Thinking through research policy

Using Readwise as a commonplace book

Several years ago, I wrote about the potential of the digital commonplace book, and my frustration that it wasn't possible to tie together insight from digital reading effectively. In recent mo...

Thoughts on Science Fictions by Stuart Ritchie

Science Fictions by Stuart Ritchie is a thorough review of the so-called 'replication crisis' in science and research. Building out from the well-documented issues in psychology, Ritchie...

Disagreements in peer review

Peer reviewers often disagree in their assessments. Whether reviewing research proposals for grant funding or manuscripts for publication, there is ample evidence of low 'interrater reliability...

Tracing the signals of research impact

Research has impact. The knowledge, understanding and know-how that comes from deep investigation leads to concrete changes of considerable diversity, from cultural benefits to environmental improv...

Connecting journal articles

Surveying the literature is a task with which all researchers are familiar. A common approach is to start from a known relevant article, identified either on the basis of a keyword search or a reco...

Virtual peer review panels - the evidence

Over recent months many of us have become accustomed to conducting all manner of business through video calls. Tasks that, we would have argued, had an absolute requirement to be conducted face-to-...

A post-pandemic research agenda

Much has already been writen about the new world that will emerge following the acute phase of the coronavirus pandemic. One idea that crops up repeatedly is the notion that, as well as presenting ...

Four trends shaping the future of research evaluation

Earlier today I gave a keynote presentation at the 10th anniversary LIS-bibliometrics conference. This post is a summary of the argument that I made in my presentation; you can also view the slides...

Text-mining the research literature

The size and complexity of the research literature is growing rapidly, and this trend has been evident for a number of years. More nations are investing in research, and within established research...

Thinking about CRediT

CRediT Check – Should we welcome tools to differentiate the contributions made to academic papers? Writing on the LSE Impact Blog, Lizzie Gadd makes thoughtful points about the potential consequen...

Journal brand and research culture

Research culture is one of the hot topics in research policy. There is general agreement that things are not right in the culture of research, and that this is ultimately to the detriment of resear...

Expanding ideas of excellence in research

In November I attended a 'Séance de Réflexion' organised by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) on the topic of research excellence and how to measure it. This post is a blend of t...

Are we ready for more research on research?

This week has seen the launch of a new initiative, the Research on Research Institute (RoRI), a partnership involving Sheffield University, Wellcome, CWTS Leiden and Digital Science. RoRI launched ...

Open access monographs in the REF

This post was originally published on the HEFCE blog on 23 February 2018 (archived copy). At a conference last week, I spoke of the intent to extend the open access (OA) requirements in the Resear...

Delivering impact from research needs public participation

This post was originally published on the HEFCE blog on 14 September 2016 (archived copy). The participation in research of members of the public, users and beneficiaries plays a central role in t...

Social media and impact

How was social media cited in 2014 REF Impact Case Studies? Writing on the LSE Impact Blog, Katy Jordan and Mark Carrigan, describe their analysis of the role of social media in the case studies s...

Collaboration, competition and culture

This post was originally published on the HEFCE blog on 4 July 2016 (archived copy). "culture eats strategy for breakfast" — Attributed to Peter Drucker Striking from the outside, a...

The grand challenges of research need careful investment

This post was originally published on the HEFCE blog on 30 March 2016 (archived copy). Over recent years discussions about addressing grand challenges have become intimately linked with research. ...

Three frontiers for public engagement

For a decade public engagement with research has been occupying a more and more central place in the UK research landscape. It feels like we are at something of a turning point, where we need to re...

The geographic impact of research

This post was originally published on the HEFCE blog on 19 February 2016 (archived copy). A key feature of research impact is that it is tangible. Specific people or organisations are affected, an...

Measuring disruption in research articles

In 1962, Thomas Kuhn's book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, set down an central notion in the study of research, the idea that knowledge accumulation does not occur at a steady rate. ...

AI and systematic reviews

Out of date before it's published Jon Brock, writing in Nature Index last month, discusses how the use of artifical intelligence is revolutionising the generation of systematic reviews. Looki...

