Chinese researchers are increasingly leading scientific research, yet their contributions are not fully recognized, notably by US researchers. Shumin Qiu, Claudia Steinwender and Pierre Azoulay discuss the reasons why articles written by Chinese academ…
Author: Taster
Resilience without accountability holds back transformative change
The concept of resilience is often positioned as a solution to social challenges, notably the unfolding climate crisis. However, as Benedikt Fecher, Ali Aslan Gümüsay, Stephan Bohn and Anna Jobin discuss, resilience on its own is insufficient without a…
A new science of wellbeing will change policy and decision making
What produces a happy society and a happy life? Richard Layard and Jan-Emmanuel De Neve suggest that through the new science of wellbeing, we can now answer this question empirically. Explaining how wellbeing can be measured, what causes it, and how it…
Evaluating the emotional impact of art
Many research projects in the humanities and social sciences result in creative and artistic outputs, but whilst a sprawling and contested industry has emerged to monitor and evaluate written research outputs, the impact of visual art is less well unde…
Society and university journal publishers gradually progressing towards new OA models
Assessing the findings of a recent survey into the publishing practices of independent academic publishers, Danielle Padula, head of marketing and community development at Scholastica, finds these publishers to be moving incrementally towards fully ope…
Book Review: Gender and the Dismal Science: Women in the Early Years of the Economics Profession by Ann Mari May
In Gender and the Dismal Science: Women in the Early Years of the Economics Profession, Ann Mari May explores the historical roots of gendered inequalities within economics. This is an excellent feminist reading of institutionalised discrimination with…
Generative AI and the unceasing acceleration of academic writing
Despite the prospect and existence of AI generated texts having been around for some time, the launch of ChatGPT has galvanized a debate around how it could or should be used in research and teaching. Putting aside the ethical issues of using AI in aca…
Scientific conferences: Why meeting face-to-face still matters
The COVID-19 pandemic rapidly accelerated a trend in academic meetings and conferences to move from real world to digital environments. Whilst this has potential gains in accessibility and inclusivity, drawing on a study of physicists, Harry Collins an…
Bigger than the sum of its parts – Finding a focal point for engaging university communication teams
University communications functions can from the outside seem monolithic and impenetrable. Offering a brief overview of different kinds of research comms, Andy Tattersall suggests how researchers can navigate and work effectively with different profess…
Western voices dominate research in Asian feminist academia – Why?
Drawing on her study of authors and publications across various journals focused on Asian Feminism, Francesca Earp finds that Asian feminist voices continue to be underrepresented. As these voices are critical to both the relevance of research in the r…