Italy will be implementing ORCID on a national scale. 70 universities and 4 research centers will initially participate in the consortium.

The US government is considering policy changes that could dramatically affect how researchers handle equipment and information that have national-security implications. Scientists would need to reconsider what they can discuss with graduate students from other countries, or when traveling abroad on work trips.

Thierry Mandon replaces Geneviève Fioraso, who stepped down in March for health reasons, leaving France without anyone heading the research brief for three months.

Carlos Moedas has proposed setting up a European Innovation Council to fund applied research and innovation.

Pope Francis squarely blames the burning of fossil fuels for climate change in the leaked draft of his long-awaited environmental encyclical.

Proposed controls on foreign operations in China are a threat to scientific collaboration.

Researchers hope that a more pluralistic parliament will put an end to interference and slipping standards.

Productive researchers with high-impact papers and those working in countries were the pressure to publish is intense are less likely to produce retracted papers and are more likely to correct them.

Key facts, patterns and trends.

The EPFL has launched an investigation into an alleged misappropriation of 218'000 CHF from its prestigious [16]Blue Brain Project.

About 3000 Russian scientists rallied in Moscow on Saturday to protest against government reforms of the research system and the imposition of competitive funding, which is not commonly used in the country.

Elsevier has filed a complaint hoping to shut down websites which are particularly popular in developing nations where access to academic works is relatively expensive.

"The right to read is the right to mine" : publishers are resisting a change to copyright law that would allow academics to digitally mine published research to help crack intractable problems.

"Retrospective analyses of the correlation between percentile scores from peer review and bibliometric indices of the publications resulting from funded grant applications are not valid tests of the predictive validity of peer review at the NIH."

Study calculates cost of flawed biomedical research in the US.

[3]A study at the University of Montreal shows that Reed-Elsevier, Springer, Wiley-Blackwell, Taylor & Francis, and Sage now publish more than 50% of all academic articles. This number has been rising, thanks to mergers and acquisitions, from 30% in 1996 and only 20% in 1973.

Academics at Newcastle University have been matched with members of the public as pen pals.

Oxford University has picked its next leader — and for the first time in 785 years, it will be led by a woman: Louise Richardson.

Initiative trying to validate 50 cancer papers finds difficulty in accessing original study data.

Researchers need freedom and the flexibility that leads to serendipity, and they should be encouraged to take risks even if it leads to failure.

Facing pressure from E.U. parliamentarians and scientists, the European Commission agreed to spare the ERC from budget cuts.

The data transparency revolution is gathering pace. Last month, the WHO and the Nordic Trial Alliance released important declarations about clinical trial transparency.

Republicans in the House of Representatives seek to reshape research agenda.

Just a fraction of universities in the United Kingdom have made public the extent of their investigations into research misconduct, a survey has found - even though all have been told that they should do so.

The ETH Zurich announced it was investigating one of its professors following accusations of publication fraud. Academic misconduct is nothing new, but the Swiss have only recently taken a coherent approach to investigating it.

Switzerland’s higher education system has been ranked 2nd in the 2015 global ratings done by Universitas 21. One aspect where it stood out: international outlook. However this is the area under threat after an anti-immigration vote last year.

Movement to publicly record peer-reviewing activity gains momentum.

Die Universität Basel wird ab 1. August 2015 von einer Frau geführt. Die neue Rektorin ist eine Wirtschaftsprofessorin aus Zürich.

Russian government failed to pay for the subscription for 2014 to the amount of €890,000 (US$1 million).

Elsevier announced a new sharing and hosting policy for Elsevier journal articles.