To improve the nation’s productivity, keep investing in university research

This post was originally published on the HEFCE blog on 30 September 2015 (archived copy). With the publication of the Government’s Productivity Plan, attention across the policy spectrum is focus...

Impact learning lessons from the REF

This post was originally published on the HEFCE blog on 10 November 2015 (archived copy). Interestingly, since then I have added another four lessons to my talks about research impact, so maybe I s...

Anonymous review and the REF

This post was originally published on the HEFCE blog on 22 March 2018 (archived copy). Over the last 40 years, leading orchestras have been through a remarkable transformation. Moving from what wa...

Reposting HEFCE blog posts

When the Higher Education Funding Council for England ceased to exist last year its website was archived, in line with normal practice. All the content is preserved, but it can be a bit tricky to f...

Public and civic engagement

Reinventing the wheel? Why civic engagement looks a lot like public engagement Joanna Heaton Marriott, writing on WonkHE, makes some excellent points about the relationship between public and civi...

Open access and academic progression

Academic review, promotion and tenure documents promote a view of open access that is at odds with the wider academic community A recent post on the LSE impact blog reports some troubling findings...

Novelty and international research collaboration

In a recent article in Nature Index, Caroline Wagner, Travis Whetsell and Satyam Mukherjee describe the findings of their work(preprint) to investigate the extent to which internationally collabora...

Measuring the benefits of research

Towards the end of 2018 an important new report was published by RAND Europe. Commissioned by the UK's National Academies, the report is titled Evidence synthesis on measuring the distribution ...

Open science and public engagement

Next week I am taking part in a panel alongside some excellent contributers at the Science in Public conference in Cardiff. I will be joined by Neil Jacobs, Melanie Smallman and Paul Manners, and o...

Balancing impact in the REF

This post was originally published in Funding Insight, and is reposted with permission. With the high-level decisions for the 2021 Research Excellence Framework published, the attention of the REF...

Book review - Inferior by Angela Saini

One of the biggest challenges facing research is its lack of diversity. In most countries and many disciplines, researchers are not representative of the populations from which they are drawn. This...

International research and national excellence

Earlier this month I had a post on the HEFCE blog related to the current recruitment of panel members for the REF. Arguing for the importance of international members on the panels, I suggested tha...

The fifth A of assessing impact

Last month I spoke at a conference on the Strategy of Impact organised by Researchfish. This post is a summary of the argument I made in the talk (see also the slides from the presentation). In th...

A paper exploring REF, funding and journal metrics

I was recently asked to comment on a new paper looking at the relationship between REF scores, funding outcomes and venue of publication. I have made some annotations onto the paper using hypothes....

Effect of increased research funding

This piece in Nature by Michele Pagano has an interesting take on the effect of increasing research funding: The infusion of funds increased the scientific workforce and the number of products ...

A culture of open data

Last week I had a post published on the Times Higher Education blog on open research data: the "research parasites" debate demonstrates that there are potential deep-seated cultural n...

On writing consultation responses

I have spent a significant amount of time in the last few weeks analysing consultation responses. As you analyse, it becomes quite clear what makes a good response, so I thought it might be useful ...

Back to blogging

After a gap of a few months, I am coming back to writing online. A principal reason for the hiatus has been the dominance, in the day job, of a single project: the consultation on the next Researc...

The drivers shaping the future of research

Earlier today I spoke to The Culture Capital Exchange conference for early career researchers, 'Hack-a-demia: Future-proofing your academic career'. This post is based on the talk I gave. ...

On trade-offs

Trade-offs between desirable and undesirable outcomes are at the heart of all policy-making. For every solution, there always will be down-sides. We don't talk about the trade-offs enough. Pol...

The significance of Sci-Hub

A lot has been written about Sci-Hub, which aims to provide free access to the world's scholarly literature. One of the more thoughtful pieces is a recent post on the LSE Impact Blog by Iván Fa...

How long does it take to write a research grant application?

