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A suite of impressive scientific discoveries have been driven by recent advances in artificial intelligence. These almost all result from training flexible algorithms to solve difficult optimization problems specified in advance by teams of…
Academic data sharing is a way for researchers to collaborate and thereby meet the needs of an increasingly complex research landscape. It enables researchers to verify results and to pursuit new research questions with "old" data. It is…
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…
We explore a paradox of collective action and certainty in science wherein the more scientists research together, the less that work contributes to the value of their collective certainty. When scientists address similar problems and share…
In science as elsewhere, attention is a limited resource and scientists compete with one another to produce the most exciting, novel and impactful results. We develop a game-theoretic model to explore how such competition influences the…
National science systems have become embedded in global science and countries do everything they can to harness global knowledge to national economic needs. However, accessing and using the riches of global knowledge can occur only through…
The past half-century has seen a dramatic increase in the scale and complexity of scientific research, to which researchers have responded by dedicating more time to education and training, narrowing their areas of specialization, and…
It is the role of the scientific community to provide for the knowledge of scientific facts and technical capabilities as a background for political decision-making. The reasons are given why governments are sometimes not ready to accept…
Why do nations produce scientific research? This is a fundamental problem in the field of social studies of science. The paper confronts this question here by showing vital determinants of science to explain the sources of social power and…
Artificial intelligence (AI) is being increasingly applied to scientific research, but its benefits remain unevenly distributed across different communities and disciplines. While technical challenges such as limited data, fragmented…
Success-driven social learning, in which individuals preferentially adopt the ideas and methods that appear most successful, is a foundational principle of collective behavior across systems ranging from ant colonies to scientific…
This paper argues that philosophers of science have before them an important new task that they urgently need to take up. It is to convince the scientific community to adopt and implement a new philosophy of science that does better justice…
As the increasing complexity of large-scale research requires the combined efforts of scientists with expertise in different fields, the advantages and costs of interdisciplinary scholarship have taken center stage in current debates on…
Open Science aims to foster openness and collaboration in research, leading to more significant scientific and social impact. However, practicing Open Science comes with several challenges and is currently not properly rewarded. In this…
What factors affect a scientist's choice of research problem? Qualitative research in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science suggests that this choice is shaped by an "essential tension" between the professional demand for…
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…
Over the last few decades, the nature of scientific research has changed in response to external influences. Firstly, powerful networked computers have become a standard tool. Secondly, society presses ever harder for research to deliver…
In this paper, we examine how patterns of scientific collaboration contribute to knowledge creation. Recent studies have shown that scientists can benefit from their position within collaborative networks by being able to receive more…
Scientific research requires taking risks, as the most cautious approaches are unlikely to lead to the most rapid progress. Yet much funded scientific research plays it safe and funding agencies bemoan the difficulty of attracting…
Do different fields of knowledge require different research strategies? A numerical model exploring different virtual knowledge landscapes, revealed two diverging optimal search strategies. Trend following is maximized when the popularity…