Cutting NSF Is Like Liquidating Your Finest Investment
Look closely at your mobile phone or tablet. Touch-screen technology, speech recognition, digital sound recording and the internet were all developed using […]
Common Rule Reform – A Botched Job
The rush to publish a revised Common Rule for federally funded human research in the United States has created a flawed regulatory regime, says Robert Dingwall., Time to tear the whole edifice down and start over, he suggests.
Social Science Needs its Own Doctor-Patient Confidentiality
Several recent high-profile incidents suggest that the confidentiality promises routinely made by social scientists have little in the way of legal support.
Sociology’s (Selective) Diversity
Our Robert Dingwall reflects on Tinder’s in-house sociologist and on the just-announced New Year’s Honours list to question just how diverse are current understandings of diversity.
Do We Really Want Historians as Policy Advisers?
The claim that Thucydides’ account of the past is useful is often extended to historiography in general, rather than just to his specific – and idiosyncratic – approach. And that, suggests Neville Morley, may be the real trap of Thucydides.
How Will Big Data Affect Evolution of Social Science?
How will social science research and teaching evolve to meet the challenges and opportunities big data creates? How can we bring down barriers to make this new computational social science accessible for all social researchers? That was the subject of a panel discussion at last month’s ESRC Festival of Social Sciences 2016.
Fixing Peer Review, a Biologist’s View
Peer review clearly isn’t perfect, but rather than simply bypassing it and releasing even more information into an overloaded system, we should focus on making it better, says this life sciences editor. The first step is to reset and clearly state our standards for quality in both publishing and peer reviewing.
University Coeducation Is Not a Triumph for Feminism
From sexual abuse to pay and promotion gaps and beyond, coeducation has not kept up with the promises which with it was introduced, argues the author of a new book on the subject.
Indian Sociologist Accused of Murder in Case She Says is Retaliation for Her Work
UPDATE: Two Indian social scientists are among 10 people charged with murder in an Indian state wracked by an ongoing insurgency by Maoist rebels that the academics were actively studying. Almost 200 Indian sociologists are protesting the arrest.
