The morbid fascination with the death of the humanities
Why professors, librarians, and politicians are shunning liberal arts in the name of STEM.
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'DIY labs offer an agile alternative to university-based research'
'DIY labs offer an agile alternative to university-based research'
Free from bureaucracy, independent science labs offer a flexibility that can't be matched by universities, writes a researcher.
Publisher, be damned! From price gouging to the open road
Why has academic knowledge become more expensive for consumers while music has become less expensive, and what can we do about it? Doing nothing to prevent the trading of electronic copies of our academic work could act to circumvent the perils of engagement with the academic publishing industry.
Factsheet from Horizon 2020
Open access to publications and data in Horizon 2020: Frequently Asked Questions.
College degrees awarded per capita in the U.S.
There is incredibly intense competition for an academic faculty job even with such a small set of qualified candidates. After 23 years, the U.S. is producing twice as many Master’s degrees per capita than they used to.
Why metrics cannot measure research quality
Whilst metrics may capture some partial dimensions of research ‘impact’, they cannot be used as any kind of proxy for measuring research ‘quality’.
Real peer to peer review
The Winnower is another open access online science publishing platform that employs open post-publication peer review, aiming to revolutionize science by breaking down the barriers to scientific communication through cost-effective and transparent publishing for scientists.
How much did your university pay for your journals?
A new study shows universities pay more or less for academic journal bundles than would be expected based simply on size or number of Ph.D.s granted.
The inside track
Members of the US National Academy of Sciences have long enjoyed a privileged path to publication in PNAS. Meet the scientists who use it most heavily.
Eyeing EU research money despite referendum
For the EU commission, there is no legal way to restart science funding unless Switzerland extends freedom of movement to Croatia.
Asia university rankings update
Japan is still the number one nation but the balance of power is shifting as Beijing increases research funding
Let the light shine in
Scientists make much of the fact that their work is scrutinised anonymously by some of their peers before it is published. This "peer review" is supposed to spot mistakes and thus keep the whole process honest.
Uprooting researchers can drive them out of science
Making early-career scientists change institutions frequently is disruptive and — with modern technology — unnecessary.
NIH seeks $4.5 billion to try to crack the code of how brains function
A final version of NIH document presents an estimate of the money needed.
Reproducible research is still a challenge
rOpenSci was awarded $300k from the Sloan Foundation to develop tools that are at least as easy to use before we can expect project reproducibility to become mainstream.
Time to discard the metric that decides how science is rated
Scientists need ways to evaluate themselves and their colleagues. These evaluations are necessary for better everyday management: hiring, promotions, awarding grants and so on. One evaluation metric has dominated these decisions, and that is doing more harm than good.
Working across research silos is harder than it looks
One of the loudest buzzwords in current science politics is interdisciplinarity. Government extols its virtues. Research councils clamour about its value. Academics parade their credentials.
Science in the next 50 years: U.S. views of technology and the future
Report based on a U.S. survey conducted by Pew Research Center with Smithsonian magazine and featured in a special issue of the magazine on science and science fiction.
South America by the numbers
The expanding economies of South America have led to a significant rise in scientific output over the past two decades, and research spending has increased in most countries. But given the region's share of the world's population and GDP, publication rates still fall short of what would be expected.
How to make government data sites better
Accessing government data from the source is frustrating. If you've done it, or at least tried to, you know the pain that is oddly formatted files, search that doesn't work, and annotation that tells you nothing about the data in front of you.
Elsevier, Springer und Thieme verklagen ETH-Bibliothek und bekommen Recht
Schon seit 2012 weiss man, dass von Elsevier, Springer und Thieme Klage gegen den Dokumentlieferdienst der ETH-Bibliothek eingereicht wurde. Wie es aber weiterging war aber weitgehend unklar. Am 7. April 2014 fand am Handelsgericht des Kanton Zürich die Gerichtsverhandlung statt.
EuroScientist webzine
Selection of a series of themes from the Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF) 2014.
The damaging bureaucracy of academic peer preview
Academic funding agencies should support research in unfashionable fields; a letter to David Cameron.
New efforts to maximize fairness in NIH peer-review
The NIH is working on multiple fronts to get to the bottom of unexplained racial disparities in R01 grant funding and to maximize fairness in NIH peer review.
Welcome, Scientific Data!
Welcome, Scientific Data!
Nature announced the launch of its new journal: Scientific Data.
Der bekannte Entwicklungsbiologe Walter Gehring ist tot
Mit Walter Gehring ist einer der letzten grossen, umfassend gebildeten Biologen von uns gegangen.
Where's France Córdova?
New NSF director jumps into the frying pan served up by Congress as it reviews agency programs.
Don't let new boundaries cut off UK science
Don't let new boundaries cut off UK science
Many scientists in the UK could soon find themselves isolated from their colleagues in Europe and Scotland. That must not happen.
How to build a bad research center
How to build a bad research center
Eight commandments on how to build a bad research center.
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