Earlier this month Times Higher Education published their annual collection of data on Research Council grant application success rates. They report a drop in success rates, and this has, rightly, ...

Massimo Pigliucci on science and culture

A recent essay by philosopher Massimo Pigliucci on the position of science in culture makes some important and interesting points. On different types of fact: "Look at what counts as a ‘f...

Some implications of Brexit for UK research

There is no doubt that leaving the European Union will bring implications for the UK research system. Like many other sectors, UK research relies on talented people from elsewhere in the EU, and EU...

On participation and impact

I have a new post today on the HEFCE blog on the importance of public participation in research for the delivery of impact. It was written jointly with Elizabeth Morrow and Fiona Ross. Our key mess...

Excellence in postgraduate education

On the HEFCE blog, Kate Turton, from my team, has an interesting overview of a recent conference on excellence in postgraduate education: "Closely linked with teaching is the supervision o...

Citations and the attention loop

The measurement of article citations is becoming increasingly prevalent in research policy circles. While the attractions of quantitative measures of research quality are many, it is time to take s...

Website update

In the last few days I have made some changes to this website. As well as a different look to the site, there are also some significant changes behind the scenes. I have moved from a hosted Wordpre...

Making space for the academic book of the future

Yesterday I spoke at the University Press Redux conference University Press Redux conference in Liverpool on the role of policy in shaping the academic book of the future. This post is a summary of...

What is open research?

Next month I am attending the first conference of the Open Scholarship Initiative. The format of the conference is a series of working groups examining key questions for open research, and I will b...

On public engagement with research and activism

In the last decade the breadth of activities that we regard as public engagement has expanded considerably. As well as informing and inspiring, consulting and co-creating are now also considered in...

The benefits of basic research

The debate about the importance of basic research in innovation was recently reignited by a piece in the Wall Street Journal by Matt Ridley. Much of Ridley’s argument has been ably dismantled by Ja...

Dimensions of quality research

To say that the assessment of research quality keeps me awake at night would be an exaggeration. But a lot of my waking hours are taken up thinking about and discussing what we mean about quality i...

Evidencing the REF

I am speaking at a conference next week, Research Impact: Evidencing the REF, and in advance wrote a blog post the Open Forum Events website, which was also cross-posted on the HEFCE blog. It is re...

Public engagement and science advocacy

Last week the Royal Society announced that its first Professor of Public Engagement would be Brian Cox. Not an especially surprising appointment, and from day one he was on the case, arguing on Rad...

On scholarly monographs and the sciences

One of the most enjoyable aspects of working in research policy is that it forces you to explore and understand the research cultures of disciplines other than your own. I am a life scientist who s...

Venture research and diversity

Earlier this month, I attended a discussion event organised by UCL's public policy unit on the idea of 'Venture Research'. This notion has been developed and operated by Professor Don B...

Questioning research culture

Earlier this week the Nuffield Council on Bioethics launched the report of its enquiry into scientific research culture. I was invited to respond to the report at the launch event, and this post is...

Open access: because it’s worth it

The cost of implementing open access policies in the UK remains a hot topic. It is part of the deliberations of the review of RCUK policy of which I am a member, and the question of costs continues...

Understanding academic culture

Next week I am going back to school. I will start a research project as an Associate Fellow1{#fnref1.footnoteRef} of the Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP) at the University of Cambridge. The aim...

His master’s voice?

There are many different styles of blog covering an incredible range of content. Many people write about their personal life, topics unconnected with their professional roles, but equally a lot of ...

Engaging wisdom from Sciencewise

The engagement of the public with the tricky debates around science and technology is now a common occurrence. Ten years ago that wasn't the case. Fresh from the BSE crisis, and the (still) ong...

The many paths to PhD study

I presented at the Vitae Researcher Development International Conference today. My slides have been published and this post is a summary of the issues covered in my talk. Every year more than 20,0...

On commonplace books

If you are looking to kill some time try Googling 'commonplace book'. You will find an endless stream of fascinating material, both examples of commonplace books themselves, and writing abo...

