What's Coming Up in Research Policy in the Second Half of 2025?
So far, 2025 has seen a flurry of policy initiatives as the new European Commission got down to work. August offers a moment to pause and reflect ahead of a busy autumn.
Research grant success rates rise with demand management
Research grant success rates rise with demand management
The research councils’ controversial demand management measures have been credited with driving the fourth successive annual rise in the overall success rate for grant applications, which now stands at 30 per cent.
The Rise of the Ghost Academic
The academic conference no-show might feel like a minor inconvenience, but it might represent evidence of a growing concern with CV padding over contributions to the field.
Trump Hands Political Appointees Control over Science Funding: Here's Why Researchers Are Sounding the Alarm
Science|Business Summer Reads of 2025
UK recovers position in EU’s Horizon Europe science research programme
Scientists received €735m in grants in 2024 after UK rejoined programme as associate member post-Brexit
PLOS Responds to PNAS Study Detailing the Growth of Peer Review Integrity Issues
PLOS Responds to PNAS Study Detailing the Growth of Peer Review Integrity Issues
A new PNAS study uses openly available articles to map the scale of paper mill and peer review ring activity across scholarly publishing.
A Massive Fraud Ring Is Publishing Thousands of Fake Studies and the Problem is Exploding.
A Massive Fraud Ring Is Publishing Thousands of Fake Studies and the Problem is Exploding.
Universities Must Lead in Reclaiming Scientific Sovereignty
PLOS profits prompt revamp
Elizabeth Marincola, PLOS's chief executive, says that the future of science publishing is not in branded, highly selective titles. Instead, she sees a world in which article metrics and community judgements help the cream of research to rise to the top.
What's Driving UK Universities to Set Up Campuses in India in a Changing Global Education Order?
Male Researchers Retract More Papers Than Their Female Peers
Ask a Scientist: How Does Documenting Attacks on Science Stop Authoritarians?
Even Honest Research Results Can Flip - a New Approach to Assessing Robustness in the Social Sciences
Even Honest Research Results Can Flip - a New Approach to Assessing Robustness in the Social Sciences
As Science Faces External Attacks, It Needs to Look Within to Defend and Reform
AI-based Fake Papers Are a New Threat to Academic Publishing
New GRE data illustrate trends on future graduate students
Test-takers who took the GRE in 2012-13 were more likely to be a bit younger and a bit more science-oriented than those who took the exam the year before.
Why being open about science can make people trust it less, and what to do about it
Why being open about science can make people trust it less, and what to do about it
When people trust science, they can make better decisions, follow helpful rules and work together on big problems like health, climate change and new technology. But if people stop trusting science, it's easier for false information to spread, and harder to solve those problems.
Scientists’ role in defending democracy
We know from other countries and contexts that aspiring authoritarians often target scientists, elevate loyalists, and suppress or sideline any who might have the knowledge, expertise, or power to challenge government transgression and failures to make science-based policy decisions. In response to such threats, the US scientific community can work to rebuild critical elements of the federal science enterprise now being dismantled or compromised, including science advisory committees and scientific assessments, which for decades have helped ensure that the best available science informs policy decisions.
Advancing transdisciplinarity through library–academic collaboration
Advancing transdisciplinarity through library–academic collaboration
Libraries are a central part of the academic system, which is increasingly embracing a range of approaches for tackling complex societal and environmental problems, including transdisciplinarity.
Conspiracy Theories As Engines of Connection for Enriched Public Debates on Emerging Technologies
Conspiracy Theories As Engines of Connection for Enriched Public Debates on Emerging Technologies
Debates on contested emerging technologies illustrate how publics make sense of science and technology by making unexpected connections between scientific insights, values, hopes and fears.