Science is a social process, and teaching students how researchers work in tandem to develop facts will make them less likely to be duped by falsehoods.

ERC President Professor Maria LeptinSpeech at European Academy of Sciences ceremony. 

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are not a priority for research in high-income countries. That must change.

What if even by saying "fake science" you inadvertently participate in a scam? What if this phrase legitimizes fraud, lies, and deceit?  Let's call it what it is - dupery.

Rather than arguing about the suitability of natural experimental methods to inform decisions we need to focus on refining their scope and design, say Peter Craig and colleagues Natural experiments have long been used as opportunities to evaluate the health impacts of policies, programmes, and other interventions. Defined in the UK Medical Research Council's guidance as events outside the control of researchers that divide populations into exposed and unexposed groups, natural experiments have greatly contributed to the evidence base for tobacco and air pollution control, suicide prevention, and other important areas of public health policy.1 Although randomised controlled trials are often viewed as the best source of evidence because they have less risk of bias, reliance on them as the only source of credible evidence has begun to shift for several reasons. Firstly, policy makers are increasingly looking for evidence about "what works" to tackle pervasive and complex problems, including the social determinants of health,23 and these are hard to examine in randomised trials. In Scotland, for example, legislation to introduce a minimum retail price per unit of alcohol included a sunset clause, which means that the measure will lapse after six years unless evidence is produced that it works. This has resulted in multiple evaluations, including natural experimental studies using geographical or historical comparator groups.4 Similarly, the US National Institutes of Health has called for greater use of natural experimental methods to understand how to prevent obesity,5 and a consortium of European academies for their greater use to understand policies and interventions to reduce health inequalities.3 Secondly, a wider range of analytical methods developed within other disciplines, mostly by economists or other social or political scientists, are being increasingly applied to good effect. A good example is the use of synthetic control methods …

Science led the way out of the COVID-19 pandemic and can rise to other challenges, as long as there is sustained investment in research and research infrastructures, according to the head of the European Molecular Biology Lab.

Does forcing students to mandatorily publish a research paper before thesis submission lead to a high-quality PhD thesis, or does high-quality PhD work lead to publications in good journals? This question is unlike the chicken...

Magic mushrooms are no magic cure for society's ills, and a substance as powerful as psychedelics can be dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands

This year's winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics were driven by curiosity, skill, and tenacity.

The way that the global north pays for publishing hampers public, scholar-led efforts in Latin America.

Back in the 60s, the Outer Space Treaty provided us with an assurance of peace and security in the Cold War space race. So much has changed since then - so why hasn't the treaty, asks DW's Zulfikar Abbany.

Nature's recent efforts to redefine the ethical responsibilities of scientists leave a lot to be desired.

Internships and work-integrated learning for social sciences and humanities students can be part of how post-secondary institutions increase their capacities to contribute to social innovation.

The director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy plays a critical role in achieving the president's science goals. Facilitating cooperation among the dozens of research agencies is key.

When programmes expand, new complexities and indirect consequences must be studied.

Professor Sam Kingman, Pro-Vice Chancellor Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham contributes to the blog series on championing the role of technicians in higher education and research.

Funders must make pragmatism prestigious; the current obsession with novelty risks making science irrelevant.

Marion Detjen critiques the conclusions of the documenta fifteen "Expert Panel" on anti-Semitism.

More funders should consider using randomization to choose grant recipients when decisions are too close to call.

Does trust in research begin with trust in peer review across the whole ecosystem, and what does that look like for different communities and stakeholders?

Beyond ideological boundaries, the Open Science movement should address the question of whether and, if so, under which framework conditions “closeness” can be appropriate in global, political crises. Openness must not be abused to place sanctions in global, political crises by closing open offers.

Every era has its myths and rituals, doomed to seem absurd to future generations. Today, we believe in psychology.

Scientists aren't always right, and new evidence can always emerge to disprove a theory. Still, philosophy helps explain why there is good reason for us to trust science regardless.

The lifting of pandemic restrictions on travel and increased requirements in EU research programmes for researchers to spend time abroad is drawing renewed attention to the way in which blanket EU rules for managing labour flows are getting in the way.

Feminists have generated a set of tools to make science less biased and more robust. Why don't more scientists use it?

Funders and publishers are increasingly asking researchers to account for the role of sex in experiments - a requirement that's contentious and hard to get right.

For an early start on Peer Review Week, we reached out to the SSP community to ask "Is research integrity possible without peer review?" 

The White House painted an incomplete economic picture of its new policy for free, immediate access to research produced with federal grants. Will publishers adapt their business models to comply, or will scholars be on the hook?