Women outnumber men in a raft of science courses – but when they start their careers, they find many insurmountable barriers.

The controversies surrounding Sci-Hub touch on many hot-button topics in librarianship. This primer lays out multiple perspectives on the issues.

David Matthews considers a flurry of ‘threats’ to the conveyor belt of arrivals and what Western campuses can do to shockproof their systems.

Lessons learned and future thoughts on open access in humanities and social sciences.

There are better solutions to the “reproducibility crisis” in research

Nick Hillman offers academics advice on managing expectations and ensuring that their research has a big impact

Scientists, journal editors, and funders of research are talking about a once-heretical idea: preprint publishing for biologists.

How might Web technology change the publishing industry? Ask the inventor of the World Wide Web.

The reality of academia is stifling the passion and creativity needed both to enjoy science, and to do it well.

Overtime pay for postdoctoral scientists is welcome — but could mean fewer positions.

After failing to be shortlisted for several jobs, a black British lecturer decided to apply to universities using a ‘whitened name’

Purchase of research repository has horrified open access advocates who fear acquisition marks attempt to maintain control over publishing

Steph Wright wonders if it is better to speak your mind or to hold your tongue

Revisiting the past can help to inform ideas of the present: science without consensus would be chaos. But the price of consensus is eternal vigilance against complacency, and a willingness to contemplate the road otherwise not travelled.

Being open about failure is one thing, but we must also look at how we define success, says Shahidha Bari

Institutional review boards have long governed research ethics, but do they need to evolve in the digital age?

Piece reflecting the opinions of researchers, funders, and journals.

To make research more accessible, separate the review and dissemination processes.

Evolve governance structures, practices and metrics to accelerate innovation in an era of digital connectivity, writes Martin Curley.

Governments need to tighten regulation if the sharing of clinical-trial data is to succeed.

European funding has made up for a shortfall in U.K. science spending

Has teaching been the poor cousin of research for too long?

The present system means researchers with useful characteristics such as caution and humility may find it harder to get grants

If the work is properly monitored, there is no reason not to trust the results

The value that Australia places on publication quality over quantity has elevated it into the top echelon of science. Can it now improve its flagging track record in commercialization?

Austrian social scientist Helga Nowotny was president of the European Research Council between 2010 and 2013. Now a professor emerita of ETH Zurich and author of The Cunning of Uncertainty (Polity, 2015), Nowotny discusses the growing pressure to capitalize on academic research, and how countries can get it right in the absence of a universal recipe.

In science as in politics, most people agree that transparency is essential. Top journals now require authors to disclose their funding sources so that readers can judge the possibility of bias, and the British Medical Journal recently required authors to disclose their data as well so that experts can run independent analyses of the results. But as transparency becomes the standard, many academics are resisting the trend without pushback from their universities.

Or 'how to tweet your way to honour and glory'.

Entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley live by the motto of “Fail fast, fail often." Scientists would do well to likewise embrace failure.

By sharing their experiences, early-career scientists can help to make the case for increased government funding for researchers.