Scientists often herald the role of chance in research. A project in Britain aims to test the popular idea with evidence.

New tools for building interactive figures and software make scientific data more accessible, and reproducible.

But female scientists suffer when their research proposals are judged primarily on the strength of their CVs.

Women are significantly under-represented as last authors on high-quality research papers, according to a recent analysis.

Replication is not enough. Marcus R. Munafò and George Davey Smith state the case for triangulation.

Switzerland appears to have three key factors for success in getting a surprisingly high proportion of its researchers’ articles cited in the scientific literature: it’s a small country, it’s research investment is large compared to other countries, and importantly, its hosting of the Large Hadron Collider is a drawcard for collaborative research.

US male PhD holders earn more than female counterparts across nearly every scientific field.

Research budget could rise to 3.5% of gross domestic product if agreement struck during coalition talks holds.

The National Institutes of Health would stop processing grants, but astronauts in space would keep working.

The country’s research could soon dominate the world stage, but pitfalls lie in wait.

The French government must mitigate the risks in its legal imposition of vaccinations by promoting more coherent and proactive vaccine policies.

For the first time, China has overtaken the United States in terms of the total number of science publications, according to statistics compiled by the US National Science Foundation (NSF).

The UK has gained a new science minister as part of a broader reshuffle of government posts. Sam Gyimah, who moves from the Ministry of Justice, was appointed minister for universities and science on 9 January, replacing Jo Johnson.

A dispute between Australia’s major research funding agencies and universities over the definition of research misconduct has revealed global inconsistencies in the way misconduct is defined and regulated, as well as its ambiguous legal status.

Elsevier is allowing researchers in Germany to access its paywalled journals without a contract until a national agreement is hammered out.

The National Institutes of Health will again fund research that makes viruses more dangerous.

Philip Campbell to continue at publisher Springer Nature.