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Improving Support for Young Biomedical Scientists

Improving Support for Young Biomedical Scientists

Three steps that could be taken by funding agencies to support young investigators in more constructive and effective ways: (1) greatly expand the use of the New Innovator/Starting Grants awards, (2) increase the funding of young investigators through requests for applications, and (3) experiment with separate competitions for Early Stage Investigators when awarding traditional investigator-initiated R01 grants.

The Evolving Preprint Landscape

The Evolving Preprint Landscape

Introductory report for the Knowledge Exchange working group on preprints, based on contributions from the Knowledge Exchange Preprints Advisory Group.

Failures Are Essential to Scientific Inquiry

Failures Are Essential to Scientific Inquiry

Reproducibility failures occur even in fields such as mathematics or computer science that do not have statistical problems or issues with experimental design. Suggested policy changes ignore a core feature of the process of scientific inquiry that occurs after reproducibility failures: the integration of conflicting observations and ideas into a coherent theory.

 

A New Report Uses Data To Drive Diversity In STEM Fields

A New Report Uses Data To Drive Diversity In STEM Fields

The report identifies and addresses three critical points for women and women of color tech and science entrepreneurs: the myth that there is a "pipeline problem", the fact that traditional accelerator programs are not working for this population and how investors can fix the funding gap.

The Academic Papers Researchers Regard as Significant Are Not Those That Are Highly Cited

The Academic Papers Researchers Regard as Significant Are Not Those That Are Highly Cited

Academia has relied on citation count as the main way to measure the impact or importance of research, informing metrics such as the Impact Factor and the h-index. But how well do these metrics actually align with researchers’ subjective evaluation of impact and significance?

Manipulating the Alpha Level Cannot Cure Significance Testing

Manipulating the Alpha Level Cannot Cure Significance Testing

When evaluating the strength of the evidence, we should consider auxiliary assumptions, the strength of the experimental design, and implications for applications. To boil all this down to a binary decision based on a p-value threshold is not acceptable.

The Unhappy Postdoc: a Survey Based Study

The Unhappy Postdoc: a Survey Based Study

In this study, among a large number of factors that can enhance life satisfaction for postdocs (e.g., publication productivity, resources available to them) only one stood out as significant: the degree to which atmosphere in the lab is pleasant and collegial.

An Empirical Study of the per Capita Yield of Science Nobel Prizes: Is the Us Era Coming to an End?

An Empirical Study of the per Capita Yield of Science Nobel Prizes: Is the Us Era Coming to an End?

For the USA, this study finds, the entire history of science Noble prizes is described on a per capita basis to an astonishing accuracy by a single large productivity boost decaying at a continuously accelerating rate since its peak in 1972.

Women and Lung Disease. Sex Differences and Global Health Disparities

Women and Lung Disease. Sex Differences and Global Health Disparities

There is growing evidence that a number of pulmonary diseases affect women differently and with a greater degree of severity than men.

A Landscape Study on Open Access and Monographs: New Summary and Survey

A Landscape Study on Open Access and Monographs: New Summary and Survey

The state of affairs with regard to policies, funding and publishing Open Access monographs in eight European countries.

OAPEN-CH - the Impact of Open Access on Scientific Monographs in Switzerland

OAPEN-CH - the Impact of Open Access on Scientific Monographs in Switzerland

Pilot study found that providing a digital edition that is freely available on the Internet increases the trackability, visibility and use of monographs. The study also finds that open access does not have a negative impact on printed book sales.

Funder Perspectives on Open Infrastructure

Funder Perspectives on Open Infrastructure

A survey to better understand funder perspectives with respect to supporting open infrastructure shows that beyond open access, however, there is very little consensus on other open activities.

Chemistry Students With Advisers of Same Gender More Likely to Succeed

Chemistry Students With Advisers of Same Gender More Likely to Succeed

Women with female PhD supervisors publish more papers and are 50% more likely to become academics than those with male advisers.

The Matthew Effect in Science Funding

The Matthew Effect in Science Funding

Article suggesting that positive feedback in funding may be a key mechanism through which money is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few extremely successful scholars, but also that the origins of emergent distinction in scientists' careers may be of an arbitrary nature.  (The article is closed access and requires a subscription to view the full text legally.)

An Empirical Study of the per Capita Yield of Science Nobel Prizes: Is the US Era Coming to an End?

An Empirical Study of the per Capita Yield of Science Nobel Prizes: Is the US Era Coming to an End?

For the USA, the entire history of science Noble prizes is described on a per capita basis to an astonishing accuracy by a single large productivity boost decaying at a continuously accelerating rate since its peak in 1972.

PhD Students Supervised Collectively Rather Than Individually Are Quicker to Complete Their Theses

PhD Students Supervised Collectively Rather Than Individually Are Quicker to Complete Their Theses

Comparing the experiences of individually and collectively supervised students on the same doctoral programme, it was found that collective supervision, during the first year at least, is correlated with significantly shorter times to thesis completion compared to individual supervision.

Results of the FP7 Post-Grant Open Access Pilot

Results of the FP7 Post-Grant Open Access Pilot

For a period of almost 3 years, the OpenAIRE2020 project has run - on behalf of the European Commission - a pilot to fund post-grant Open Access publication of research outputs arising from projects financed under the 7th Framework Programme (FP7).

Dimensions: Re-Discovering the Ecosystem of Scientific Information

Dimensions: Re-Discovering the Ecosystem of Scientific Information

Study aims to provide a detailed description of the free version of Dimensions (the new bibliographic database produced by Digital Science). An analysis of its coverage is carried out (comparing it Scopus and Google Scholar) in order to determine whether the bibliometric indicators offered by Dimensions have an order of magnitude significant enough to be used. 

The Irreproducibility Crisis of Modern Science: Causes, Consequences, and the Road to Reform

The Irreproducibility Crisis of Modern Science: Causes, Consequences, and the Road to Reform

This study by the National Association of Scholars examines the different aspects of the reproducibility crisis of modern science. The report also includes a series of policy recommendations, scientific and political, for alleviating the reproducibility crisis.

Using Preprints for Journal Clubs

Using Preprints for Journal Clubs

Including preprints rather than focusing completely on published papers in journal clubs might benefit the scientific enterprise in numerous ways, including by providing direct criticisms to preprint authors before publication, deemphasizing publishing venue, teaching students the art of reviewing papers, and making journal clubs more current by discussing unpublished data.

Tweet Success? Scientific Communication Correlates with Increased Citations in Ecology and Conservation

Tweet Success? Scientific Communication Correlates with Increased Citations in Ecology and Conservation

In recent years, increasing media exposure (measured by Altmetrics) did not relate to the equivalent citations as in earlier years; signaling a diminishing return on investment.

Knowledge Sharing in Global Health Research - the Impact, Uptake and Cost of Open Access to Scholarly Literature

Knowledge Sharing in Global Health Research - the Impact, Uptake and Cost of Open Access to Scholarly Literature

This study aims to assess the use, cost and impact of open access diffusion in the context of global health research.  Although OA does not ensure full knowledge transfer from research to practice, limiting public access can negatively impact implementation and outcomes of health policy and reduce public understanding of health issues.