Business Secretary Alok Sharma has announced that Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser DBE FRS will join UK Research and Innovation as its new Chief Executive. She will succeed Sir Mark Walport who announced in September last year that he would retire in 2020. Professor Leyser will start her new role on Monday June 29.

In collaboration with SPARC Europe, a survey to map Open Access (OA) and Open Science (OS) infrastructure across Europe was launched. The aim is to establish a core understanding of Europe's current field of Open resources and gain insight into their usage, durability, and adherence to core open principles and standards.

New initiative couples rapid release of new results with expert review.

In a secret experiment, researchers replaced the dysfunctional brain cells of a Parkinson's patient with the progeny of an extraordinary type of stem cell.

The extreme metabolism of some snakes could provide leads on how to regenerate human tissue.

Current and former moderators will all be paid a minimum of $1,000. Selena Scola filed the case in California.

The pandemic is devastating economies. As countries look to revive growth, recovery must go with - not against - the grain of nature.

Many female academics say juggling their career with coronavirus childcare is overwhelming.

OLAF, the EU's anti-fraud agency, this week confirmed an unnamed Greek scientist de-frauded the European Research Council (ERC) of roughly €190,000. "A complex fraud involving a Greek scientist and her network of international researchers has been uncovered by investigators," OLAF said.

Government scientific advisers are furious at what they see as an attempt to censor their advice on government proposals during the Covid-19 lockdown by heavily redacting an official report before it was released to the public.

Repositories are rapidly disseminating crucial pandemic science - and they're screening more closely to guard against poor-quality work.

After decades of debate on the feasibility of open access (OA) to scientific publications, we may be nearing a tipping point. A number of recent developments, such as Plan S, suggest that OA upon publication could become the default in the sciences within the next several years. However, there remains a need for practical, sustainable models, for careful analysis of the consequences of business model choices, and for caution in responding to passionate calls for a 'default to open'.

COVID-19 has reinforced the importance of preprints as an indispensable means for rapid research dissemination.

ResearchGate, the largest professional network for researchers, and Wiley, a global leader in research and education, today announced a cooperation agreement to explore ways in which Wiley and ResearchGate can collaborate to better support the needs of researchers through ResearchGate’s collaboration platform.

 To deepen understanding of researchers’ priorities with regards to sharing research data, PLOS has launched a new study. 

Global warming has affected the entire planet’s surface, except for one particular area of the ocean, which has bucked the trend.

Artificial-intelligence tool aims to reveal whether research findings are supported or contradicted by subsequent studies.

The John Maddox Prize for Standing up for Science recognises the work of individuals who promote science and evidence, advancing the public discussion around difficult topics despite challenges or hostility.

Poll finds 64% of voters more likely to listen to expert advice as 51% say they have seen fake news about virus

A mutation in the novel coronavirus has led to a new strain viewed as more contagious than the virus that emerged from China, according to a new study.

Scientists say the microbe - found in the wild near Lake Victoria - has enormous potential.

The British government publishes the names of 50 members of the experts' group - but the list is incomplete.

The idea of controlled human infection trials has been met with enthusiasm in some quarters, and reservations in others, including from some who run them.

Oxford University Press (OUP) announces the first two titles in the new flagship open access journal series. The Oxford Open series launches with Oxford Open Immunology and Oxford Open Materials Science. This is an important step forward in OUP’s open access publishing programme.

The research community is reacting with alarm and anger to the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) abrupt and unusual termination of a grant supporting research in China on how coronaviruses move from bats to humans. The agency axed the grant last week, after conservative U.S. politicians and media repeatedly suggested—without evidence—that the pandemic severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, that employs a Chinese virologist who had been receiving funding from the grant.

The Policy Briefs of the Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force are now available on its website. They reflect the Task Force thinking on a topic at that time and will be updated in the light of new studies or other data. 

DORA launched a new virtual discussion series for public and private research funders. The goal of the series is to increase communication about research assessment reform by providing a space for funders to share and discuss new initiatives, with the hope that this will ultimately serve as a platform to accelerate the spread of good research assessment policies and practices.

Global recession may make public and policymakers think more about those 'at the bottom of society', says social policy academic.

Instead of supporting the 54% of staff on insecure contracts, many managers are using the pandemic to sack them.

For years, the Swiss National Science Foundation and other organisations have been demanding open science as the new normal. The corona crisis drastically confirms the validity of this demand.