What is the current situation of educational reality? How to establish what should be intervened in and how to enhance, modify and improve educational practices? How do you know if a teaching methodology works? These are just some important questions of educational research that seeks to advance in this sector and, in this way, improve as a […] … learn more→

Despite the fact that grantseeking is an embedded part of contemporary academic life, researchers are often unpractised and insecure about asking for money. They may feel the awkwardness of asking for money, or uncertainty about the value of their ideas or track record as a researcher. We can reassure you that this feeling is common. […] … learn more→

The agonised cry of a researcher worried that they are going to be scooped. Pipped at the post. Someone else is going to get in and do what they are doing and publish beforehand. OK. It’s alarming at first. But someone doing what you’re doing is not necessarily A Bad Thing. Even in blue skies […] … learn more→

Learning to summarize research papers profoundly is crucial for researchers or professionals out there. In doing so, in the right way, readers could get a quick preview of the main points without covering the whole paper. Previously, research paper summarization was conducted through manual techniques, but this work has been made simpler with the onset […] … learn more→

Once again, this week, I was asked to replace someone for a presentation. After the session, my colleague said “Wow, you were [unexpectedly?] good, we should have thought of you earlier”. A similar scenario occurred earlier this year when I replaced a superstar in my field at a conference where ministers and government officers were […] … learn more→

Since Galileo, research in physics has followed a well-marked procedure, structured by three precepts: observation of natural phenomena, conceptualization of a law underlying them, verification of the predictions that result from them. This approach has borne many fruits and we now know in detail the laws that apply to the world between the scale of […] … learn more→

Canada’s federal research granting agencies recently announced a review of the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications, with the goal of requiring immediate open and free access to all academic publications generated through Tri-Agency supported research by 2025. To meet this requirement, the Canadian government should empower academic authors through the adoption of secondary publishing rights. These rights would ensure that […] … learn more→

Two weeks ago, a modest-looking paper was uploaded to the arXiv preprint server with the unassuming title “On the invariant subspace problem in Hilbert spaces”. The paper is just 13 pages long and its list of references contains only a single entry. The paper purports to contain the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle that mathematicians have […] … learn more→

Collaborating with other researchers or external partners can be challenging but using project management strategies for planning, communication and decision making can help. Many academics undertake their PhD and post-doctoral fellowships as solo projects. That training and experience may not prepare them for coordinating project teams or collaborating with partners external to the university. Team […] … learn more→

How is writing research like story? Last post I wrote about Kurt Vonnegut’s man in hole structure and how that might help you think at a very macro level about how to organise your material. This post is also about structure – this time a four part structure I’ve called C3REC. The C3REC structure is an academic […] … learn more→