Research administrator

Much-anticipated package for recruiting foreign researchers follows similar moves by France and the European Union to snap up US scientists

Regulators vow to push ahead with ‘in-year’ submissions despite damning report on project’s impact on workloads

Money awarded under Horizon Europe Guarantee helped scholars remain competitive as Britain returns to Europe’s research programme, says UKRI’s international champion

Independent centre should be empowered to follow up high-profile findings and promote good practice, says Social Market Foundation report

Jointly run open access publisher will offer lower cost route for Scottish researchers seeking to comply with new UKRI rules on monographs

After a tumultuous 2022, what will the new year bring for higher education? Some of the UK sector’s respected crystal-ball gazers offer their predictions for 2023

The Italian physicist known for making complex science intelligible explains how radical student politics, hallucinogenic drugs and hitch-hiking around America helped him become one of science’s foremost thinkers

Spin-off companies from Russell Group universities boast largest annual turnovers, data reveal

Backed by state government, an ambitious university-led initiative is aiming to restore the Ruhr Valley’s former industrial glory. John Morgan meets academics behind the experiment in driving regional renewal by building a reputation for world-class science

Supporting young researchers to peer-review and edit journal submissions will also accelerate their training, says Quan-Hoang Vuong

Whitehall advisor who devised alternative Horizon programme says stablisation funds should be released immediately while talks over UK membership continue

Narratives describing research in departments should be replaced by institution-level document, recommends funder-backed study

Human rights expert claims ‘inaccurate’ impact submission written on her work by old employer highlights why funding rules should change

Rapid erosion of value of £9,250 is ‘stretching unit of resource to breaking point’ and will require new legislation, says Jo Johnson

The REF may no longer be the only game in town, but it remains a dominant force in UK research. So as the REF 2021 results are released, is it still fit for purpose?

Legitimate concerns about publishers’ grip on the academy will not be addressed if open access debate remains so polarised, says Amy Brand

Only a handful of UK universities maximised their public profiles during the pandemic because press officers were diverted towards internal crises or social media engagement, says Fiona Fox

Labyrinthine university administration is causing unnecessary stress for scholars and students but beware red tape cutbacks, says Maree Martinussen

Members lack expertise and groupthink is a constant peril. Better to entrust scrutiny to expert lawyers and ethicists, says Adrian Furnham

Standard mentoring is not enough if we want a resilient, compassionate and happy research workforce, says Mark Reed

A joint EU-AU document places universities in the vanguard of increased intercontinental collaboration, says Jan Palmowski

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

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

Kick-starting a conversation on national funding levels is useful, but collaboration on frontier-led research needs attention, says Jan Palmowski

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 

Adapting and adopting US approaches to commercialisation offer an opportunity for the UK, says Chris Loryman

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

UK higher education says it wants diversity, but its treatment of early career researchers suggests otherwise, says Edda Nicolson

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

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

Universities typically generate much more income from industry contracts than from spinning out companies, says Calum Drummond

As an international review of the UK’s REF begins even before the assessment panels have done their work, has the exercise’s reliance on rereading published papers finally had its day? Might it be time for metrics? Or something else entirely? Jack Grove looks around the world for options  

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

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

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

Funding body’s impending review should recognise sector’s clear preference for immediate open access, says Steven Inchcoombe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As the government moves left on economics and right on culture, institutions must show the depth and breadth of their impact, says Sir Chris Husbands

Social media and Covid have forced research committees to become more agile, sophisticated and professional, says James Patterson

Universities offer many rewarding technical careers – but local populations are often oblivious of them, says Mike Hughes

Recent cuts and scares have cast doubt on ministers’ commitment to harnessing science in pursuit of a levelled-up, post-Brexit innovation economy. Questions also remain about how funding should be distributed and directed. Jack Grove examines the lessons from history and from overseas

Michael Higgins warns campuses ‘have suffered attrition of range and depth, loss of interdisciplinary exchange, leading in too many cases to a degradation of the very scholarship and teaching for which they were established’

Critics argue that The Lancet failed to disclose potential conflict of interest when dismissing the leak theory

Hybrid working may suit some disciplines, but Gary Macfarlane fears that the convenience will come at the cost of creativity and collegiality

Talking to lab members is not very revealing when they are habituated into an abusive culture, says Joana Vieira