David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science, has announced that HEFCE are arranging an independent review of the role of metrics in research assessment and management. The Impact blog welcomes this review and will look to encourage wider discussion and debate on how research is currently assessed and how it could be in years to come. Over the last two […]
Category: Research funding
From STEM to STEAM: The potential for arts to facilitate innovation, literacy and participatory democracy.
The value of the arts goes far beyond its monetary returns. Malaika Cunningham outlines how the arts play a huge role in boosting proficiency within STEM subjects. Creative thinking is needed for truly excellent scientists, engineers and mathematicians, and how better to foster this than a rounded education, which includes arts subjects? Arts education fosters a literate and innovative workforce and strengthens the […]
Five minutes with Nikolas Rose: “The imperative to make exaggerated promises about impact is damaging to the science itself”
Chris Gilson, Managing Editor of our sister blog USApp, recently interviewed Nikolas Rose, Head of the Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine at King’s College London and one of the principal investigators of the interdisciplinary, European Commission-funded Human Brain … Continue reading →
The case for greater transparency in experimental and social science research
Proving public value can be an especially difficult task when high-profile cases of fraud in social science disciplines emerge. Rose McDermott makes the case for greater transparency in both the production and review of social science to restore the legitimacy … Continue reading →
The Impact of the Social Sciences research book is out this week! Browse the living bibliography, data visualisations and other resources.
The Impact of the Social Sciences: How Academics and Their Research Make a Difference by Simon Bastow, Patrick Dunleavy, and Jane Tinkler. The three-year Impact of Social Sciences Project has culminated in a monograph published by SAGE. The book presents thorough … Continue reading →
The contemporary social sciences are now converging strongly with STEM disciplines in the study of ‘human-dominated systems’ and ‘human-influenced systems’
Much less is known about the development of the social sciences as a complete discipline group than about the previously dominant STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) discipline group. Patrick Dunleavy, Simon Bastow and Jane Tinkler set out some key … Continue reading →
The academic career path has been thoroughly destabilised by the precarious practices of the neoliberal university.
It is an increasingly difficult time to begin an academic career. The pressures of the REF, casualization and adjunctification of teaching and the disappearance of research funding are enormous obstacles academics face. Sydney Calkin looks at how academics have in many ways … Continue reading →
Exploratory analysis of researcher behaviour challenges the assumption that STEM subjects are more societally useful than SSH.
Using a database with information on over 1,500 researchers, statistical analysis was recently undertaken to test the hypothesis that technical STEM subjects were more societally useful than social science and humanities (SSH) subjects. Paul Benneworth describes the research process and … Continue reading →
As the European Commission paves the way for open access, a consistent policy environment is needed across the EU.
The European Commission has extended and solidified its open access policy for the upcoming Horizon 2020 research funding programme. Alma Swan welcomes the clear signal from Brussels which has issued a Recommendation for Member States to follow its lead. But … Continue reading →