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 […]
We Need a New Science of Safety
Safety is often seen as a challenge for engineers. While that remains a component, the ability to judge risk is perhaps many times more important in keeping people safe, and that suggests it’s time for a new social science of safety, argues Philip Thomas.
Visualizing Social Media Analysis
Two of the authors of case study on using Twitter for research describe the ethical challenges of working in a rapidly changing landscape, why it’s important to be able to visualize what your analysis is finding, and why it’s important not to let your analysis be derived from some sort of ‘black box’ that you as the researcher don’t fully understand.
A Post-Mortem: Social Sciences and Brexit
The UK’s referendum on remaining in the European Union or leaving it generated an avalanche of campaign information, including hundreds of interventions by social scientists. David Walker casts a sceptical eye over the experience, asking whether the wafer-thin majority for Leave signals a failure of social scientists input.
Britain and Europe: Tragedy or Farce?
The result of the second UK referendum on membership of the European Union appeared immediately as a tragedy, says Robert Dingwall. It has rapidly degenerated into a farce, which may yet have tragic consequences.
Presidential Elections and Party Unity
As we head toward the 2016 nominating conventions, both presumptive nominees Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton face questions about their ability to unify their parties around their candidacies, both at the political elite level and the grass roots level.
Which University Rankings Should You Trust?
There are at least 12 university rankings that claim to be global, and in this video Michelle Stack focuses on the big three — the Times Higher Education, QS, and the Academic Ranking of World Universities. She asks what does being a “top-ranked” university mean to students? And who decides this ranking anyway?
Sometimes a Nudge is as Good as a Wink
When it comes to many of the big decisions faced by governments – and the private sector – behavioral science has more to offer than simple nudges.
The UK’s HE Landscape in the Wake of ‘Knowledge Economy’
The new government report ‘Succeeding as a Knowledge Economy’ takes forward most of the ideas about improving teaching at Britain institutions of higher education already found in a green paper published in November 2015. So what does this new report tell us about the future?
