Research administrator

Bureaucracy is the bane of every academic’s life. But who is to blame for its proliferation – and how can it be kept in check? Six academics have their say – while a registrar offers an equal and opposite reaction 

Improved citation performance amid falling funding is the result of gaming, say Alberto Baccini, Eugenio Petrovich and Giuseppe De Nicolao

Improving the career prospects of postdocs is now a priority of UK universities and research funders

Open access journal will publish results from studies sometimes dismissed as ‘failures’ as well as replication attempts

It is unfair and dangerous that, unlike academics, researchers in the private sector operate with no ethical oversight, says Ron Iphofen

An independent service to check data and algorithms is the only way to resolve the research replication crisis, say Christophe Pérignon and Christophe Hurlin

In an age of vast team-science projects, it is more important than ever that leaders be properly prepared, says Matthew Flinders

Marking down fellowship applicants for being unwilling to move institutions can be deeply unfair, say Trisha Greenhalgh and Ed Hawkins

The ‘best’ scientists lack time for peer review, and academics should be rated for ‘worthy’ papers, argues Dan Shechtman

Evolutionary processes are slow, but University of Oxford research shows the scheme is improving gender equality, says Pavel Ovseiko

Michael Kosterlitz tells THE how colour blindness shaped his career and why Nobel winners shouldn’t be taken too seriously

The long overdue top-up to England’s quality-related funding stream is a reminder that project grants are not the only show on the beach

Even in disciplines in which research is inherently inexpensive, ‘grant capture’ is increasingly being adopted as a metric to judge academics and universities. But with success rates typically little better than one in five, rejection is the fate of most applications. Six academics give their tips on how to improve the odds

Nesta finds proportion of female AI researchers was higher in the mid-1990s – although universities fare better than tech firms

The next EU commissioner for research and innovation must fight for the Horizon Europe budget but resist timetables for scientific delivery, says Jan Palmowski

All modern academics know that it’s publish or perish, but is regular publication a gateway or a barrier to groundbreaking scholarship? Simon Baker assesses the data on the relationship between research volume and quality and asks which, if either, should be prioritised

Recent confusion over The Lancet’s stance on green open access highlights the difficulty for support staff in preparing researchers for the new rules, says Alice Gibson

Wolfgang Ketterle says scientists should aim instead for equilibrium in the longer term, and always keep other interests or hobbies

Budget restrictions, a focus on teaching and a paucity of internationalisation all hold back Turkish research, says Hakan Ergin

Universities’ income, collaborations and reputation will all suffer if the country doesn’t re-engage with expertise before it is too late, says Gavin Esler

With such wide disagreements in grading, the research excellence framework’s gravity for careers is unjustifiable, says Philip Moriarty

Raising UK outlay to international levels will reap rich technological, social and political rewards for the next Conservative Party leader, says Sarah Main 

There is nothing devilish about government oversight of research, but the Haldane Principle checks more sulphurous instincts, says Paul Jump

Last year’s scandal over the ministerial vetoing of Australian research grants coincided with the centenary of the fabled principle that politicians should keep out of such decisions. But with governments becoming increasingly ideological and desperate for innovation-fuelled growth, does scientific autonomy have a future? Rachael Pells investigates 

Brexit or no Brexit, scientists across the continent have an obligation to keep standing up for ideals such as integrity, trust and cooperation, writes the European Union’s former director-general of research, Robert-Jan Smits

Western ‘settler’ nations such as Canada and Australia are wrestling with how to redress historical injustices visited on their native populations. One proposal is for universities to embrace Indigenous knowledge. But what does that mean in practice? Will it achieve its aims? And where does it leave science? Matthew Reisz considers the arguments

The adoption of an Athena SWAN-style initiative is undermined by a failure to meaningfully consult Indigenous Peoples, say Karen Lawford and Jamie Lundine

A review following the latest iteration of the PBRF could lead to radical changes that undermine the gains made, warns Roger Smyth

The use of VR in psychology experiments is being driven not just by increasingly affordable technology but also by concerns about the reproducibility of many real-world studies. But do humans really behave in the virtual world as they do in reality? And does it matter? David Matthews investigates

Elsevier’s open access deal with Norwegian universities is the latest evidence of a shifting balance of power, says Jeffrey MacKie-Mason

Publishers’ terror of libel law and focus on their profit margins have made them excessively risk-averse, says Stuart Macdonald

Western countries’ determination to tackle the migration crisis without taking any risks with their own personnel is wasteful and counterproductive, the Oxford anthropologist tells Matthew Reisz 

Deep partnerships with government, business and civil society leave a sweet taste for both academics and the public, says Mark Western

The UK’s research excellence framework is slow, expensive and disruptive. The time and technology is ripe for a better alternative, says James Tooley

Agreement that EU research funding should continue to be distributed according to quality is an important step forward, writes Jan Palmowski

Bias would be reduced if grant applicants’ capabilities were considered only after assessment of their anonymised proposals, says David Sanders

Debate sparked by criticism of growth of PhDs by publication, and allegations that corruption and nepotism are undermining the reliability of the academic doctorate

Protesters allegedly called researchers ‘dirty Jews’ and ‘traitors’ in latest intimidation of scholars who emphasise Polish role in the Holocaust

The government’s new ‘national interest’ test for research proposals is another damaging symptom of short-termism, says Margaret Sheil

Seeking special status will further antagonise non-members faced with curtailed access to EU research funding, says Jan Palmowski

As Brexit reaches fever pitch, who knows what damage the 2028 research excellence framework might reveal

Evidence of strong public demand for access to papers is scant. Might a sophisticated database of lay summaries be more valuable?

Portland State University’s investigation of a researcher who published hoax papers misses the point of ethical oversight, says Jeffrey Flier

Even in tourism studies, reality often belies the bold, sunny pictures painted in the impact case study brochure, says Rhodri Thomas 

The Canadian government’s excessive policing of privacy makes it intolerably onerous to access its datasets, says Karen Robson

Tokenistic and irrelevant assessments of research’s social value are holding back progress, say Clarence Tam and three others

Academics should not sneer at Simon Birmingham’s appeal to what ‘most Australians’ would think about projects, says Hannah Forsyth

PhDs are becoming more programmatic in many countries, but the German one-on-one model retains considerable influence, says Glen Jones

Take-up of research by business is difficult to catalyse and record. Far better to focus on the impact central to universities’ missions, say Vince Mitchell and William Harvey

Pioneer of the genetics of hearing talks about how her research interests have been shaped by wine and music – and how she would cope with deafness

Authoritarian populist governments prevent bloc from taking action to protect academic freedom, say scholars

The relaxation of the research excellence framework’s submission rules could see research-intensive universities clustered on near-maximum scores, warms Dominic Dean

Seeking a greater share of imagined profits from commercialisation would undermine technology transfer, says David Secher

The research excellence framework’s reliance on hasty peer review by generalists limits sample size and accuracy, three academics argue

Research will suffer from the collapse of professional development into financially fixated assessments of ‘capability’, say Gill Evans and Dorothy Bishop 

The UK’s new research mega-body has huge power to tackle long-standing inequalities, says its new diversity tsar Jennifer Rubin

‘REF season’ is under way and staff who support the development of impact case studies need to consider their tactics. Chris Hewson offers guidance based on his own experience

Analysis concludes universities are ‘moving towards a nearly exclusive monopoly’ over research articles

As Elsevier buys another academic workflow company, some worry about potential for publishers to ‘lock in’ scholars to their services

European Research Council says move is to support open access and get round often lengthy publishing process