Openness and research integrity

Last week I spoke at the annual conference of the UK Research Integrity Office. The slides I used have been published, and this post sets out the argument that I made. Research misconduct happens....

How many research mavericks do we need?

The topic of ‘scientific mavericks’ is receiving some attention at the moment. There was a letter, signed by a number of Nobel laureates and FRSs among others, published this week in the Guardian s...

care.data – a failure to engage

From time to time, when stressing the importance of public engagement with research, I find myself challenged with the question 'why bother?'. The current debate about care.data – the highl...

Open access and academic freedom

There is always a point in any policy-making process where a clash of objectives or values takes place. Sometimes different aspects of what you are trying to achieve turn out, on analysis, to be in...

Open data reflections

I am spending a lot of time thinking and reading about open research data at the moment, in preparation for some policy development work in the New Year. I am personally positive about the open res...

On blogging and public engagement

I spent two days this week at the Engage 2013 conference, organised by the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement. The meeting was packed full of excellent content, and I am planning se...

On impact

Innovation is a complex business, but Seth Godin has some thought-provoking words in his post today: Inventing isn’t the hard part. The ideas that change the world are changing the world becaus...

Woodpeckers

It’s been a tough year for Great Spotted Woodpeckers. I know this because I was lucky enough to speak recently to a former work colleague who now publishes about woodpeckers in her retirement. The ...

Open data: technology and culture

Last week I attended an informal dinner at Royal Society of Chemistry to discuss their plans for enabling better data management and sharing in the chemical sciences. It was a private discussion, s...

Debating GM crops

I have history on the question of the use of GM crops in agriculture. I spent the 1990s working in research that was directly or indirectly involved with the use of GM in agriculture, including wor...

Assessing impact

One of the ironies of working in research policy is how little research evidence there is to inform policy-making decisions. And this is especially true in the relatively new area of assessing the ...

Weekly update #6

Another two week gap… Since my last update I have: talked about open access at the Publishers Association heard Renée Fleming sing the countess in Richard Straus's Capriccio at the Royal ...

Open access and research assessment

Yesterday, after lots of hard work from colleagues, the HEFCE consultation on open access in the next national research assessment process was published. The consultation is open until the end of O...

Weekly update #5

This is a bit late again, as a result of a busy weekend. This week I have: Discussed with colleagues further work we might do concerning postgraduate research policy following the recent analys...

On data management and open research

I recently attended a fascinating workshop showcasing the work Oxford University has been doing to develop systems for management of research data. The Data Management Roll-out project (DaMaRo) has...

Public good innovation and the free market

A couple of weeks ago I attended the annual Science and Innovation Conference. I haven't been to this event for a few years, and, while in some respects the points being made from the platform ...

Weekly update #4

Once again only getting round to this after two weeks – maybe I should retitle as a 'fortnightly' update! Anyway, over the last two weeks I have: Worked on the forward plan for my team ...

Lab or factory?

Seth Godin had an insightful post contrasting the mindset of the laboratory and the factory. The laboratory is about experimentation and innovation, so there is an inevitable risk of failure. The f...

Weekly update #3

The last two weeks have been quite hectic, so much so that I missed last weeks weekly update. In the last two weeks I have: Spoken in one of the plenary sessions at the ARMA conference. I talke...

Spending on research and welfare

Last week George Osborne sent a positive signal about the likely outcome for research spending in the upcoming Spending Review, confirming that it is a 'personal priority'. This is welcome ...

Weekly update #2

This week I have: Enjoyed an excellent production of The Tempest at the Globe Theatre. Continued working on HEFCE's open access consultation plans Finished preparing for a talk at the A...

Reflections on daily blogging

Over the last couple of weeks I have been experimenting with posting an entry here every day. Over the last 16 days I have posted 15 times, so very nearly met the target. As I have written previous...

Three dilemma of research-teaching interactions

One of the things that I recall from my own student days is the excitement of being taught by world-leading researchers. I was privileged to have lectures and tutorials from individuals who were ar...

