Bold ideas and critical thoughts on science.

This short analysis focuses on female scientists as a subgroup of a large survey sample and how their assessment of public engagement differs from that of their male counterparts.

Sascha Schönig

Scientists are increasingly expected to engage with the public. At the same time, they face increasing hostility when they speak out. Female scientists, as a more frequent target of sexist hostility, fear being attacked and enjoy speaking out less than their male counterparts. The question arises: Is science communication really feasible for everyone in the current hostile environment?

Do you dare? What female scientists expect when communicating

Bao &amp; Huang on gender biases in Chinese scientific committees, calling for policy reforms in academia.

Nataliia sokolovska

Why are women underrepresented in China’s most distinguished academic committees? From the election data of these academic committees over a decade, Bao and Huang revealed that fewer women entered the recruitments of these committees, and social connections disproportionately influence male candidates’ success compared to their female counterparts. This revelation calls for an urgent reevaluation of recruitment practices.

Gender Disparity in Science

Jefferson Pooley on Surveillance Publishing, its history in modern societies during the last couple of decades, and the potential costs of these practices for both service providers and their users.

Elias Koch

In April 1998, two Stanford graduate students, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, flew across the world to deliver a paper on their nascent search engine, Google. Speaking at the Seventh International World Wide Web conference (WWW 98) in Brisbane, Australia, Brin and Page described how their approach—taking the web’s existing link “graph” as a proxy for quality and relevance—improved on the classified-by-hand indexes of Yahoo!, Lycos, and the like.

Surveillance Publishing

Threats and attacks on researchers can lead them to self-isolate and retreat from public communication. We look at strategies to prevent this from happening.

The question of how researchers engage in public communication or political decision-making processes has gained unprecedented attention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many scientists experienced hostile attitudes when going public. Threats and science hostility are no new phenomena, but gain more importance as science is increasingly embedded in public debates.

How good science communication can support researchers in cases of hostility

The case of pandemic prevention is one of many examples to show that holistic perspectives in disaster prevention and related fields have gained prominence in recent years.

Since the 1990s, health experts have anticipated that we would be hit by an influenza pandemic in the not-too-distant future (cf. Caduff 2015; Lakoff 2008; Weir, Mykhalovskiy 2010). While we may have thought of pandemic primarily in terms of Covid-19 over the past two years, influenza pandemics have long represented the paradigmatic case of pandemic preparedness planning.

Who is an expert? Inclusion and exclusion of expertise in global pandemic prevention

A wrap up of 2021 on Elephant in the Lab by the Editorial Team

Around this time last year we took a look back at the Elephants in the Lab of the Year and the article started with the words “2020 was different for all of us…”  Sadly that remains true for 2021. However, the debates and discussions within the scientific community have shifted slightly as the pandemic continued and thus, it is worth it once again to take a look back.

Another Year in Elephants

Sami Nenno on the typical problems of the most common service providers for conducting online surveys and how to find the right one for your own project.

Conducting surveys and designing questionnaires is common research practice, and not only for the social sciences. One might think that there is a vast array of good software tools out there. The first half is correct: when looking for software for setting up a survey, one is confronted with plenty of options. However, depending on what you want to do, it can be tricky to find a good tool that checks all the boxes.

How to find the right Survey Tool: Problems and Proposals

Kateryna Suprun on the fast-track digital transformation Ukrainian universities are currently going through in the face of the Russian war of aggression.

Several universities in the country have been either completely destroyed or damaged. Most recently, the central building of the Taras Shevchenko National University standing in the center of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv suffered from an explosion nearby. At the same time, the interview itself illustrated the dramatic circumstances of this process: the online-talk was disrupted by air raid siren alerts.

Digital transformation ahead of schedule. How Ukrainian universities are surviving and transforming in times of war

In this short analysis P. Atkinson highlights the uncertainties associated with the field of evidence-informed policy making, especially in crisis situations such as Covid-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic experiences of many different countries have shown how an exceptional need for research evidence has led to rapid new deployments of scientists in advisory roles to aid policymakers in making evidence-informed decisions.

What the Covid-19 experience has taught us about the limits of evidence-informed policy making

Zhao et al. on an individual’s role in the scientific system and some coping mechanisms to alleviate the stress of the precarious working conditions of early career academics.

