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100 Examples of President Obama’s Leadership in Science, Technology, and Innovation

100 Examples of President Obama’s Leadership in Science, Technology, and Innovation

“We’ll restore science to its rightful place." President Obama’s Inaugural Address, 2009

Europe's Most Innovative Universities

Europe's Most Innovative Universities

At first glance, the most innovative universities in Europe don't appear to have much in common. Some are Catholic schools, some are secular, others are state-run and some are private. One is 920 years old. Another has been an independent institution for less than a decade. They’re scattered across the continent, some in large cities, others in rural areas.

Plan to make programming mandatory at schools a step to foster creativity

Plan to make programming mandatory at schools a step to foster creativity

It is essential that computer programming to be taught in schools will lead to improving children’s ability to think logically and creatively.

Q&A: Helga Nowotny

Q&A: Helga Nowotny

Austrian social scientist Helga Nowotny was president of the European Research Council between 2010 and 2013. Now a professor emerita of ETH Zurich and author of The Cunning of Uncertainty (Polity, 2015), Nowotny discusses the growing pressure to capitalize on academic research, and how countries can get it right in the absence of a universal recipe.

In science, follow the money - if you can

In science, follow the money - if you can

In science as in politics, most people agree that transparency is essential. Top journals now require authors to disclose their funding sources so that readers can judge the possibility of bias, and the British Medical Journal recently required authors to disclose their data as well so that experts can run independent analyses of the results. But as transparency becomes the standard, many academics are resisting the trend without pushback from their universities.

Are the disruptions of uberisation a bane or boon for science?

Are the disruptions of uberisation a bane or boon for science?

For every characteristic of uberisation, there is a parallel in the world of research. This raises the question of whether research was "uberised" before Uber even existed?

When the payoff for academics drops, commercialization suffers

When the payoff for academics drops, commercialization suffers

A 2002 law in Norway that ended the country's long-running practice of giving academics 100% ownership of their intellectual property and adopted a U.S.-style system caused the per capita number of patents from academics to drop by 53% in the next 5 years.

Google’s artificial intelligence program, AlphaGo, just won its second Go match against a human

Google’s artificial intelligence program, AlphaGo, just won its second Go match against a human

The contest is another milestone in AI as Lee Sedol, Go's best player, is defeated again

Error and Discovery: Why Repeating Can Be New

Error and Discovery: Why Repeating Can Be New

The fascinating story of the discovery of nuclear fission began with an error that earned Enrico Fermi (see picture) a Nobel Prize for the apparent but incorrect discovery of the transuranic elements. Careful repetition and extension of the experiments finally led to the correct interpretation by Hahn, Meitner, Strassmann, Frisch, and Bohr as an effect from nuclear fission of the “small impurity” of  (0.7 %) contained in natural uranium.

Study show that elite scientists really do hold back science

Study show that elite scientists really do hold back science

Scientists can be stubborn. They can use their gravitas to steamroll new ideas. Which means those new ideas often only prevail when older scientists die.

Tradition and innovation in scientists' research strategies

Tradition and innovation in scientists' research strategies

An analysis of the essential tension identifies institutional forces that sustain tradition and suggestions of policy interventions to foster innovation.