For researchers working on social media communities, especially in sensitive subject areas, there is a strong likelihood they will have encountered harmful or illegal content. In this post, Dr Liam McLoughlin discusses the ethical responsibilities rese…
Author: Taster
E-Textbooks – scandal or market imperative?
For academic and research libraries the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated a significant shift of resources towards supporting digital online access to resources. As a result, the prohibitive cost of some of these resources, notably e-textbooks, has become a flashpoint, even breaking into mainstream media and public debate. Here, Johanna Anderson, Paul Ayris and Ben White … Continued
Sustainable Science as a Vocation
What would sustainable research and higher education mean as a vocation? Drawing on the sociologist Max Weber’s famous lecture on science as a vocation, Gorgi Krlev, outlines a vision of sustainable science, arguing that for academic research to effectively contribute to resolving the major challenges facing society it must embrace profound change on four levels. … Continued
By focusing on commercialisation we fail to recognise the more complex ways universities engage with business
Collaborations between universities and firms are often understood in terms of technology transfer and the creation of innovative products. Utku Ali Rıza Alpaydın and Rune Dahl Fitjar, draw on findings from a survey of university firm interactions in Norway, to suggest that such engagements in fact represent a minority and that good policy in this … Continued
Book Review: The University and Social Justice: Struggles Across the Globe edited by Aziz Choudry and Salim Vally
In The University and Social Justice: Struggles Across the Globe, editors Aziz Choudry and Salim Vally offer a new collection exploring university-based activism and social justice movements around the world. With rich accounts that cover diverse repertoires of action and collective struggles, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in the state of Higher Education across the globe, finds Shreya … Continued
Has the pandemic changed public attitudes about science?
Drawing on survey evidence from several western countries, Eric Allen Jensen, Aaron M. Jensen, Axel Pfleger, Eric B. Kennedy and Ethan Greenwood find that COVID-19 has coincided with a general rise in public trust in science and scientists. Based on this re-affirmed public trust, they suggest there is a new window of opportunity to accelerate … Continued
Power and publications in Chinese academia
The role of power is often neglected in accounts of scholarly communication and knowledge production, in favour of more idealised ‘scientific norms’. In this cross-post, Ruixue Jia, discusses how administrative power shapes academic research and publication in China and the wider implications an analysis of power might have for academic publishing practices. It has been well … Continued
The hard labour of connecting research to policy during COVID-19
The worlds of policy and academia are often distant and can be difficult to span. In this post Kathryn Oliver and Annette Boaz reflect on their experience of working in the Government Office for Science to help produce the government’s new Areas of Research Interest and the particular challenges involved in establishing and mobilising networks … Continued
ARIA and Defence – A Missed Opportunity?
In February the UK government launched The Advanced Research & Invention Agency (ARIA). In this post, Emma Salisbury discusses what role the new agency might play and questions whether the transfer of this policy from its context in the US, where defence spending played a key role in the development of the agency, will deliver comparable … Continued
Book Review: Food Insecurity on Campus: Action and Intervention edited by Katharine M. Broton and Clare L. Cady
In Food Insecurity on Campus: Action and Intervention, editors Katharine M. Broton and Clare L. Cady present background research and case studies from American college campuses that are in the fight to end hunger among their students, an issue only exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Policymakers, students and administrators are among those who can use these essays as a blueprint … Continued