Many German scientists are under pressure due to the restriction of the 12-year scientific period (Lang et al., 2020). One has 6 years to submit the doctoral thesis and another 6 years in the postdoctoral phase to apply for a professorial position. Similar to the Grimm brothers’ fairy tales, the path of a researcher is adventurous and arduous. Unfortunately, it does not always end happily.

Snails on the chase: How to cope with anxiety in an academic career

In this interview Teresa Völker speaks with Dr. Volker Meyer-Guckel about challenges and possible futures  of science communication.

Science communication is often considered equal with public relations or media coverage. However, the phenomenon is significantly more complex, and its most important aspects are not given enough attention. For instance, science includes how science can not only communicate but also interact with societal groups, and the potential impacts this can have on the perception of research in the public eye.

Science and Society need more interaction instead of mere communication. An Interview with Volker Meyer-Guckel

In this article, Mennatullah Hendawy shares some insights on structuring cumulative dissertations based on her own experience

“The whole is other than the sum of its parts”

~ Aristotle~ In general, there are two styles of doctoral dissertations: monographs (thesis as a book), and cumulative thesis (thesis by publications/papers). In this article, I will share some insights with regard to cumulative dissertations based on my own experience.

How to structure a cumulative dissertation: Five strategies

Donia Lasinger on the contribution of the Vienna Science and Technology Funds (WWTF) as a compareably small funding organization to equality of all genders

Where to start from…   Being embedded in an environment as well as in a system and understanding its influences and logic have always fascinated me. During my exchange year in Ireland, at Trinity College Dublin, I had a very important insight: a professor in organizational studies was discussing case studies and then turned to the students and asked: “What would you do in this situation?” After several rounds of guessing, I promptly realized

Breaking the status quo – The role of a small funding organization in gender mainstreaming

A group of researchers from the German N² network presents the results of a survey among PhD students on the abuse of power in science and outlines ways to counter it

This article results from a cooperation within N², a network of the Helmholtz Juniors, Leibniz PhD Network and Max Planck PhDnet. The International PhD Program Mainz (IPP) is an associated member of N². Representing more than 16.000 doctoral researchers, it is the biggest network of doctoral researchers in Germany.

Manifestations of power abuse in academia and how to prevent them

Kristin Eichhorn, co-initiator of #IchbinHanna, on fair working conditions in research and the failed reform proposal in Germany.

On Friday, March 17, The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) published a reform proposal that promises to improve working conditions in research. This was followed by a massive wave of criticism and protest from scientists across status groups and disciplines.

Now it is time to build up the pressure! How to improve working conditions in academia

This article explores the evolving phenomenon of science communication in social media and the norms and values that shape these online spaces. Science communicators on TikTok share how they use generative AI to produce science-related social media content.

Introduction   Social media platforms such as Facebook, X and Instagram have not only changed the way we communicate but also how we learn and acquire knowledge. Platforms have become spaces for disseminating academic knowledge, where science communicators convey academic knowledge to the public as “the new type of influencers” (Zhang &amp;

How TikTok Science Communicators Navigate Norms and Values in the Age of Generative AI

In this Interview Jörg Pohle talks about generative AI tools and how they affect his research activities as well as what possible misunderstandings and fallacies in regards of using LLM’s are.

Sascha Schönig: How do you use LLMs in your academic work? What are advantages and disadvantages?


 Jörg Pohle:

My work relates to AI and LLMs in several ways. On the one hand, I teach about AI and LLM systems, about how they are built and used, about the academic discussion around those technologies and how they might change the academic enterprise in future.

“You will see ChatGPT as a really big threat, because it always produces good text”: An Interview with Jörg Pohle

Martin Schmidt

What is the difference between bibliometric impact and societal impact?

There is a tremendous difference between bibliometric and societal impact. I devoted a blog post to this when I had the honour of reaching 100 publications in the peer-reviewed literature. I didn’t feel the sense of accomplishment that I imagined I might have—and should have—felt.

The balance between bibliometric and societal impact

The role of libraries in the 21st century is changing. One indication is the emergence of new services and job profiles: libraries offer services to support researchers throughout the creation, publication, dissemination and discovery of their research.


