Related papers: Innovative Science
Everyday, a vast stream of research documents is submitted to conferences, anthologies, journals, newsletters, annual reports, daily papers, and various periodicals. Many such publications use independent external specialists to review…
Peer review is the most common mechanism in place for assessing requests for resources in a large variety of scientific disciplines. One of the strongest criticisms to this paradigm is the limited reproducibility of the process, especially…
The constantly growing body of scholarly knowledge of science, technology, and humanities is an asset of the mankind. While new discoveries expand the existing knowledge, they may simultaneously render some of it obsolete. It is crucial for…
Research funding agencies routinely use a proportion of their total revenues to support internal administration and marketing costs. The ratio of administration to total costs, referred to as the administration ratio, is highly variable and…
The search for and management of external funding now occupies much valuable researcher time. Whilst funding is essential for some types of research and beneficial for others, it may also constrain academic choice and creativity. Thus, it…
The publication process both determines which research receives the most attention, and influences the supply of research through its impact on researchers' private incentives. We introduce a framework to study optimal publication decisions…
Peer reviewed publications are considered the gold standard in certifying and disseminating ideas that a research community considers valuable. However, we identify two major drawbacks of the current system: (1) the overwhelming demand for…
We surveyed 113 astronomers and 82 psychologists active in applying for federally funded research on their grant-writing history between January, 2009 and November, 2012. We collected demographic data, effort levels, success rates, and…
The principle of peer review is central to the evaluation of research, by ensuring that only high-quality items are funded or published. But peer review has also received criticism, as the selection of reviewers may introduce biases in the…
Modern science is relying on software more than ever. The behavior and outcomes of this software shape the scientific and public discourse on important topics like climate change, economic growth, or the spread of infections. Most…
When do we stop an ongoing science project to make room for something new? Decision-making is a complex process, ranging from budgetary considerations and tension between ongoing projects, to progress assessments and allowance for novel…
The design of research grants has been hypothesized to be a useful tool for influencing researchers and their science. We test this by conducting two thought experiments in a nationally representative survey of academic researchers. First,…
The volume of scientific manuscripts is growing faster than the capacity to evaluate them, yet the institutions that govern peer review have remained largely unchanged. The result is a widening mismatch: reviewer scarcity, noisier…
Scientific research changed profoundly over the last 30 years, in all its aspects. Scientific publishing has changed as well, mainly because of the strong increased number of submitted papers and because of the appearance of Open Access…
A project (e.g., writing a collaborative research paper) is often a group effort. At the end, each contributor identifies their contribution, often verbally. The reward, however, is very frequently financial. It leads to the question of…
The current system of scholarly publishing is often criticized for being slow, expensive, and not transparent. The rise of open access publishing as part of open science tenets, promoting transparency and collaboration, together with calls…
This article shows how the Universities and higher education and research institutions obey more and more to criteria of profitability and effectiveness, following the example of the industry. The Universities and the academic communities…
It appears paradoxical that science is producing outstanding new results and theories at a rapid rate at the same time that researchers are identifying serious problems in the practice of science that cause many reports to be irreproducible…
Despite all its well-known flaws and calls for its dismissal, the notorious $h$-index is still used in many instances when awarding grants, or promoting and hiring scientists. To address this, I set out to devise a better index, with the…
Obtaining funding is an important part of becoming a successful scientist. Junior faculty spend a great deal of time finding the right agencies and programs that best match their research profile. But what are the factors that influence the…