Research

Students asked to sniff smelly shirts bearing different university logos showed a preference for those sporting their institution’s brand

We talk to the glaciologist about how it feels to have a glacier named after him and the chances of a catastrophic sea-level rise resulting from climate change

BMJ editor in chief raises alarm over drug trial research funded and often controlled by manufacturers themselves

Being part of a 'Big Science' collaboration was challenging but exhilarating, says Martin Hendry

From the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to special needs education in the UK, more mid-career professionals are taking professional doctorates

UWE researcher says academic specialists in management need to connect far more effectively with industry

Techniques used by scientists led by Ruth Gates and backed by Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen are coming under the microscope. Jon Marcus reports from Hawaii

Thailand’s institutions want to develop joint degrees with the UK, but hurdles remain in visa red tape and political instability

New models of scientific discovery eschew the principle of basic research first, says Ben Shneiderman

Drug company hopes to provide a new home for studies that try to replicate previous experimental results

Two famous experiments have reached the silver screen. Antonio Melechi on the relationship between the academic discipline and Hollywood

Times Higher Education's poll shows that the bulk of staff find their work rewarding but there is a deep gulf between academics and professional and support staff

A focus on basic cell biology and statistical population health studies means that understanding how living systems operate has been neglected, they claim

The three institutions aim to tackle sustainability and educational attainment in new partnership

Subra Suresh fears that business short-termism, increasing research costs and worries over cybersecurity are undermining the incentives to invest

Matthew Reisz meets the researcher challenging universities on their tendency to try and fit square pegs into round holes

Analysis suggests higher selectivity fails to increase journals’ impact factors

The world is impatient for the academy’s social benefits, writes Lisa Anderson, but its core mission remains a slow-flowering one

Institutions from eight countries feature in a snapshot university ranking for the region

Center for Open Science hopes initiative will make results more reproducible

Committee of MPs hears that effort to conduct vaccine and treatment trials during outbreak in West Africa was ‘uncoordinated’

Warning comes after stories about Coca-Cola’s spending on science hit the headlines last year

Neil Reid is fulfilling a childhood dream and working in a cloud forest in Honduras, where the natural wonders and the need to defend them can push the region’s dangers out of mind

We must improve the system we already have, not make a switch to metrics, argues James Wilsdon

Critics fear proposals for high-level body could risk politicising scientific decisions.

Authors argue this means universities should spend less on senior academics and give promising younger scholars more of a chance

Glen Wright rounds up the best amusing, passive-aggressive and romantic acknowledgements in the scholarly world

Scholars say they feel overwhelmed by demands, but there is scandalously little evidence on whether long hours make any sense for knowledge workers, finds David Matthews

We talk to the research council CEO about pharmaceutical drugs modelling and a childhood interest in studying animal remains

International Policing and Justice Institute integrates practical police training into an academic context

Astronomer comes with experience of running winery and pitches salary so he is not seen as ‘outsider’ by staff

Peer Reviewers’ Openness Initiative billed as a ‘grassroots’ response to concerns over reproducibility

Analysis of seven prominent medical journals finds randomised controlled trials are far less likely to receive a press release than weaker observational studies

Plos Biology launches new section looking at how experiments are run and incentive systems for scientists

Another review of the exercise is a chance to revise details of the costs, says Jonathan Grant

Science suffered restrictions and reductions in funding under the previous government. Will the Trudeau administration put it back on track? Ellie Bothwell investigates

Awareness of why some people make extensive use of management research at work can help researchers plan their dissemination strategies

We need to wake up and defend this vital practice, not sleepwalk to an unhappy ending, says Lars Fischer

Using the language of sport to sell metrics-based performance management ignores what sport can really teach academia, argues linguistics scholar Liz Morrish

Jenny McDonald examines the response to calls for academics who are not highly productive researchers to be given more recognition 

The former university rector has been praised as one of the country’s most effective politicians for driving his ambitious reform programme forward

Narrow science base could hurt ability to meet new challenges, report says

City University London vice-chancellor among academics recognised

Institution’s US Centre seeks to promote multidisciplinary and international research on American policy

Depictions of conferences as being dull and exhausting make it ‘almost impossible’ to imagine them as places of intellectual engagement, scholar warns

Researchers are finding powerful ways of resurrecting the elusive emotions of previous eras

Performance targets to boost league table position are questioned as analysis shows little change in Russell Group REF order

Scholar says academics who move to international outposts do ‘hardly any research’

Chair of review into research excellence framework also defends decision to have steering committee dominated by Russell Group

The most popular higher education articles of the year, based on website traffic

From writing papers to urinating on other people’s work, cats have a rich history of scholarly work, finds Glen Wright

Mike Marinetto thinks such a shift viable, while literary scholar Lennard Davis recounts his struggles to stick to the facts

President Tony Chan puts rise to world stage down to money, research-active staff and the lure of Hong Kong

We talk to the artist and academic about black artists’ vital role in Modernism and how to bring this to the attention of the public

‘Minimum expectations’ for research income will be used as part of staff performance review

New research initiative is thought to be the first of its kind in the UK, if not the world

Research organisations who previously worked with the troubled children’s charity have sought to clarify ‘misleading’ descriptions of clinical work

Baron Stern of Brentford has previously raised concerns that the research excellence framework forces academics to focus too much on publishing articles

Philosophers Stephen Mumford and Rani Lill Anjum speak up for the benefits of writing collaboratively