How libraries secure trust in the research process of the 21st century

Philip Nebe

Museums, libraries and archives play a pivotal role in the preservation of human knowledge. They also see themselves as custodians of cultural and natural heritage. The task of natural history collections is twofold: on the one hand, they preserve our knowledge about nature, on the other, they hold records of the history of human exploration and conquest of the earth.


Towards the Open Natural History Museum

In this interview Theresa Züger gives exciting insights about the risks and opportunities AI bears for research work and talked about tools her team is developing.

To launch our new section ‘AI in Research’ Sascha Schönig spoke to Theresa Züger, head of the Public Interest AI research group at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), about the influence of AI on her personal day-to-day work in research, as well as on the science system as a whole.



 
 Sascha Schönig: AI has the potential to change research.

The (potential) impact of AI on the individual research process and  science in general

In this short analysis, Sami Nenno takes a closer look at the content of fact-checks and misinformation in Germany.

2024 is a year of elections: USA and EU but there are also local elections in Germany for which current polls predict strong increases for the far-right. Misinformation is a constant concern regarding these elections. Even though disinformation is not as threatening as often depicted, it is harmful for democratic processes and we need a solid understanding of it.  Misinformation is a (moderate) threat to elections   2024 is a year of elections.

What’s the Content of Fact-checks and Misinformation in Germany?

Kelsey Medeiros on sexual harassment, what role it plays in relation to power structures in academia, and possible ways to address it

Today is the day Julia has been dreaming about since the first day of her PhD program – it’s interview day at the American Economics Association (AAEA) Annual Conference. As her phone plays her familiar morning alarm, Julia jumps out of bed, bright-eyed and hopeful for the 10 interviews she has scheduled for the day. She irons her power skirt and navy blouse carefully, ensuring she leaves no creases uncreased.

Sexual harassment in Academia

In this Short Analysis, Jefferson Pooley is reviewing/introducing PubPub, a web-based publishing platform hosted by a nonprofit, the Knowledge Futures Group (KFG)

In 2019 researchers at Simon Fraser University set out to catalogue the world’s scholarly publishing platforms. They restricted themselves to open source projects, and yet still identified over 50 projects to produce and host scholarly journals and books. The platforms range from established (like Open Journal Systems) to fledgling (like Rebus Ink), and everything in between.

The Case for PubPub

In this opinion piece Isabella Hermann  reflects on AI and how the general perception of it is shaped by pop-culturel archetypes, represented for example in movies.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a focal point of debates in recent years, fueled by both real-world developments and speculative narratives. Renowned scientists, executives, and visionaries have voiced concerns about AI’s implications.

AI, science (fiction) and the need for a human-centric approach in academia

Linda Jauch on powerful dependancies of academics to funding bodies, their supervisors and what to do about it.

Introduction

Very early on in my PhD I decided that a life as researcher and university lecturer was not for me. I very much enjoyed talking and hearing about research, the constant “vibe of knowledge” buzzing in the air on a university campus, and, yes, I felt that research was important for understanding the world we live in, past and present. However, I did not want to spend more time in archives or secluded at my desk.

Power and Academia, an endless story

A summary of the results of a workshop held by our authors on issues related to the measurability of the impact of the Social Sciences and Humanities.

Description   What does social impact mean for the Social Sciences and the Humanities (SSH)? How can it be measured and evaluated? This was the topic of two workshop discussions between science studies scholars and representatives of SSH disciplines. This article summarizes the workshop results. Science is increasingly expected to address and help solve societal challenges.

Impact of social sciences &#8211; (How) Can it be measured?

The Wikipedia community has become a source of information for a broad and global public. Paul and Max argue that contributing to the encyclopedia as a scholar can be a powerful way of achieving a strong societal impact of their own expertise. Furthermore they provide a guide on how to write your first contributions.

Instagram, TikTok, Clubhouse: Today, researchers who want to share their work with non-academic audiences can choose between a vast array of digital platforms. Some of them vanish as quickly as they appear. Others attract an audience that is looking  for something other than scientific content.

