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 […]
A Modest Proposal: Cap the Right to Ask for Grants
They take forever to write and the rejection rate is high. To save all that wasted effort, what if we capped the number of grants that an individual, or perhaps an institution, could submit …?
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, Consider Research Ethics
Imagine an ethics review system where the researcher’s proposal is read by an ‘ethics jury’ of four to six researchers drawn, as in legal juries, from the academic population at large, suggests Australia’s Gigi Foster.
How Do We Improve the Process of Government Improvement?
Would federal government agencies benefit from having a CEO — that is, a chief evaluation officer?
Culberson Cites Taxpayer Perceptions in Looking at NSF Spending
The head of the House subcommittee that oversees the budget of federal science agencies cites fears that ordinary people may not appreciate the subtleties of social science.
Treating Science as Politics Does No One Any Favors
Although the GOP is usually fingered as anti-science, biased attitudes toward scientific information and trust in the scientific community can be found among liberals and conservatives alike, new research shows. As you might expect, biases vary based on the science topic being considered.
Philosopher of Fun: Brian Sutton-Smith, 1924-2015
New Zealand native Brian Sutton-Smith, a developmental psychologist who brought study of fun off the playground and into the classroom, passed away earlier this month at age 90.
Social Scientists Swarm Capitol Hill for a Day
With a new Congress expected to take up old causes that might not sit well with the science community, a consortium of social and behavioral science associations brought the message home to legislators that social science was part of their district, too.
Rethinking Our Responses to Terrorism
Understanding what drives terrorism offers a good first step in deterring or derailing it. In the latest article from our collaboration with the journal ‘Policy Insights from Brain and Behavioral Science,’ two psychologists examine what motivates terrorism — and how our response to it can succor the bad actors.
