ScienceGeist

The first figures emerge demonstrating that Brexit uncertainty has adversely affected UK research.

Discussion of the findings of a recent research study into the recent growth of preprint servers and exploration of how publishers might respond.

The efforts of young researchers to fight the perverse incentives that dominate science right now are all the more impressive because these scientists are at the most vulnerable point of their careers.

Peer review is embedded in the core of our scholarly knowledge generation systems, conferring legitimacy on research while distributing academic capital and prestige on individuals. Despite its critical importance, it curiously remains poorly understood in a number of dimensions.

Individual actions, such as ditching meat and not flying, won't make a substantial difference to our planet - and such demands divert attention away from the solutions that are needed.

Medical experts are one of the main sources used by journalists in reporting on medical science. This study aims to identify problems that medical experts encounter in contacts with the media representatives, elucidate their attitudes about interactions with journalists and reflect on solutions that could improve the quality of medical journalism.

Around the globe, there are initiatives and organizations devoted to bring "Open Access" to the world, i.e., the public availability of scholarly research works, free of charge. However, the current debate seems to largely miss the point.

Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer have been awarded the prize for their experimental approach to alleviating poverty.

In a crowded and confusing landscape for research data preservation and sharing, two fundamentally competing visions are emerging. Which will win?

Millions of Flickr images were sucked into a database called MegaFace. Now some of those faces may have the ability to sue.

Diane Greene, the head of Google's Cloud business, is said to have told employees that it was backing away from the A.I. work with the military.

Peer review process helps funders make decisions, but researchers say it is time-consuming and lacks transparency.

Are fewer women named Nobel laureates just because there have been fewer women scientists?

Numerous recommendations and guidelines aim to improve the quality, timeliness and transparency of medical publications. However, these guidelines use ambiguous language that can be challenging to interpret, particularly for speakers of English as a second language. Cultural expectations within the Asia-Pacific region raise additional challenges and several studies have suggested that awareness and application of ethical publication practices in the Asia-Pacific region is relatively low compared with other regions. However, guidance on applying ethical publication practice guidelines in the Asia-Pacific region is lacking. This commentary aims to improve publication practices in the Asia-Pacific region by providing guidance on applying the 10 principles of the Good Publication Practice 3 (GPP3) guidelines and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria for authorship. Recommendations are provided for encore presentations, applying the ICMJE authorship criteria in the context of regional cultural expectations, and the role of study sponsors and professional medical writers. Ongoing barriers to compliance with guidelines are also highlighted, and additional guidance is provided to support authors submitting manuscripts for publication. The roles of regional journals, regulatory authorities and professional bodies in improving practices are also discussed.

This article reports on selected findings from the pilot African Open Science Platform landscape study, conducted by the Academy of Science of South Africa, on request of the SA Department of Science and Technology.

This article outlines the four principles that give shape to a new, less standardised approach to research assessment called "evaluative inquiry": employing versatile methods; shifting the contextual focus away from the individual; knowledge diplomacy; and favouring ongoing engagement ahead of open-and-shut reporting.

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) and Health Data Research UK have set up a £10m data science centre

Establishing an internal working group or committee to consider how best to infuse the spirit of the DORA declaration within an institution can be a sensible move in most cases.

Created at the end of last year, CO-OPERAS IN aims to bring FAIR data principles into the SSH research area, support existing scholarly communication services and platforms to connect them as components of an emerging EOSC, and more broadly to the global SSH communities. 

BioRxiv, the server for life sciences preprints, has begun an experiment that allows select journals and independent peer-review services to publicly post evaluations of its papers should the authors make the request.

ALLEA submitted a statement to the European Commission calling for a strong and well-resourced framework programme guided by principles of excellence, fairness and openness, and making concrete suggestions on their implementation in the current draft of the Commission’s Strategic Plan on Horizon Europe.

This study analyses OA papers over time. Given existing trends, the authors estimate that by 2025, the declining relevance of closed access articles is likely to change the landscape of scholarly communication in the years to come.

For institutions ostensibly in the business of amassing knowledge, universities know remarkably little about what happens to their Ph.D. alumni once they leave graduate school.

Many postdoctoral fellows in the STEM fields enter the academic job market with little knowledge of the process and expectations, and without any means to assess their qualifications relative to the general applicant pool. Demystifying this process is critical, as there is little information publicly available.

A Publons study aiming to bridge the gap in data and insights into the peer review of research funding and grant applications.

TechRxiv, a new preprint server for electrical engineering, computer science and related technologies, has been launched by IEEE, the world’s largest technical professional organization advancing technology for humanity. 

What can authors and reviewers do to keep common statistical mistakes out of the literature?

"We are at a crisis point," according to a new report from the highly respected Brennan Center for Justice, "with almost weekly violations of previously respected safeguards."

Theoretical physicists who say the multiverse exists set a dangerous precedent: science based on zero empirical evidence.