Researcher (senior)

Scientists should strive for real impact, not to impress a panel of busy peers, with their agendas, biases and blind spots, says Pedro Domingos 

Time is running out to strike a deal that will cement the continent’s scientific strength, says Jan Palmowski

Publishers need to examine their biases and universities their support mechanisms, say Avi Staiman, Marnie Jo Petray and Gaillynn Clements

Comparison with current data suggests government proposals are ‘not exactly a revolution in the funding balance’, say experts

Science minister George Freeman claims academics may warm to leaving EU research scheme if homegrown alternative offers attractive global opportunities

Accurate reporting of results is important, but meaning is rarely distorted by orthographic or grammatical slips, says Adrian Furnham

As the pandemic increases public scrutiny of science, the UK Parliament is holding another inquiry into the long-running issue of reproducibility. Five of its contributors give their views on how sloppy science can be eliminated and trust be more firmly rooted 

Pushing the ARC to focus on commercialisation neglects the complex interdependency between basic and applied research, says Duncan Ivison

The author of The Richer, The Poorer on how Orwell, Steinbeck and Galbraith sparked an interest in poverty and inequality, taking a long view and fighting back

Persuasion is everywhere, but universities could do a public service by communicating the messy, uncertain truth more widely, says Michael Blastland

Coyness, contention and competing agendas all hamper historians and sociologists of sex. Matthew Reisz speaks to those who choose, nevertheless, to probe this most sensitive and intimate of subjects

A push to end the habit of assessing researchers by their publication metrics is gaining momentum. But are journal impact factors really as meaningless as is claimed? And will requiring scientists to describe their various contributions really improve fairness and rigour – or just bureaucracy? Jack Grove reports

Both researchers and journalists should adopt a more agnostic lens when confronted with novel findings, says Anne-Laure Sellier

The UK’s whole-genome sequencing project could spark a global step change in the treatment of rare diseases, says Damian Smedley

The abolition of publishers and the bypassing of Big Tech is a prerequisite for maximising the power of science, says Andy Farnell

Shifting fields takes courage, but if a tenured professor can’t take the leap to address the ecological emergency, who can, asks Adam Aron

New Zealand’s embrace of Māori vocabulary goes hand-in-hand with the incorporation of Māori understandings into curricula. But is a debate about the unintended consequences of this move being stifled by fear of speaking out? John Ross reports

The crisis in peer reviewing can be overcome if journals and universities do more to incentivise it, say Dirk Lindebaum and Peter Jordan

Spending commitments on Aria, Horizon Europe and UKRI should be welcomed – as should the Treasury’s growing scrutiny of UK and EU research structures, says John Womersley

The spending review must confirm the substance beneath the government’s froth about becoming a science superpower, says James Wilsdon

Lotteries for viable funding applications may be one way forward, say Lisette Jong, Thomas Franssen, Stephen Pinfield and James Wilsdon

Chancellor says investment in new technology could revolutionise economy in same way as steam engine or internet

Google Translate’s limitations spell out why we must revisit old questions about artificial intelligence, says Lionel Tarassenko

Covid’s creation of an environment in which lessons can be debated will improve public understanding, say Deenan Pillay and David King

Uncritical and misinformed imitation of physics or biology is a misconception of collaboration, says Harvey J. Graff

Georgina Murray applauds a bold attempt to put gender at the heart of a wider political critique

Block grants need to be divided up, but UK research quality does not depend on a regular national audit

With academic conferences on hold, novel ways of collaborating have taken off – from preprints and digital networks to AI-backed matchmaking, writes Jack Grove

Researchers in developing countries could be frozen out by high article charges unless wider publishing reform is undertaken, say four Brazilian researchers

A recently formed group and an attendant conference hope to bring greater attention to issues being faced in India

We cannot engage people in discussion about drought, wildfires or climate change if we fail to acknowledge the emotions they generate, claims book

Nobel contender David Sabatini’s future at MIT remains unclear after he was let go by Boston research institute and top US science funder

Hundreds of thousands of foreign students continue to be left out as classes resume in September  

Vaccine inequality and over-reliance on remote data collection threaten to diminish marginal voices, say Nicole Stremlau and Gianluca Iazzolino

Identifying and seed-funding scientists with ground-breaking ideas is a low-risk, high-reward alternative to traditional grant funding, says Donald Braben

Female scholars twice as likely to feel constrained as male colleagues, poll shows 

Universities must accept that overworked scholars cannot simply resume their research careers overnight, says Jenny Pickerill

Despite spending more than £700 million, dreams of a diversified knowledge economy remain some way off, British expert claims

New guidelines have rightly rejected publisher claims that gold is the only sustainable path for open access, say Stephen Eglen and Rupert Gatti

Tackling global warming will need the work of humanities researchers as much as scientists or engineers, says ex-universities minister Chris Skidmore

Academics’ reading lists are increasingly directed by algorithms. But are the recommendation services of platforms such as Google Scholar, ResearchGate and Mendeley distorting science? And might AI ultimately lead it to a disastrous echo chamber? David Matthews reports

But journals’ open access fees are suddenly increasing researchers’ need for funding, says Adrian Furnham

With ‘storytelling’ CVs becoming crucial in hiring and funding decisions, Jack Grove explores how academics can craft compelling research statements

Abandoning measurable evaluation criteria will make judgements more political and more random, say Raymond Poot and Willem Mulder

Academics are ‘groping along blindly’ in a fierce debate over whether certain phrases or subjects are still legal

The pandemic highlighted UK creative industries’ innovative capacity. Public research spending choices should reflect that, says Andrew Thompson

Charlotte Jones enjoys a historical account of radical politics that may have important lessons for today

New study raises questions over validity of single studies and suggests detailed tracking of researchers’ decisions during analysis

‘Don’t always stick with what you have,’ says science minister Amanda Solloway, as new innovation strategy points to US and German models

Survey on Indian government initiative to open up to foreign offshoots finds concern about hurdles from overseas institutions

Uncertainty should be insisted on as a mark of seriousness and honesty, say Michael Blastland and George Davey Smith

A multidisciplinary approach to the issue of attention is an experiment in charting genuinely new intellectual territory, says Marion Thain

Right-wing politicians’ caricaturing of a mature research approach is a social dominance power play, says Steve Raven

Years of restrictions have stymied scholars’ work on topics such as the Algerian war of independence, and a new law could cement this lack of access

We need knowledge and content that go beyond the Western world to design a meaningful decolonised, research-led curriculum, says Masi Noor

Back-to-back publication reinforces findings, and preprints could facilitate it. So why are journals still so wary of it, asks Josh Hardy 

Scholars say that the new institute, whose remit describes the genocide as ‘baseless’, will lack credibility

Funding is declining but business school research is as vital as science to post-pandemic economic recovery, says Zahir Irani

Grand challenges won’t be solved unless disciplinary research data are opened up to all, says Nathan Cunningham

Many academics exhibit an appalling degree of exceptionalism and entitlement – and an inability to complete even basic tasks, says Kate Eichhorn