Wikipedia as Science Communication: A Step-by-Step Guide

As generative AI applications in science proliferate they prompt a self-reflection on work routines in scientific knowledge production. At the same time, scientific institutions, publishing bodies, and funding agencies are confronted with both regulatory challenges and the task of promoting the use of generative AI in line with good scientific practice.

ChatGPT was presented to the public in November 2022 and, since then, has spurred discussions about the future of work. The advent of Open AI’s ChatGPT and its siblings Google’s Gemini or Anthropic’s Claude has sparked a wide range of positive visions of enhanced velocity and efficiency as well as dystopian scenarios about job losses.

Generative AI in knowledge work

In 1997, SciELO, the biggest Open Access database in Latin America got some initial funding from the S​ão Paulo Research Foundation FAPESP. What triggered the launch of such an infrastructure and what were the main goals back then?

Back then a few local scientists approached us with the idea to set up a repository for journals edited in Brazil.

An Accelerator for Science in Latin America: FAPESP

Communicating Science in Covid Times



During the Corona crisis, the value of science and science communication has been clearly demonstrated.

Communicating Science in Covid Times

The impact of bioenergy research

Bioenergy production (liquid biofuels for long haul transportation, for instance) and use has come to be seen as an essential component of our energy matrix and it must be expanded if we are to avoid climate change [1]. It is the only available option for fossil fuels substitution for a large sector of our economies.

The impact of bioenergy research

This opinion piece draws attention to the disadvantage of the academic STEM system, especially for female academics.

The COVID 19 pandemic exposed the precarious positioning of two groups within the academic STEM system.

A call for an alliance between female academic leaders and early career researchers to improve the academic STEM system

Benedikt Fecher

In the last 10 years, we have spent a lot of time thinking about the impact of research, both from a research and science management perspective. A few years ago, we also started giving trainings for other researchers on how to approach the blackbox “societal impact”. Our experience is that few researchers really know whether and how their research can have a societal impact.


Meet the Research Impact Canvas

An Appeal for a Culture of Failure in Academia

Mafalda Sandrini For some years now there has been a trend amongst entrepreneurs and artists to come together to exchange stories of failure by disclosing their mistakes on a big stage and acknowledging what they lacked in insight and wisdom. This is framed as a practice of openness for the good of the many, as well as for themselves.

How to empower a Culture of Failure in Science

International mobility is key for a career in academia (Bauder 2020, 2015; Geuna 2015; González Ramos and Bosch 2013; Ivancheva and Gourova 2011; OECD 2008; Bos et al. 2019). Early career researchers who did not study abroad, do not attend international conferences or go on field trips outside of their countries often find it difficult to reach the next step in obtaining tenure (Toader et al. 2016; Ackers and Oliver 2007;


How current travel restrictions open up new possibilities for researcher mothers

Jayat Joshi  An old yet powerful principle has emerged from the COVID-19 crisis. It was introduced to the West in the writings of Carl G. Jung, and has its roots in the works of the pre-Socratic Greeks: enantiodromia (enantios – opposite and dromos – running course) (Jung 1968). Put simply, this means when something is pushed to the extreme, it tends to turn into its opposite.


The Return to Science at The Turn of Modernity

Q: Are there particular features to the Corona pandemic that makes it more attractive to conspiracy theories or conspiracy theorists? Or are we just much more aware of these theories because everyone is living through this at the moment?

Mike S. Schäfer

 MS:

In general, conspiracy theories are not a new phenomenon.

How science communication can challenge conspiracy theories in times of Covid-19

As the initiator of the movement “Scientists for future,” could you give us a “peek behind the scenes”: How did you come up with the idea and how did the concept evolve?

Like many others, I was concerned by the slow progress of the sustainability agenda. That is, not just climate change, but also, for example, biodiversity loss, loss of soils, food security, and questions of human rights and justice.

Active but not Activists: Research communication by Scientists for Future

Could this be the start of a new era in scholarly communication?



For all the devastating impact that the coronavirus pandemic has had on us all, it has also shown how it is possible to swiftly change previously entrenched cultures and mindsets.

Could this be the start of a new era in scholarly communication?

