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 […]
MacArthur Fellows Include Psychologist, Anthropologist, Geographer
Cybercrime, mass surveillance and migration are among the areas studied by the new cohort of MacArthur Foundation fellows announced today. The fellowships, often referred to as “genius grants,” offer a no-strings-attached $625,000 cash grant to exceptionally creative people expected to achieve something important using their outstanding talent going forward.
Arts Degrees – Why Bother?
Increasingly, write Ashley Frawley and Daniel Nehring, the waning societal valuation of the arts and social sciences is seen in these terms—if their value to a company’s bottom line is at all in question, then their entire raison d’etre is in doubt. Reversing this trend may involve some unpalatable decisions.
Webinar Archive: Disinvited Speakers and Academic Freedom
The same day that the U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions called for “a national recommitment to free speech on campus” before an audience at Georgetown University, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, SAGE Publishing, and Index on Censorship magazine hosted a webinar on “Disinvited Speakers and Academic Freedom.”
What Nudged the Nobel Committee to Honor Richard Thaler?
Richard Thaler was not the first proponent of behavioral economics to be awarded a Nobel Prize, notes Sergey Popov. But Thaler’s star turn came when the Great Recession and it orgy or irrationality brought a lot of attention to research that extensively cites the University of Chicago’s economist’s 40-year-long academic career.
A Founding Father of Behavioral Economics Wins Nobel Prize
Richard H. Thaler, the University of Chicago economist whose contributions linking psychology to the ‘dismal science’ caught the public’s eye in his co-authored bestselling book Nudge, has received this year’s Nobel Prize in economic sciences.
Washington and Social Science: Back and Forth at NSF
After returning from summer recess, the House in September approved an Omnibus Appropriations Act comprised of several appropriations bills, including the Commerce-Justice-Science and Labor-Health and Human Services-Education Appropriations Act.
Why Social Science? It Is in the National Interest
Congressman Daniel Lipinski says “we should encourage interdisciplinary collaboration, but we must also maintain support for core social science research.” He will moderate the congressional briefing on “Social Science Solutions for Health, Public Safety, Computing, and Other National Priorities” on Wednesday.
Tom Chatfield on Critical Thinking and Bias
Philosopher Tom Chatfield’s media presence – which is substantial – is often directly linked to his writings on technology. But his new book is on critical thinking, and while that involves humanity’s oldest computer, the brain, Chatfield explains in this Social Science Bites podcast that new digital realities interact with old human biases.
