong overall REF performance signifies a large concentration of outstanding work. It is an unambiguous plus. All the same, precise league table positions in the REF, indicator by indicator, should be taken with a grain of salt.
With the REF, We Can Evaluate the Impact of Impact
Measuring impact was a key feature of the just-released Research Education Framework in the UK. But ‘impact’ isn’t as fair a measurement as we could hope.
The Social Science of Climate Change Believers’ Denial
Consciously we might be talking about the impending sustainability crisis, but unconsciously we find ways to actually maintain the status quo.
