ScienceGeist

By Rob Cuthbert Tips from an editor on how Times Higher Education can shift the negative perceptions of people in higher education to reassert its value to the sector. Times Higher Educat…

The impact of AI technologies on work and working life, and renewed public and policy debates about automation and the future of work.

26 ways that digital ledger technology could be deployed by school districts, networks, postsecondary institutions and community-based organizations to improve learning opportunities.

Information about Blockchain for Science, Research and Knoweldge creation. The decentralized future of science. Blockchain bears the potential to make science more effective, make research continous, free data and fix the reproducibility crisis in science.

Big data and diversity lacking at Germany’s biggest science organization.

If 'money makes the world go round' then the world of scientific publishing has proved to be no exception to the rule.

New IBM system shows off argumentation skills.

Mobilising value from science and technology needs help from thinkers, designers, makers, policymakers, and enablers - and this expertise often sits in the humanities, arts and social sciences domain.

From a failed coup in Turkey, to prolonged financial crises in Greece and Spain, researchers in the region are struggling to keep up. 

After being given the green light by research ministers earlier this year, an ambitious initiative to enable Europe’s 1.7 million researchers to share data and research tools is now on course to be launched before the end of the year. But what should the next steps be?

Kai-Fu Lee - a former Apple, Microsoft and Google executive turned investor - is placing big bets on machine learning. And China is leading the way.

Economist and adviser Mariana Mazzucato says the European Commission should 'welcome risk and uncertainty' with new research missions, but the desired outcome must be clear.

The European Research Council published its third annual impact assessment of the projects it funds.  According to ERC's qualitative self-assessments, nearly one in five of its grants led to scientific breakthroughs.

By tying rewards to metrics, organisations risk incentivising gaming and encouraging behaviours that may be at odds with their larger purpose. The culture of short-termism engendered by metrics also impedes innovation and stifles the entrepreneurial element of human nature.

Prime Minister Theresa May spoke at Jodrell Bank. Delivered on 21 May 2018 (Transcript of the speech, exactly as it was delivered.)

Virtual- and augmented-reality tools allow researchers to view and share data as never before. But so far, they remain largely the tools of early adopters.

In the digital era, each publisher has established its own content platform, to the detriment of the researcher experience. Discovery is fragmented, leading to substantial library investment in order to provide single-index whole-collection search.

One way to push back against the pressure to “publish or perish” is to randomly audit a small proportion of researchers and take time to assess their research in detail. Auditors could examine complex measures of quality which no metric could ever capture such as originality, reproducibility, and research translation.

The academic discovery space seems to be buzzing again. This space has become relatively stable after the introduction and maturity of Web Scale Discovery between 2009-2013, but things seem to be hotting up once again

Sneha Kulkarni from Editage takes a look at the ever-increasing global scientific output, and asks questions about quantity versus quality.

Draft plans for the next EU research programme include lots of hot-button issues - from terrorism to healthcare inequality - that could attract broader political support.

A short list of seven functionalities that academic publishers looking to modernize their operations might invest in; from unencumbered access and improved social components, to dynamic data visualisations and more precise hyperlinking.