What could the UK academic community do with £14.5 million? That is what just 19 Universities in the UK are spending in total during a single year on journal subscriptions to a single publisher.

Aside from the occasional cigar (once every five years or so), I'm one of those smug "never smoked" gits. You then might think that I'm all for plain packaging, not publishing tobacco industry-funded research, and completely against the " normalization" of smoking via the evidently evil medium of e-cigarettes.

Academic-industry research collaborations have long been a source of controversy in medicine.

Wirtschaftsforscher warnen vor Unterfinanzierung der Grundlagenforschung

"Die Schweizer Forschung wird künftig international sein oder gar nicht mehr sein."

The age at which Nobel prize winners receive their prizes has increased dramatically, especially in physics.

Felipe Fernández-Armesto bristles at the stifling effect of peer review.

The sudden appearance of data scientists on the business scene reflects the fact that companies are now wrestling with information that comes in varieties and volumes never encountered before.

There is no doubt that big data is a valuable tool that has already had a critical impact in certain areas. But because of its popularity, we need to be levelheaded about what big data can and can’t do.

Anne Glover, Chief Scientific Adviser to the European Commission, discusses evidence-based policy and nurturing and supporting a European scientific culture.

Open Access, Open Science, Science 2.0 - die Titel, unter denen vom Internet eine Beschleunigung des Erkenntnisgewinns erwartet wird, sind vielfältig. Doch wem nützen die entsprechenden Techniken?

Scientists go to great lengths to ensure that data are collected and analysed properly, so why do they apply different standards to data about the number of times research papers have been cited and viewed?

There has been an upsurge in philanthropy for scientific research by America's billionaires. Still, in size and scope, philanthropy pales in comparison to public financing for science.

Merciless competition for jobs and funds pushes some researchers to spin data in the eternal quest for success

Should paywalls stand between the taxpaying public and publicly funded research? Congress recently decided that the answer should be "no."

Doubts over ground-breaking stem-cell research are just what the field needs.

Scientific mavericks once played an essential role in research. We must relearn how to support them and provide new options for an unforeseeable future.

US scientists should not be placated by the ‘flat budget’ myth. Funds are decreasing, and the situation will get worse.

Former Purdue University president France Córdova inherits an agency at a crossroads.

As online comments on newly published research become widespread, a new dilemma faces scientists wanting to enter the electronic fray: where to comment, and in what format for maximum impact?

Researchers in Switzerland lose out due to country's vote on immigration

Brian D. Wright and colleagues present data challenging the assumption that corporate-funded academic research is less accessible and useful to others.

As government financing of basic science research has plunged, private donors have filled the void, raising questions about the future of research for the public good.

As I am writing this article, I should be writing something else: an email to an editor, an email to an author, a letter of recommendation, notes for tomorrow’s classes, comments on students’ papers, comments on manuscripts, an abstract for an upcoming conference, notes for one of the books I’m working on.

Peter Gluckman, New Zealand's chief science adviser, offers his ten principles for building trust, influence, engagement and independence.

Is 2014 the year that Europe gets drug companies to publish all their data on the safety and effectiveness of medicines?

Science is now able to self-correct instantly. Post-publication peer review is here to stay.

Study of psychology departments finds that female full professors are less likely to co-author papers with lower ranking women

As universities move towards a corporate business model, precarity is being imposed by force. The following is an edited transcript (prepared by Robin J. Sowards) of remarks given by Noam Chomsky last month to a gathering of members and allies of the Adjunct Faculty Association of the United Steelworkers in Pittsburgh, Penn.

The good news: Many more women than ever before are completing Ph.D.'s in the sciences. Back in 2000, when I was appointed the first female dean of the graduate division at the University of California at Berkeley, I was delighted to learn that about half of the incoming doctoral students in the biological sciences-and more than 30 percent in heavily male fields like chemistry and engineering-were women.