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 Science versus pseudoscience

Most conspiracy theorists make abstruse claims: The world is flat and run by an alien species of “reptiloids” covered in human skin (Ronson 2001). Governments use airplanes to diffuse chemicals into the atmosphere, known as “chemtrails”, in order to regulate the

How Conspiracy Theorists Get the Scientific Method Wrong

When your lab is the world but the world is closed down – Social Science Research in times of Covid-19

Stay at home. This sentence has become a common mantra for all of us during the last weeks. Most of my academic colleagues and friends are among the lucky ones who can actually stay at home and do not need to go to work.

When your lab is the world but the world is closed down

Together with your colleagues Ruth Mayer and Andrea Geier you initiated the petition “Nicht-Semester” (calling for a cancellation of the regular spring semester during the Corona crisis). What are the motivations behind your initiative?

Our main argument is that we should see the current situation in higher education in Germany from a realistic perspective –

Higher Education in Crisis Times

Computational models and huge amounts of available data allow us to predict the outbreak of COVID-19 globally and prepare respective measures to react to this crisis. Policy-makers, journalists and individuals refer to such calculations on a daily basis and they are prominently present in the public discourse.

Predictions on the spread of COVID-19 bear many uncertainties

Doing research and getting paid for it is fantastic, but how to do that sustainably and maintain the interest of research funders? Even funders themselves cannot give a definite answer, but some trends can be pointed out. Admittedly, there are still universities and academic systems where nepotism and feudal-like arrangements rule, and the points made here do not concern them.


How to ensure sustainable support for high-quality research?

In September you are organizing the conference “Divergent values in sustainability assessments: love them, leave them, or change them?”. A core theme of the conference is “ethics in scientific policy advice”. Why do you think the topic of ethics in scientific policy advice is important now?

Martin Kowarsch, expert on Scientific Assessments, Ethics and Public Policy Scientific expertise is important for informing politics about

Reconciling research for the common good

The scientific community has been flooded with well-intended ideas and concrete attitudes to tackle the openness in science, or better its lack of openness. More specifically, attempts to guarantee access to otherwise ‘protected’ material have been the obsession of many (mostly early-career) researchers.


In future, papers will not be paywalled

Introduction

The way science is conducted is changing. The internet and other digital means alter the scale and pace of data-driven research and collaborative possibilities. Most modern scholarly research now relies to some extent on digital research infrastructures.

Challenges in Building Innovative, Sustainable and Open Research Infrastructures

There is more than one sort of scientific research infrastructure: those that provide technology and computational capacity, and those that are supplied by the community who works with it (Baron et al., 2017). We suggest that computing research infrastructures provide an information environment that support effective research, but of themselves are insufficient to provide the insights and understanding we desire.


Critical research infrastructure: The importance of synthesis centers

Renke Siems on user tracking on science publisher platforms, its implications for their individual users and ways to face this issue

Introduction   In December 2018, a University of Minnesota web librarian, Cody Hanson, participated in a workshop hosted by the Coalition for Networked Information. The topic of this, and a number of other events to date, is the drive by major scholarly publishers to more fully integrate authentication systems for accessing electronic media into their platforms.

When your journal reads you

Between 2016 and 2021, the UK government is channelling £1.5 billion of aid funds through the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) the beneficiaries of which are primarily UK researchers. They are in turn expected to work in partnership with their counterparts and other stakeholders in the ‘global south’ and in so doing, contribute to improvements in development outcomes.


Are International Research Partnerships a Pipe Dream?

In an influential series of opinion pieces published in early 2014 (see introductory comment by Macleod et al., 2014), the medical journal The Lancet tackled the issue of “increasing value, reducing waste” in biomedical research. This series laid out in detail the issues that had led Chalmers &amp; Glasziou to conclude in 2009 that 85% of investment in biomedical research was wasted.


Increasing value in biomedical research

Mennatullah Hendawy on six decisions that made her findings from her dissertation, a case study on interdisciplinary urban planning in Cairo, more generalizable.

To what extent are research findings and theories transferable and generalizable beyond the contexts they were designed from and for? This is a main question that we, researchers, constantly think about and find it hard to answer.

