“Minister for Research and Innovation Seán Sherlock TD has announced Government funding through Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) of €6.9m, encompassing 62 research awards …” (more)
[Karina Corbett, Business and Leadership, 23 May]
“Across Europe more than five million jobs have been lost between 2008 and 2010. In contrast, knowledge-based jobs driven by research and innovation increased by more than 800,000 …” (more)
[Conor O'Carroll, Irish Times, 23 May]
“Scotland’s universities would lose their lucrative place in the UK’s research framework if the country voted for independence, experts have warned, ahead of a conference on the subject this week …” (more)
[David Matthews, Times Higher Education, 23 May]
“The publisher Elsevier has disassociated itself from an article by a trade association it belongs to that condemns proposed open-access mandates in several US states …” (more)
[Paul Jump, Times Higher Education, 22 May]
“It is risky to oversimplify science for the sake of a clear public-health message. Who knows how many New Year’s resolutions to diet were strangled at birth by Katherine Flegal? …” (more)
[Nature, 22 May]
“Some clever and thoughtful people at the American Society for Cell Biology have done us all a favor by putting in writing something that is so good and so true that I’m delighted by it. The Journal Impact Factor has gone from being a rough measure of relative journal significance to being the measure of researchers, something it was never designed for …” (more)
[Barbara Fister, Inside Higher Ed, 21 May]
“Last year I delivered a couple of research papers on the history of crime. The first was in October at the Institute of Historical Research or the IHR as it’s known, here in London. The second was in January, on a beach in Belize. I thought I’d talk a little bit today about how those two experiences were different …” (more)
[Adam Crymble, Thoughts on Public & Digital History, 18 May]
“A chara, – Having attended local schools, it was immensely satisfying to co-organise a free public outreach lecture over the May bank holiday weekend on the discovery of the Higgs’ boson with Prof Peter Higgs as a speaker at NUI Maynooth …” (more)
[Eoin O Colgain, Irish Times, 20 May]
“Tales of academics using imaginary collaborators to explain away dodgy research results and fabricating life-threatening diseases to avoid investigation formed some of the most memorable moments of the 3rd World Conference on Research Integrity, held in Montreal from 5 to 8 May …” (more)
[Elizabeth Gibney, Times Higher Education, 16 May]
“Just thought I would highlight the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment. It’s been a long day and I’m quite tired, so I don’t want to say too much …” (more)
[To the left of centre, 18 May]
“Ireland’s lack of regulation repels foreign scientific investment and may also facilitate rogue operators …” (more)
[Ciara Staunton, Irish Times, 18 May]
“I recently wrote a short ‘comment’ for the American Journal of Bioethics. The piece is 1788 words long, the names and affiliations of my co-author and myself included. So that will make for 3, perhaps 4 printed pages, right? Now, Taylor and Francis, the publisher of the AJoBE offered the possibility to make this piece Open Access. Price: $2,950. I say: ridiculous …” (more)
[Ingrid Robeyns, Crooked Timber, 17 May]
“The head of the main funding body for scientific research in Europe has said there is ‘room for growth’ for Irish scientists applying for and securing European research grants …” (more)
[RTÉ News, 17 May]
“No legislation or guidelines in place to support research using human embryos. Embryonic stem cells are highly-prized because they can turn into any type of cell in the body, like heart cells, muscles or neurons …” (more)
[Carl O'Brien, Irish Times, 17 May]
“The Wellcome Trust and the Higher Education Funding Council for England are among the bodies calling for the use of the journal impact factor in funding, appointment and promotion decisions to be scrapped …” (more)
[Elizabeth Gibney, Times Higher Education, 16 May]
“Regulars at this blog will be familiar with the dim view that I have of impact factors, in particular their mis-appropriation for the evaluation of individual researchers and their work. I have argued for their elimination …” (more)
[Stephen Curry, Reciprocal Space, 16 May]
“British scholars continue to rely largely on traditional channels of communication, including peer-reviewed journals and monographs, despite a growing emphasis on the use of social media and blogs for obtaining or disseminating scholarly information …” (more)
[Aisha Labi, Chronicle of Higher Education, 16 May]
“… uh-oh. Depressing to read this in Slate the day before yesterday from Phil Plait about how the Canadian National Research Council has now stated that: ‘they will only perform research that has “social or economic gain”’ …” (more)
[The Cedar Lounge Revolution, 16 May]
“Having first documented the large-scale demise of the impact factor as a predictor of quality research, George Lozano and team examined whether this pattern also applies to the handful of elite journals …” (more)
[Impact of Social Sciences, 16 May]
“… Papers are still the coin of the realm, and they still have abstracts, titles, authors, and references. The PDF still rules. Author and reference lists are longer, but those are incremental changes. On the business front, large publishers are doing the best of all …” (more)
[Kent Anderson, The Scholarly Kitchen, 16 May]
