ScienceGeist

Many institutions decline to participate in Dutch study, fearing bad press on a sensitive subject

Postgraduates have few staff benefits - but bear the responsibilities of the Covid frontline

Share price drops as critics question claim vaccine could protect up to 90% of people.

The European Commission's scientific publishing service has launched a new venue for EU research grantees to publish free-to-read results. The Open Research Europe platform promises beneficiaries an "easy, high quality peer-reviewed" system at "no cost to them". The twist: authors, not editors, choose what they wish to publish - without the delay involved in traditional science publishing, the commission says.

Report suggests tree growth will not store nearly as much carbon as scientists hoped.

Researchers hope a 60% increase in funds can revitalize their austerity-hit scientific system.

How put your knowledge into practice at the heart of government during a national lockdown? Two social scientists with expertise in production and use of evidence in the UK reflect on their recent experiences. 

This professor's research into faculty hiring was a wake-up call, for him and his institution.

Doctors and nurses on the front lines are running on empty, under increasing duress as the pandemic surges and hospitals are overrun with patients.

The tiny island nation brought huge scientific heft to its attempts to contain and study the coronavirus. Here's what it learnt.

We want to hear from scientists whose work has been upended - positively or negatively - by the pandemic.

This study provides the first comprehensive investigation of OPR adoption, its early adopters and the implementation approaches used.

Through their responsive design, digital Open Science tools promise to enable and simplify collaboration across disciplines, world regions and language groups. But how inclusive are these tools actual

Gender differences in choosing to enter competitions are an important cause of the leaky pipeline for women in leadership roles and represent a considerable waste of human resources. We used an incentivized laboratory experiment to evaluate whether the introduction of random elements alters the gender gap in competitiveness. We found that focal random selection from a preselected pool removes the difference in competitiveness between men and women and does not dilute the qualifications of the entrants. The percentage of women who took part in competitions was nearly triple, and that of high-ability women double, with focal random selection compared to selection in pure performance competitions. In contrast, the behavior of men remained largely unchanged. Focal random selection closes the gender gap in competitiveness and can substantially enlarge the pool of high-performing women who apply for top jobs.

There's been even more good news this week, this time from the Oxford-AstraZeneca trials. But a closer look reveals some very shaky science.

World league tables for higher education are flawed, poorly used and entrench inequity.

The coronavirus pandemic has left us living more and more of our lives online. But the place where we chat with friends, get our news and form our opinions is full of vile and dangerous conspiracy theories. Is the world's biggest social network doing enough to combat them?

Scientists were initially skeptical that a mutation made the coronavirus more contagious. But new research has changed many of their minds.

Employees and executives are battling over how to reduce misinformation and hate speech without hurting the company's bottom line.

This course will examine the science and technology innovation system, including case studies on energy, computing, advanced manufacturing and health sectors, with an emphasis on public policy and the federal government's R&D role in that system.

The journals will charge authors up to €9,500 to make research papers free to read, in a long-awaited alternative to subscription-only publishing.

Avoid unwarranted certainty, neat narratives and partisan presentation; strive to inform, not persuade.

They can't detect all conflicts, but new computer programs serve as guard rails when scientists and publishers fail to self-police.

It might be possible, physicists say, but not anytime soon. And there's no guarantee that we humans will understand the result.

Yes, the coronavirus can be transmitted over cocktails and dinners. But these get-togethers may not account for the huge rise in cases.

It's essential for the status quo to be challenged. But those who claim to be bold outliers need to draw on evidence, not cry censorship

The furious race to develop a coronavirus vaccine played out against a presidential election, between a pharmaceutical giant and a biotech upstart, with the stakes as high as they could get.

The new chief executive officer of UK Research and Innovation emphasizes that assessment systems should support and value a robust portfolio of work of different sorts, and a diverse range of people to do this work.

Some smaller countries are out-spending much larger economies in research and development.

This account explores the form and extent of research fraud, the time it takes to investigate these frauds and the inadequacy of university investigations.