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Landmark 'United in Science' Report Informs Climate Action Summit

Landmark 'United in Science' Report Informs Climate Action Summit

The world's leading climate science organizations have joined forces to produce a landmark new report for the United Nations Climate Action Summit, underlining the glaring - and growing gaps - between agreed targets to tackle global warming and the actual reality.

Project: Adopting Open Science Practices: Researcher Perspectives on Incentives and Disincentives: A Symposium

Project: Adopting Open Science Practices: Researcher Perspectives on Incentives and Disincentives: A Symposium

An ad hoc planning committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will organize a public symposium in conjunction with the September 2019 meeting of the Roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Science. The symposium will explore current barriers to adopting open science practices and how they might be addressed.

Sweden's New Read & Publish Agre­e­ment

Sweden's New Read & Publish Agre­e­ment

The Bibsam Consortium in Sweden signed a new tranformative Read & Publish agreement with academic publisher Springer Nature. It covers rights to publish in over 1,800 hybrid journals at no extra cost for the author as well as reading rights for over 2,100 journals since 1997.

Scientists Worldwide Join Strikes for Climate Change

Scientists Worldwide Join Strikes for Climate Change

From Bangkok to Brisbane, researchers were among those who protested to urge action on global warming.

Citecorp: Working with Open Citations - ROpenSci - Open Tools for Open Science

Citecorp: Working with Open Citations - ROpenSci - Open Tools for Open Science

citecorp is a new (hit CRAN in late August) R package for working with data from the OpenCitations Corpus (OCC). OpenCitations, run by David Shotton and Silvio Peroni, houses the OCC, an open repository of scholarly citation data under the very open CC0 license. The I4OC (Initiative for Open Citations) is a collaboration between many parties, with the aim of promoting "unrestricted availability of scholarly citation data". Citation data is available through Crossref, and available in R via our packages rcrossref, fulltext and crminer.

Politicians and R&D Funders 'Finally Pushing in Same Direction' on Science Publishing

Politicians and R&D Funders 'Finally Pushing in Same Direction' on Science Publishing

A major push by science funding agencies in Europe to make the research they back freely available at the point of publication is the world's best chance of fundamentally altering scientific publishing, says the new coordinator of Plan S, Johan Rooryck.

One in Five Genetics Papers Contains Errors Thanks to Microsoft Excel

One in Five Genetics Papers Contains Errors Thanks to Microsoft Excel

Autoformatting in Microsoft Excel has caused many a headache—but now, a new study shows that one in five genetics papers in top scientific journals contains errors from the program.

Harvard and MIT Leaders Acknowledge Deeper Ties to Jeffrey Epstein Than Previously Known

Harvard and MIT Leaders Acknowledge Deeper Ties to Jeffrey Epstein Than Previously Known

Presidents of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology acknowledged in separate announcements this week that their connections to financier Jeffrey Epstein went deeper than previously revealed, further entangling the elite institutions with a donor who was a convicted sex offender.

Open-access Megajournals Lose Momentum As the Publishing Model Matures

Open-access Megajournals Lose Momentum As the Publishing Model Matures

Concerns include declining volume, slower publication, and softening citation measures.

UK Universities Welcome U-turn on Student Visas

UK Universities Welcome U-turn on Student Visas

The UK government’s announcement of its plans to offer extended post-study work visas for international graduates of UK universities has received an unusual response - unalloyed praise from the higher education sector.

Chief Scientist Investigating NOAA's Backing of Trump over Experts on Dorian

Chief Scientist Investigating NOAA's Backing of Trump over Experts on Dorian

The acting chief scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) is investigating whether the agency's response to President Trump's claims about Hurricane Dorian constituted a violation of policies and ethics.

NOAA Staff Warned in Sept. 1 Directive Against Contradicting Trump

NOAA Staff Warned in Sept. 1 Directive Against Contradicting Trump

Nearly a week before the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration publicly backed President Trump over its own scientists, a top NOAA official warned its staff against contradicting the president. This happened hours after Trump asserted, with no evidence, that Alabama "would most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated" by hurricane Dorian, and days before he showed a hurricane map modified with a hand-drawn, half-circle around Alabama.

How an Élite University Research Center Concealed Its Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein

How an Élite University Research Center Concealed Its Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein

New documents show that the M.I.T. Media Lab was aware of Epstein's status as a convicted sex offender, and that Epstein directed contributions to the lab far exceeding the amounts M.I.T. has publicly admitted.

Boosting Culture, Heritage, Science and Innovation in the Netherlands

Boosting Culture, Heritage, Science and Innovation in the Netherlands

The Government of the Netherlands has launched a funding drive to support culture and heritage sectors, as well as in science and innovation.

UK Priorities for Science, Research and Innovation

UK Priorities for Science, Research and Innovation

The UK is focusing on international partnerships and ground-breaking sector deals in order to remain a global leader in science

Democrats More Supportive Than Republicans of Federal Spending for Scientific Research

Democrats More Supportive Than Republicans of Federal Spending for Scientific Research

Around six-in-ten Democrats support increased spending for scientific research, compared with 40% of Republicans, a gap that has grown over time.

How the Trump Administration Limited the Scope of the USDA's 2020 Dietary Guidelines

How the Trump Administration Limited the Scope of the USDA's 2020 Dietary Guidelines

The Trump administration is limiting scientific input to the 2020 dietary guidelines, raising concerns among nutrition advocates and independent experts about industry influence over healthy eating recommendations for all Americans.

Heather Paxson on a New Model for Open-access Publishing in Anthropology

Heather Paxson on a New Model for Open-access Publishing in Anthropology

Interim head of MIT Anthropology explains the plan's vision and challenges, plus progress made at an historic MIT workshop.

Make Science PhDs More Than Just a Training Path for Academia

Make Science PhDs More Than Just a Training Path for Academia

Science PhD programmes cater almost exclusively to students bound for academia, but they don't have to.

WHO and TDR Join COAlition S to Support Free and Immediate Access to Health Research

WHO and TDR Join COAlition S to Support Free and Immediate Access to Health Research

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) announce they are the first of the United Nations agencies to join COAlition S. This commitment will ensure that all WHO and TDS supported health research will be free to read online on the day it is published.

Mixed Reception for German Open Access Deal with Springer Nature

Mixed Reception for German Open Access Deal with Springer Nature

Springer Nature has reached an open access publishing deal with 700 German research universities, but it faces some pushback.

RoB 2: a Revised Tool for Assessing Risk of Bias in Randomised Trials

RoB 2: a Revised Tool for Assessing Risk of Bias in Randomised Trials

Assessment of risk of bias is regarded as an essential component of a systematic review on the effects of an intervention. The most commonly used tool for randomised trials is the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool. We updated the tool to respond to developments in understanding how bias arises in randomised trials, and to address user feedback on and limitations of the original tool. 

Financing Open-Access Publication After 2024

Financing Open-Access Publication After 2024

Co-chairs of the implementation task force of the international research-funder consortium cOAlition S clarify their position with regard to financially supporting the important transition to full open access after 2024.