Battle in the Garden

Every year at around this time our back garden becomes the site of an aerial battle. Let me explain. There is a hole under the eaves of the house that is a prime piece of ornithological real estate...

Weekly update #1

This is a new venture – just a quick note of what I have been up to this week. Some weeks are more interesting than others… I got the idea to do this from reading Doug Belshaw’s blog and his weekno...

Scholarship rediscovered

There are some really interesting comments on a post from earlier this week on the relationship between teaching and research in universities. In thinking about the issue, I was reminded of an exce...

The increasing internationalisation of research

Research is an international activity. Clear data to support this assertion have just been published in Nature, in an article by Jonathan Adams (unfortunately the article is pay-walled). In this an...

The daily pages habit

Yesterday I reached a significant milestone. On 25 November last year, sixth months ago, I started out on an attempt to develop a habit of writing a journal or ‘morning pages‘ every day. I have man...

Dual funding and the status quo

There is an interesting comment from Stephen Curry on my post about the balance of dual support for research last week. He points out, correctly, that while the situation with research funding in U...

Writing on productivity

One of the amazing things about the internet is the ability it gives to learn about topics in a diverse way, drawing on both systematic research and on the personal experience of people prepared to...

Experiments in blogging

I have been enjoying reading a relatively new personal blog from Richard Wilson. It's early days for 'Experiments in Living', but I admire what Richard is trying to do – to blog about p...

Balance in Dual Funding for Research

Earlier this week I attended a roundtable discussion of the recent report produced by the UK Innovation Research Centre on the dual funding system. The report is full of detailed material, and is p...

Open access roundup

Today I attended an interesting meeting, organised by the Repository Support Project, on implementing open access policies. I did some tweeting, so search for the hashtag, #RSPevent. But I also tho...

Leave science careers to the market?

In Nature last week Colin Macilwain has a thought-provoking piece arguing that Governments should not promote science and engineering careers in schools: But taken together, these schemes — whi...

Supply and demand for innovation

To increase innovation-led growth, the UK needs increased policy focus on the demand-side. That is the conclusion of Richard Jones, PVC for Research and Innovation at the University of Sheffield: ...

The end of journal impact factors?

Last week it was great to see the publication of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which sets some important principles for the assessment of research. Advising on whethe...

Measured excellence in research

One of the comments on my piece last week on the Guardian science policy blog questioned my assertion that the UK research base is ‘in good shape’. The commenter used the relatively low UK spend on...

Spin out numbers

Sir Mark Walport, the new Government Chief Scientific Adviser, made his inaugural speech last week at the Centre for Science and Policy annual conference. One of the things he mentioned, subsequent...

On (not) writing

It’s been quiet here for a while. It could be that I have been busy. I am about to transition into a new work role, so the last few weeks I have been finishing things off, and now I will have lots ...

Engaging with Galileo

How can we engage people outside of the worlds of research and policy with debates about research policy? One of the challenges in doing this is framing the debates in ways that are meaningful to t...

The evidence divide

Earlier this month I attended a conference organised by the STEPS centre at the University of Sussex. The topic of the conference was the use of evidence, especially scientific evidence, to inform ...

Review January 2013

The following posts appeared here during January 2013: On the research career pyramid Eight great technology debates Reasons for writing, according to George Orwell Global research, local...

On the research career pyramid

Are we training too many scientists? That question is posed by Paula Stephan in a recent post at Chemistry World. Stephan explains very clearly the notion of the career pyramid, and wonders why peo...

Eight great technology debates

With a speech from the Chancellor, funding in the Autumn Statement, and now a speech and pamphlet from David Willetts, the notion of a focus on ‘eight great technologies’ that offer opportunities f...

Reasons for writing, according to George Orwell

Radio 4 is about to embark on a series of programs celebrating the life and work of George Orwell, presumably triggered by the fact that 2013 is the 110-year anniversary of his birth. Orwell is one...

Global research, local benefit

A recent edition of Times Higher Education has a thought-provoking piece by Thomas Docherty on globalisation and the response by universities. He argues that, rather than embracing globalisation in...

