Research

Group of leading universities warn lack of funding risks causing a ‘debilitating brain drain’

There is near-universal dismay among scientists over continued delays to UK association to Horizon Europe. It is time to replace bean-counting with vision

Greening of health research depends on goodwill and unfunded, uncoordinated efforts of individual researchers, according to study commissioned by Wellcome Trust

The new rules are welcome, but change will only truly occur if institutions finally get over their obsession with publications, says the Hidden REF committee

Assistant economics professor says he replicated results using a different method but journal editors ignored requests for correction

Independent centre should be empowered to follow up high-profile findings and promote good practice, says Social Market Foundation report

After tackling the challenges of accessing large and diverse survey samples, Phelim Bradley’s Prolific is moving into AI

Academics granted unique access to ‘black box of algorithms’ to explore social media’s influence on 2020 presidential election, but many question if ‘independence by permission’ model can endure

Three hundred mathematicians expected to have retired by middle of the century

Light-touch treatment of one of universities’ fundamental roles leaves too many questions hanging, observers worry

ByteDance’s pre-regulation ‘strategic’ move will allow academics to pull more data from the platform, but critical work may still have to use workarounds if the company extends its veto on publications

Perhaps the EU could give additional assurances that it would apply corrections if the UK won significantly less funding than it put in, suggests Jan Palmowski

European governments are beginning to take an interest in techniques to link scant evidence, as the euphoria about the benefits of mega datasets wanes

Research funder investing in leadership capability to support academics and encourage collaboration across disciplines and sectors

Canada’s Liberal government swept to power eight years ago promising to undo the damage inflicted by the previous Harper regime. However, after a big early funding spike for basic research, there is a growing sense of drift – and mounting concern about the future. Paul Basken reports

Top House Republicans warn that joint venture appears to be giving military advantages to rival nation

Fears that UK scientists will be frozen out of networks once association is agreed are overblown, say leading researchers

Academics launch lawsuit in attempt to get restrictions relaxed to allow them to study the platform used by two-thirds of American teens

National interest not served by ‘overstating the threats’ or cultivating a ‘climate of uncertainty’, report says

China continued to produce more publications last year than anywhere else, according to new report

Scholars suggest reproducibility testing might be helping to self-correct psychological research

US funder wants overseas partners to share all data and lab notebooks every three months

Hundreds of universities invited to sign guidelines on equitable partnerships in science

Studying flocks of starlings helped Giorgio Parisi crack some of physics’ deepest mysteries. The Nobelist talks to Matthew Reisz about his unconventional methods, missed eureka moments and being Italy’s most in-demand scientist

The new REF rules allow greater scope to aim for the (four) stars. But who will embrace the risk of crashing to Earth, asks Matthew Flinders

Universities operating in difficult environments can have more of an impact by pooling resources, summit hears

Reports that Rishi Sunak could sign off Horizon membership next week after Brussels and Whitehall officials reach cost consensus

Collective effort can combat misinformation, respond to climate change and harness the power of AI for the good of mankind, says Rocky Tuan

Suspicion at all levels of France’s hybrid research system means resources and national influence are closely guarded. Fresh proposals to raise quality and stem brain drain face an uphill struggle as players try to hold hard-won positions

Germany’s only female Nobel scientist questions notion that diversity is key component of research success in modern science

Chemistry laureate Avram Hershko says ChatGPT should be forced to cite its sources and state uncertainty levels

Loss of organisation, blamed on funding ‘uncertainty’, described as ‘shocking news’

Stanford team tallies productivity decline after top global prize – though without assessing benefits of career transition

An ‘uncomfortable truth’ underlies the approach taken by too many Western universities on collaboration with Asia, conference hears

Citations are growing at a faster pace in Asia than the rest of the world, according to THE rankings data 

ChatGPT’s ability to churn out mediocre papers should lead us to reappraise how research is carried out, reported and evaluated, says Martyn Hammersley

Journals’ predilection for data availability statements makes little difference to readers’ chances of getting their hands on the data

In campaigns to isolate China and deny disinformation, federal lawmakers join angry activists in besieging universities and their researchers

Groups of leading African and European universities will jointly fund at least a decade of priority research through clusters agreed in the first half of this year, although the delicate details of who gives what are yet to be decided

Funders and administrators regularly praise the benefits of cross-departmental research, yet damaging schisms remain, says Jonathan Goodman

International collaboration on tackling global problems has never been more important, say Chris Husbands and John Dewar 

Research on responsible AI will seek to inform national policy and regulation, says UKRI

Training survivors of domestic abuse to become researchers could provide blueprint for public engagement, says King’s academic

Ex-PM and former Tory leader urge replacement of Turing Institute with ‘Cern for AI’, which could position Britain as leader in innovation and good practice

Biden ends months-long Republican showdown by accepting budgetary freeze that will tighten institutions’ budgets and likely hurt students with the greatest need

Our report suggests the discipline is struggling in the UK amid low funding and methodological clashes, say four academics

Ministers’ metric-based boasts about the country’s scientific prowess are belied by the reality, as a recent incident illustrates, says Roohola Ramezani

Centre-periphery model of higher education ‘already obsolete’, with strong research output from a growing number of nations, scholar tells Boston conference

With a UK general election potentially less than a year away, there is no better time for academics to influence political thinking, says ex-MP Natascha Engel

Additional three months of funding follow deadlock over UK’s membership of European research scheme

Creating new publications for disaffected editors could catalyse a sector-wide rethink on publishing norms, say experts

‘Lottery’ for mandated replication studies would encourage ‘greater care’ over ‘datasets’, Australian researchers argue

Don’t put scientists in a ‘boxing ring’, Australia urged, as bereaved mother walks free from 20-year incarceration

With just 50 sub-Saharan journals listed in Scopus, it’s time to consider how citation indexes are holding back scholarly publishing in Africa, argue David Mills and Natasha Robinson

Janina Ramirez, one of the UK’s best-known historians, reflects on gender fluidity throughout history, transphobia and Twitter trolls

World-leading research identified by UK’s Research Excellence Framework was also found in less well cited journals

Auckland v-c wants to use Māori knowledge and research on misinformation to help tackle UN goals

As his new book on pandemics is published, the UK’s best-known historian tells Matthew Reisz that identity politics is inhibiting history, nationalism only intensifies during global crises, and a refusal to communicate history to the public amounts to mere ‘connoisseurship of the dead’

The idea that humans’ inventiveness will always keep them one step ahead of computers may not turn out to be true, says David Sanders

Economist Nicholas Barr, whose research shaped Labour’s 2006 fee policy, says mixed graduate tax and loan system can fix funding crisis