Achieving (Partial) Generalizability  

As I’m writing this, on Easter 2020, the big wave of COVID-19 infections spreads as a slow-motion tsunami over our planet, wreaking havoc in many families, communities and businesses all over the world. Knowing a thing or two about contagion dynamics, I started following this pandemic when there were still just 881 confirmed cases in Wuhan, hoping, or actually expecting an adequate response.


Not back to normal

‘Altmetrics,’ and more specifically, ‘social media metrics’ are increasingly deemed valuable indicators to gauge the dissemination and reception of research outputs beyond academic circles, but their potential could be much greater.


The four faces of Twitter user’s  activity around science.

Antonia Lingens

Why do you care about impact?

It is quite important to understand some aspects of geology to give us the insights of how the earth has evolutioned throughout times, what happened to climate and thus predict how it will change in future. This is one reason why I care about impact. Another one – a lot of the work we do is related to the oil industry. So we help them to find solutions that make this work more efficient and safe.

The reason to do science

Peter Weingart on changing perceptions of science’s role in society, safeguarding autonomy, and the concept of dual legitimacy for scientific knowledge in policy decisions.

Academic research enjoys a high level of trust among the society in Germany, not least because of its autonomy that is granted by the constitution. At the same time, the public expects research to leave its “ivory tower” and take on a more active role in addressing complex societal challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic or climate change.

Between societal relevance and autonomy

Scientists must compete for limited funding as well as for academic positions and recognition. Many factors contribute to success, but Hirsch’s

 h

-index puts the emphasis squarely on citations (Hirsch, 2005). In such a system, it is perceived that more citations should lead to more funds, promotions, job security, et cetera.

Putting data before the carrot

Description

The number of authors per article in the subject area

 Dentistry

is 5.5 on average with a maximum of 25 authors. The mean number of coauthors is increasing by 0.04 per year in the respective time period (Figure 1). The articles in this analysis (

 n

= 1536) were cited 13.6 times on average with a maximum of 183 citations.

Taking care of people – and authorship

What is the overarching problem with scientific impact?

Scientific impact can be understood as the influence on other research, for example by providing confirmative or contradicting results, new research questions, or breakthrough methods.

Impacting the ‘real world’: out of sight for science?

Description

The number of authors per article in the subject area

 Arts and Humanities

is 2.1 on average with a maximum of 8 authors. The mean number of coauthors is decreasing by 0.01 per year in the respective time period (Figure 1). The articles in this analysis (

 n

= 749) were cited 6.6 times on average with a maximum of 50 citations.

The Arts and the authorship

Description

The number of authors per article in the subject area

 Business, Management, and Accounting

is 2.6 on average with a maximum of 8 authors. The mean number of coauthors is increasing by 0.1 per year in the respective time period (Figure 1). The articles in this analysis (

 n

= 999) were cited 10.5 times on average with a maximum of 138 citations.

Authorship in business and economy

In this short analysis the three authors aggregate findings from four research projects to answer questions regarding the accelerated digitalisation of education due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Introduction   The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic led to a global and accelerated digitalisation of all education systems. This quickly revealed many inequalities in access to digital resources and lack of digital skills. What concrete impact has this had on learners and teachers worldwide? How can we address these inequalities in education?

Sharing knowledge: Impact of Covid-19 on digital teaching

Niels Mede on how the rise of populist politics affects academic work, science communication practices of scholars engaging in public discourse and ways to address these challenges.

So, Niels Mede, tell us: who are you? And what do you do?

I am a post-doctoral communication researcher in the Department of Communication and Media Research at the University of Zurich, and until recently, I was a visiting research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute.

Populism, Science and Public Discourse: An Interview with Niels Mede

Holger Bähr on the strengths and pitfalls of evidence-based policy advice in policy-making precesses

Evidence-based policy advice and evidence-based policy-making constitute two related concepts that are widely Evidence-based policy advice and evidence-based policy-making constitute two related concepts that are widely supported. Both political and scientific actors argue that political decisions should be based on scientific evidence in order to manage societal problems;

Opportunities and Limitations of Evidence-Based Policy Advice for Evidence-Based Policy-Making

In this contribution, Irene Broer &amp; Nataliia Sokolovska describe what inspired them to create their own taxonomy of advisory formats and dive into the characteristics of advisory organizations and how they can be systematized.

