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Why So Many Americans Are Losing Trust in Science

Why So Many Americans Are Losing Trust in Science

Dr. Mandy Cohen has been on a national tour. The new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, she aims to rebuild trust in that troubled agency at a moment when Covid-19 cases are rising again and the Biden administration has begun a new vaccine campaign.

AI Tools As Science Policy Advisers? The Potential and the Pitfalls

AI Tools As Science Policy Advisers? The Potential and the Pitfalls

Large language models and other artificial-intelligence systems could be excellent at synthesizing scientific evidence for policymakers - but only with appropriate safeguards and humans in the loop.

The Slippery Slope of Scientific Ethics

The Slippery Slope of Scientific Ethics

A new biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer emphasizes the personal and political over the scientific, missing an opportunity to deeply engage with scientific ethics.

Betting Against Worst-case Climate Scenarios is Risky Business

Betting Against Worst-case Climate Scenarios is Risky Business

How much change can human systems tolerate before society collapses?

Economist group argues for scientific experimentation in environmental policymaking

Economist group argues for scientific experimentation in environmental policymaking

The economists say more frequent use of up-front experiments would result in more effective environmental policymaking in areas ranging from pollution control to timber harvesting across the world.

The Benefits of Open Science Are Not Inevitable: Monitoring Its Development Should Be Value-led

The Benefits of Open Science Are Not Inevitable: Monitoring Its Development Should Be Value-led

Open science is increasingly becoming a policy focus and paradigm for all scientific research. Ismael Rafols, Ingeborg Meijer and Jordi Molas-Gallart argue that attempts to monitor the transition to open science should be informed by the values underpinning this change, rather than discrete indicators of open science practices.

To Speed Scientific Progress, Do Away With Funding Delays

To Speed Scientific Progress, Do Away With Funding Delays

The National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health are frequently described as the world’s gold standard for scientific funding. Operationally, however, they are not keeping pace with progress at the scientific frontier.

Why Does Impact Still Feel Like an Add-on to Research Designs?

Why Does Impact Still Feel Like an Add-on to Research Designs?

Reflecting on his role as an academic and member of a research funding organisation, Duncan Green, considers how impact has in some ways still not become embedded in research culture and is often treated a bureaucratic hurdle to overcome.

Open Access 'at Any Cost' Cannot Support Scholarly Publishing Communities

Open Access 'at Any Cost' Cannot Support Scholarly Publishing Communities

Kaitlin Thaney argues the current momentum building for “no pays” academic publishing models and establishing the “reasonable costs” of publication, present opportunities to rebalance the inequities, costs, and power dynamics initially bred by the push towards Open Access “at any cost” over the past two decades.

European Universities Need a Fine-grained Approach to Economic Security Risks

European Universities Need a Fine-grained Approach to Economic Security Risks

The newly launched European Economic Security Strategy aims to address Europe's economic vulnerabilities at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions. Among other objectives it sets out to better define technologies that are critical for Europe, or which have potential dual civil and military use.

Is 'Wokeism' Slowly Killing Scientific Merit? Look to the Latter for the Real Threat to Science

Is 'Wokeism' Slowly Killing Scientific Merit? Look to the Latter for the Real Threat to Science

While some worry "wokeist" ideology could corrupt scientific merit, it could be our problematic understanding of the latter that poses an even greater threat to science, two philosophers argue.

'Industry Scientists Are Often Misunderstood: Here’s Why I Chose This Path'

'Industry Scientists Are Often Misunderstood: Here’s Why I Chose This Path'

"I don’t think industry would be a good fit for me,” the student said, “I’m not money-motivated.” As an industry scientist myself, I struggled to hide my surprise.

Although Hard to Define, Narrative CVs Are Changing How We Think About Researcher Assessment

Although Hard to Define, Narrative CVs Are Changing How We Think About Researcher Assessment

Narrative academic CVs present a means to bypass aspects of a research evaluation culture that is focused on the volume and venue of publications. Drawing on work promoting this format, researchers show how these texts more often foreground the problems they are meant to address, than how the format works in practice.