We are constantly being told that chocolate is bad for our health– but is it bad for our mind? Mara P. Squicciarini and Johan Swinnen share an excerpt from their book, The Economics of Chocolate, which provides an economic analysis, as well as an interdisciplinary overview on all things chocolate. Here they explore the benefits of chocolate consumption and the impact chocolate cravings have […]
Category: Knowledge Transfer
Disrupting implicit bias: Crowdsourced database highlights women experts in the social sciences #WomenAlsoKnowStuff
Women academics face inherent biases in the profession that limit career progression and influence. Emily Beaulieu and Kathleen Searles reflect on the extent of the gender gap in political science and how we might address this gap. One example is the #WomenAlsoKnowStuff website, a searchable database of women experts which has become a rallying cry, with hundreds of expert contributions […]
Open innovation is growing, but universities may be missing out on the action
Academics spend less time on commercial activities than they did in 2009, writes Adi Gaskell. A new report highlights some of the consistent barriers to participation, with common factors including a lack of time and challenges around attracting interest from commercial partners. Closer relationships between scholars and the business community will make for better and faster scientific and technological discovery, and for […]
High prices to access scholarly research could drive developing country researchers to use pirate websites like SciHub.
Developing countries are investing more in research and higher education and it should be no surprise that publishers are building commercial relationships to expand access and services. But prices are often still too high. Jonathan Harle argues now is a good time for the research community to reflect on what we can do to bring the cost of access down. If we don’t, […]
Pop-up Library Makerspace: Academic libraries provide flexible, supportive space to explore emerging technologies.
The word Makerspace is a general term for a place where people get together to make things, create things and learn together. Antony Groves presents a look at a recent university library experiment hosting a pop-up makerspace. Working with local edtech leaders MakerClub and colleagues the library organised a two-hour workshop which offered the opportunity for students and staff to explore emerging […]
85% of Health Research is Wasted: How to do great research, get it published, and improve health outcomes.
Trish Groves reflects on the scandal of waste, error, and misconduct in clinical and public health research and describes a new effort to tackle research and publication integrity from both ends. This challenge matters everywhere, but it’s specially urgent in low and middle income countries. The University of California, San Francisco and BMJ have teamed up to develop an eLearning programme for clinical […]
Book Review: The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts by Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind
In The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts, Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind give a descriptive, predictive and normative argument for the impending dissolution of our professional institutions in their current state. Although she questions the decision to leave issues of privacy, confidentiality and online security unexamined, Jennifer Miller positions this book as an […]
Policy impact and online attention: Tracking the path from research to public policy on the social web.
The process by which research gets put into action is far from clear cut, argues Stacy Konkiel. Extracting references to research from policy documents is a step towards illuminating the murky path. But we should be careful not to disregard other forms of evidence like online and media mentions as they are closely interrelated and may even lead to quicker impacts upon […]
“A soup of different inspirations”: Co-produced research and recognising impact as a process, not an outcome.
Co-produced research involves external partners from start to finish, builds lasting relationships and is actively involved in generating impact. Yet co-production sits uncomfortably with how impact is currently understood. Rachel Pain and Ruth Raynor explore how the process of co-production has the potential to make research and its outcomes richer as collaborators pool diverse ideas, expertise and skills. Impact becomes the driving (and […]
Book Review: Roads: An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise by Penny Harvey and Hannah Knox
In Roads: An Anthropology of Infrastructure and Expertise, Penny Harvey and Hannah Knox not only show why roads matter, but also attend to the material processes that bring roads into being through two South American case studies. Luke Heslop praises this book for showing how attention to the complexities of infrastructure projects sheds new light on the parameters of ‘the […]