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Ramakrishnan to lead Royal Society

Ramakrishnan to lead Royal Society

The next president of the Royal Society will be the Nobel-winning Cambridge researcher Prof Sir Venki Ramakrishnan. He will succeed geneticist Sir Paul Nurse in December 2015.

Ukraine joins Horizon 2020 to work with EU in science and research

Ukraine joins Horizon 2020 to work with EU in science and research

Ukraine will now be able to fully participate in Horizon 2020 on equal terms with EU Member States and other associated countries.

Wiley-Publons pilot program enhances peer-reviewer recognition

Wiley-Publons pilot program enhances peer-reviewer recognition

Wiley is piloting a partnership with Publons to give you official recognition for your peer review work. This partnership means you can opt-in to have your reviews for participating Wiley journals automatically added to your reviewer profile on Publons.

Mediators propose CERN-like organization for Human Brain Project

Mediators propose CERN-like organization for Human Brain Project

The HBP should be remade into an international organization modeled on CERN or the EMBL in Heidelberg, says a panel formed to unite the neuroscience community.

Crowdsourcing decision-making lands you in trouble

Crowdsourcing decision-making lands you in trouble

Giving equal weight to everybody’s opinion might be the worse thing you could do.

We can make science funding go further by better sharing equipment

We can make science funding go further by better sharing equipment

A new report suggests more sharing of research equipment may be a better way of getting more bang out of the science funding buck than clawing back ‘efficiency savings’ out of grant funding.

In the beginning

In the beginning

This month marks the 350th anniversary of arguably the first and longest-running scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions: Giving Some Accompt of the Present Undertakings, Studies, and Labours of the Ingenious in Many Considerable Parts of the World.

An astonishingly small number of elite graduate schools produce the academics who get jobs

An astonishingly small number of elite graduate schools produce the academics who get jobs

An astonishingly small number of elite universities produce an overwhelming number of professors.

Mistrust and meddling unsettles US science agency

Mistrust and meddling unsettles US science agency

Republicans in the US Congress have put the NSF under the microscope, questioning its decisions on individual grants and the purpose of entire fields of study.

Momentum for European innovation and competitiveness

Momentum for European innovation and competitiveness

Carlos Moedas' speech, Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, in Berlin last week in favor of open science, disruptive innovation and digital technologies.

Science research facilities prepare for shutdown

Science research facilities prepare for shutdown

Facilities prepare for shutdown as government refuses to secure funding. Up to 1,700 jobs at 27 facilities at risk from 30 June, with $150m in vital funding tied to the Coalition’s higher-education changes.

Human Brain Project votes for leadership change

Human Brain Project votes for leadership change

Europe's ambitious but contentious €1-billion HBP has announced changes to its organization in a response to criticism of its management and scientific trajectory by many high-ranking neuroscientists.

Switzerland still heads the ranking in 2014

Switzerland still heads the ranking in 2014

While the Netherlands, France and the UK showed significant growth, other countries such as Finland, Switzerland and Spain declined. However, Switzerland still heads the ranking with 848 applications per million inhabitants.

Workshop held by the NRC last week

Workshop held by the NRC last week

A workshop held by the National Research Council in the US addressed statistical challenges in assessing and fostering the reproducibility of scientific results by examining the extent of reproducibility, the causes of reproducibility failures, and potential remedies. Here's the program.

Harold Varmus to resign as head of US cancer institute

Harold Varmus to resign as head of US cancer institute

The NCI call it the end of an era. Harold Varmus, director of the US NCI and former director of the NIH, announced on 4 March that he will be stepping down from his post at the end of the month.

An analysis of Wellcome Trust OA spend

An analysis of Wellcome Trust OA spend

To help make the costs around open access more transparent, the Wellcome Trust has published details on how much it spent on article processing charges in the year 2013-14.

Congrats young scientists, you face the worst research funding in 50 years

Congrats young scientists, you face the worst research funding in 50 years

In an appearance before the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, Dr. Francis Collins, head of NIH, offered a familiar warning to lawmakers considering future appropriations for scientific research.

To tweet or not to tweet?

To tweet or not to tweet?

Not only are scientific articles that have strong coverage in social media likely to be cited more in the future, social media is also the tool that allows us to communicate directly with the general public.

Authoring scientific papers: a perspective from the trenches

Authoring scientific papers: a perspective from the trenches

It has taken a while, but the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences (SAAS) have come out with a valuable booklet on authorships of scientific manuscripts. This recommendations, published now also as a special article in the Swiss Medical Weekly, aspire to serve as a practical guide for principal investigators confronted with the task of assigning authorships to the individuals contributing to scientific manuscripts.

Why there is no iTunes for science papers [j0wXuoeTr60Z5v2U8pvQ_mfenner_400x400.jpg]

Why there is no iTunes for science papers [j0wXuoeTr60Z5v2U8pvQ_mfenner_400x400.jpg]

Scholarly articles are distributed almost exclusively in digital form. While there is an increasing number of journal articles freely available via green or gold open access, the majority of them still can only be read if the reader works at an institution with a subscription to the journal..