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Watch out for cheats in citation game
The focus on impact of published research has created new opportunities for misconduct and fraudsters, says Mario Biagioli.
Keep it moving
A postdoc job is good for your career, but don't get stuck in an academic cul-de-sac, says Søren-Peter Olesen.
Beat it, impact factor! Publishing elite turns against controversial metric
Senior staff at Nature, Science and other journals want to end inappropriate use of the measure.
Back to the thesis
Late nights, typos, self-doubt and despair. Francis Collins, Sara Seager and Uta Frith dust off their theses, and reflect on what the PhD was like for them.
Obama’s top scientist talks shrinking budgets, Donald Trump, and his biggest regret
What’s the point of the PhD thesis?
Doctoral courses are slowly being modernized. Now the thesis and viva need to catch up.
Let’s make peer review scientific
Let’s make peer review scientific
Thirty years on from the first congress on peer review, Drummond Rennie reflects on the improvements brought about by research into the process — and calls for more.
ArXiv preprint server plans multimillion-dollar overhaul
Users urge caution in revamp of service at the heart of physics.
Global Research Council: Commit to equity for women researchers
Heads of research agencies from nearly 50 countries — large and small, with developed and emerging economies — adopted a Statement of Principles and Actions Promoting the Equality and Status of Women in Research at the Global Research Council's fifth annual meeting last month in New Delhi.
Interdisciplinary research has consistently lower funding success
An analysis of Australian Research Council data reveals grant proposals that integrate a broad array of academic fields are less likely to be funded.
Publisher under fire for fake article webpages
'Trap’ URLs can help publishers to catch automated downloading, but critics say that the approach is clumsy.
Meet the challenge of interdisciplinary science
Problems of modern society demand collaborative research.
Social-progress panel seeks public comment
Marc Fleurbaey and colleagues explain why and how 300 scholars in the social sciences and humanities are collaborating to synthesize knowledge for policymakers.
The ups and downs of data sharing in science
The ups and downs of data sharing in science
Pooling clinical details helps doctors to diagnose rare diseases — but more sharing is needed.
First CRISPR clinical trial gets green light from US panel
The technique's first test in people could begin as early as the end of the year.
'Ransomware' cyberattack highlights vulnerability of universities
Staff at Canadian university given little guidance on how to mitigate future problems.
A code of conduct for data on epidemics
A code of conduct for data on epidemics
As a long-term champion of open-access research data on pandemic viruses and a member of the Italian Parliament, I urge Brazil to hasten the reform of its current biosecurity legislation. This would enable sharing of vital Zika virus samples and information, as recently called for by the World Health Organization…
Reproducibility: Archive computer code with raw data
Software tools such as knitr and R Markdown allow the description and code of a statistical analysis to be combined into a single document, providing a pipeline from the raw data to the final results and figures. Outputs are updated by re-running the scripts using version-control tools such as Git and GitHub.