What’s coming for UK research policy?

It’s a little late in January for this type of thing, but here are some personal reflections on the coming year for UK research policy… This year will see some decisions made about spending on res...

Turning up is not enough

If you come to my brainstorming meeting and say nothing, it would have been better if you hadn’t come at all. Seth Godin Read the rest…

‘People’ by Alan Bennett

Who is best living English playwright? I am never particularly taken with questions and comparisons of this type, and I am certainly not going to attempt to answer the question. I can say, though, ...

On power and open access

The The of Aaron Swartz is a sobering moment in the journey towards open access to the research literature. It brings sharply into perspective much of the ‘debate’ which, frankly, focuses on trivia...

Forms of engagement

Last month I attended the Engage 2012 conference, organised by the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement. The conference was a fantastic celebration of the diverse range of activities ...

Welcome to the new Testing Hypotheses

Over the last few years I have been blogging, somewhat infrequently, about research policy at a wordpress.com site. I have also been reasonably active on twitter, and experimented with writing abou...

Flying ants and other myths…

Systematically gathered and analysed evidence is important, because it challenges myths and prejudices that we all have a tendency to develop. Sometimes these myths are important for innovation or ...

Text-mining and open access

There is an excellent opinion piece in the latest edition of Research Fortnight by Professor Doug Kell on text-mining and open access. As for many the article will be behind a pay-wall (the irony…)...

Reflections on The Geek Manifesto

As I read Mark Henderson’s new book “The Geek Manifesto” I found my mood alternating between enormous optimism and nagging pessimism. Perhaps this is spot on for a book that seeks to inspire geeks ...

Lessons from history: why science policy needs to better understand the past

There is an understandable focus on the future in science policy discussions. We are often concerned with how investment in science and other research will contribute to future economic growth, ...

New questions for science policy

What are the key outstanding questions in science policy? This challenging question has recently been addressed in a paper describing work led by the Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP)....

Are universities ‘museums of knowledge’?

If you are interested in the role and future of universities then I recommend that you read the recent essay in the Guardian by Stefan Collini. Trailing his new book, Collini makes some interesting...

Eyes on the prize?

High profile prizes for science and engineering have been making the headlines recently. Last week the Royal Academy of Engineering announced a new international prize for excellence in engineering...

Presentation: Heads of University Biological Sciences departments

I gave a presentation on RCUK Strategy to the Winter meeting of the Heads of University Biological Science departments last week. Here are the slides, together with audio of my talk (direct link): ...

Patterns of UK research investment

BIS published their annual ‘SET statistics’ last week, which provide a wealth of information on the UK’s investment in science, engineering and technology. The Campaign for Science and Engineering ...

Book review: The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks

No one can spend very long learning about life science without hearing about HeLa cells, but the story behind this cell line – where the cells came from, why they behave the way they do, and even w...

The virtue of useless maths

Nature has recently published a fascinating article (paywall) developing the argument that theoretical work in mathematics that has no apparent application can prove to be really useful in the futu...

The cult of personality in science

It was recently announced that the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation has been renamed the Francis Crick Institute. While the reduction in the alphabet soup of UK research policy is to b...

Regulating emerging technologies

Earlier in the week I attended a symposium, Getting Connected: How to achieve effective regulation of new emerging technologies?{.vt-p}, organised by the think-tank Biocentre{.vt-p}. I have previou...

Engagement and regulation of emerging technologies

Earlier today I spoke at a symposium{.vt-p} organised by Biocentre{.vt-p} on the regulation of emerging technologies. In this post I am going to summarise my own talk (slides below), and will repor...

Three reasons to call yourself a scientist

Inspired by a recent tweet{.vt-p} from @xmalik{.vt-p}, three reasons to call yourself a scientist: Your qualifications. Does being qualified in science make you a scientist? And how qualified d...

Publishing peer review

Peer review is the central pillar of the process of scientific research yet it remains a black box, invisible to those outside of the research community. As I have said previously{.vt-p}, lifting t...

7 steps to restore trust in science – step 7