Improving academic impact has been given a bad name in some academic circles, who link it to a near-conspiracy theory view of the powers of ‘neo-liberalism’. But Patrick Dunleavy and Jane Tinkler argue that (despite one or two bureaucratic distortions, like the REF), the impacts agenda is centrally about enhancing the efficacy of scientific and … Continued
Category: LSE Comment
Book Review: Me, Not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism by Alison Phipps
This review originally appeared on LSE Review of Books. If you would like to contribute to the series, please contact the managing editor of LSE Review of Books, Dr Rosemary Deller, at lsereviewofbooks@lse.ac.uk In Me, Not You, Alison Phipps builds on Black feminist scholarship to investigate how mainstream feminist movements against sexual violence express a ‘political whiteness’ that can reinforce … Continued
Sonia Livingstone on launching a book in lockdown: “I’m almost to the point of thinking it is better this way”
Professor Sonia Livingstone has published extensively in her field of Social Psychology. However, when COVID-19 disrupted academic life, she had to rethink the planned book launch for her most recent book, Parenting for a Digital Future. In this Q&A, Professor Livingstone outlines the ways that the pandemic has transformed the process of promoting a book,. She discusses … Continued
Open but Unfair- The role of social justice in Open Access publishing
Stage one of the Open Access (OA) movement promoted the democratization of scholarly knowledge, making work available so that anybody could read it. However, publication in highly ranked journals is becoming very costly, feeding the same vendor capitalists that OA was designed to sidestep. In this Q&A, Simon Batterbury argues that when prestige is valued … Continued
Moving beyond the talk: Universities must become anti-racist
In 2016, Dr Akile Ahmet wrote a piece for the LSE Impact Blog entitled ‘We need to speak about race’: Examining the barriers to full and equal participation in university life’. Nearly five years on, she reflects on the state of Black and minority ethnic representation and inclusion in Higher Education. She finds that whilst … Continued
9 Recommended Lockdown Reads from the LSE Community
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us have been turning to books for information, for entertainment, for distraction and to look after our wellbeing – whether new finds, childhood favourites or books that have been lingering on the shelf for years. In this reading list, nine members of the LSE community recommend books that they’ve … Continued
Nine steps to achieve research integrity and build trust
Demonstrating research integrity is increasingly a demand for institutions receiving funding. However, whilst hundreds of articles have been written on the topic, precisely what this consists of is less clear. In this piece, George Gaskell presents the findings of a large Horizon 2020 study which distilled research integrity into: three areas, nine topics, and many actions. … Continued
On teaching anticolonial archives
What does exploring decolonisation mean, look like and feel like In the classroom? And how does one think of this in relation to both the curriculum and pedagogy? Sara Salem takes up these questions as she reflects on designing and delivering a course at LSE on anticolonial archives. She takes readers through the contents of … Continued
Behavioural Economics on a Post-It
The COVID-19 lockdown has rapidly and radically changed academic life, disrupting the normal patterns of teaching and research that define the university. In this post, Adam Oliver reflects on how the lockdown led to him develop the behavioural economics on a post-it series and the particular challenges presented in reducing complex academic ideas to the … Continued
The public debate around COVID-19 demonstrates our ongoing and misplaced trust in numbers
COVID-19 data and numbers are everywhere. However, these numbers are also a source of debate and subject to vastly different interpretations. Every day we are posed with a question that divides even epidemiologists: what does it really mean that positive cases or mortalities are up or down? Yet the media and the public reads deep … Continued