publications

Send us a link

Subscribe to our newsletter

Why evaluating scientists by grant income is stupid

Why evaluating scientists by grant income is stupid

“In the modern British university, it is not that funding is sought in order to carry out research, but that research projects are formulated in order to get funding.”

A free collaborative knowledgebase

A free collaborative knowledgebase

Unnoticed by most of its readers, Wikipedia continues to undergo dramatic changes, as its sister project Wikidata introduces a new multilingual "Wikipedia for data" to manage the factual information of the popular online encyclopedia.

Accumulation of knowledge as a challenge to science policy

Accumulation of knowledge as a challenge to science policy

There are shifts in individual innovative productivity, which is manifested by the fact that the contribution of young scientists to science is getting smaller and – as a result of deepening of specialization – the dominance of teamwork increases.

A 1959 essay by Isaac Asimov on creativity

A 1959 essay by Isaac Asimov on creativity

Note from Arthur Obermayer, friend of the author: In 1959, I worked as a scientist at Allied Research Associates in Boston. The company was an MIT spinoff that originally focused on the effects of nuclear weapons on aircraft structures.

Fang Zhouzi Erased from China's Social Media

Fang Zhouzi Erased from China's Social Media

Fang Zhouzi is a Chinese popular scientific writer who is also well known for his campaign against pseudoscience and fraud in China. But a few days ago, Fang Zhouzi has been erased.

Low-Quality Scholarly Publishers Don't Understand Copyright

Low-Quality Scholarly Publishers Don't Understand Copyright

I am increasingly seeing contradictory licensing statements on the websites of low-quality, questionable, and predatory publishers.

Aging Researchers and Funding Trends

Aging Researchers and Funding Trends

The proportion of federal research funding going to investigators older than 65 was greater than that going to researchers younger than 35, even if most Nobel recipients made their discoveries before they were 40 years old.

What configurations of fields of science are found in grant proposals today?

What configurations of fields of science are found in grant proposals today?

Cross-disciplinarity is found particularly in research project proposals of fields of science with clearly overlapping content and mainly in research proposals submitted by fields of science within the humanities and social sciences.

Measuring impact in research evaluations

Measuring impact in research evaluations

This paper is concerned with the measurement of citation impact and societal impact, and looks at the basis, the effects and the problems of impact measurement.