For most liberal democracies, scientific expertise is an important ingredient of political decision-making. Scientific forecasts and assessments of, for example, poverty or social mobility, the impact of exhaust fumes on public health or the risks of viral outbreaks, help governments to weigh arguments and decide on policy measures. But how exactly does scientific knowledge make its way into politics?

Scientific policy advice: An attempt to structurize types of organizations on the international level

In this article the authors argue for a utopia driven by SDG’s and respectful engagement with nature.

Human history is ridden with dreams of utopias. Ideas and visions outlining societies or communities that are free from faults and flaws, running perfectly according to plan. There is no shortage of examples. Many are political, some religious and others stacked somewhere in between.

The Utopia of a Sustainable Planet

This short analysis is showing up ways of how the quality of scientific policy advice, as an important part of the recognition of scientific activity, can be checked and how these processes and results can be made usable again for science.

In academia, there is a clear understanding of how the quality of research work is assessed. This is done by academic peers in a peer review process. It is only then, through the discourse of expert opinion, that it is possible to determine whether the quality of a paper is good or poor. The peers themselves also determine when science is excellent without using formal criteria or even indicators. Science thus has a monopoly on quality;

Out of the Box: Extended Peer Review as Quality Assurance in Scientific Policy Advice

Katrin Martens take on the struggles of transdisciplinary research.

Introduction

Katrin Martens As a young researcher, I have already worked in three large collaborative projects dealing with innovation governance in land use contexts. Transdisciplinarity was always a topic in my past work, but for me each of these projects had a different flavor of transdisciplinarity and brought me different insights.

Transdisciplinary research: Pain or Gain?

Lucy G. Gillis on inequalities in science reproduced by letters of reference and how to encounter them

Letters of reference (LORs) from early career researchers (ECRs) laboratory leaders are an integral part in moving ECRs to their next position.

Reducing the power imbalances in academic letters of reference

The pocket library for open content is an application designed to simplify the search for openly available research content and lay ground for a basic quality assurance mechanism.

Over the last years the number of open access publications has drastically increased. The recent Covid-19 pandemic has shown the rising role and relevance of bringing out and exchanging scientific results faster than ever. Tens of thousands scientific articles hosted on preprint servers were published only during the first ten months of the pandemic.

ploc &#8211; an app to discover and improve research

Why do we need scientific advice for cities based on urban research? Why is it not only a local, but also a global matter?

Scientific advice for cities cannot be seen as a local issue, particularly because sustainable development is a global matter itself and needs a common approach.

Science for Cities: Overcoming Borders

Karcher and Shellock on trust at the science-policy interface, how can you build trust when working with decision-makers and what can you do when it has been compromised or lost.

What is trust and why is it important at the science-policy interface? How can you build trust when working with decision-makers? And what can you do when trust has been compromised or lost?

Trust at the interface of environmental research and policy

Bronwen and Moritz highlight the institutional challenges posed to Higher Education Institutions by the pandemic and outline how these can be viewed as a window of opportunity

Texts on COVID-19 responses in education are plentiful: in particular, Germany’s school system and its lack of readiness for a pandemic, has been discussed frequently, also here at the institute. Our research interest and the focus of this blog post, however, lies in the tertiary part of the education system and possible answers to the challenges it faces.

Possibilities for Change – Higher Education and Digitalisation

Sabine Müller on the hierarchical system of German academia and why it could be a problem for the wellbeing of young academics and Ph.D. candidates. She compares it to her experiences at Oxford University and sheds light on the differences between the two research cultures.

“Researchers say that their working culture is best when it is collaborative, inclusive, supportive and creative, when researchers are given time to focus on their research priorities, when leadership is transparent and open, and when individuals have a sense of safety and security.

On creating a good research environment

In August 2023 Benedikt Fecher conducted an interview with Clemens Blümel from the German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW) on the topic of ‘what happens when science opens up and communicates’ and the emerging challenges for future scientific communication.

What actually happens to science when it opens up? From your perspective as a science researcher, can you describe why this perspective is important?

I believe that science takes place in a social environment and certain images of science emerge or have emerged, which are questioned in many respects in a digital and now increasingly open context or are subject to tensions.