I have a troubled relationship with feedback. It has been this way for many years, from my days as a PhD researcher in literary studies (where someone has literally fallen asleep in front of me while I was tutoring) to disjointed gigs as a guest lecturer and convenor where my contact with the student cohort […] … learn more→

Recently, Hans Tilstra was talking about digital twins – online identical models for offline objects. He talked about our personal digital twins, the representations of ourselves online. It is an intriguing idea, but not one that I really buy into. Our various digital personas are too fragmented to be considered real twins. I think of online personas […] … learn more→

The humble honeybee can use symbols to perform basic maths including addition and subtraction, shows new research published today in the journal Science Advances. Despite having a brain containing less than one million neurons, the honeybee has recently shown it can manage complex problems – like understanding the concept of zero. Honeybees are a high value model […] … learn more→

As a PhD student in human genetics, I live in a real science bubble full of stimulating exchanges. Over the days, I experiment, I present my results to my supervisor, I share my observations with my colleagues, I exchange with members of neighboring laboratories, I submit my work to the peer review of other laboratories etc. This […] … learn more→

Our “peer review” system of publishing research is clearly highly flawed. In less objective fields like psychology, past half of such published research has been shown to be not reproducible. Some of this research has been foundational to psychology, such as the famous Stanford Prison Experiment…despite the fame, it’s a fraud. In medicine, we also […] … learn more→

The CRUE Universities of Spain has recently presented the ” Guide for the Valuation of the Activity of Scientific Disclosure of Academic and Research Staff “. This document aims to be a useful tool to recognize the activities of dissemination and social dissemination of knowledge in the evaluation processes of university teaching and research staff. When colleagues from […] … learn more→

Australia’s Engagement and Impact Assessment encourages universities to ensure that their research is of benefit to the world beyond academia. Or does it? Having spent more than a year in a dedicated “engagement and impact” research support role, I am concerned to see that institutions tend to be narrowly focused on the task of showing evidence of engagement and […] … learn more→

I’ve just been reading a Fellowship application. The applicant is brilliant. She has a great project idea that is urgently needed, and had excellent potential to lead to both theoretical developments and real changes in practice. I was excited to read her application, because she has done great stuff in the past. She has an […] … learn more→

The idea of scientists tinkering with the genes of babies was once the provenance of science fiction, but now it’s entered the realm of reality: On Nov. 26, Chinese scientist He Jiankui reported the historic live births of two twin girls whose genes he had edited. The goal may have been noble: to use CRISPR to alter […] … learn more→

In recent years the assessment of researcher quality in social sciences has been aligned to the journals in which their articles have been published. The ascendancy of ranking guides for business and management disciplines such as the Academic Journal Guide have facilitated this metrification to the point where business school workloads, promotions and recruitment are […] … learn more→