Phys.org August 21, 2024 We know little about how academic freedom relates to indicators of societal progress, such as innovation. An international team of researchers (USA – Indiana University, Luxembourg Italy, Germany) addressed this research gap by empirically assessing the impact of academic freedom on the quantity (patent applications) and quality (patent citations) of innovation output using a comprehensive sample of 157 countries over the 1900–2015 period. They found that improving academic freedom by one standard deviation increases patent applications by 41% and forward citations by 29%. The results were robust across a range of different specifications. Their findings constituted […]
Category Archives: Academic publishing
Hidden citations in physics may obscure true impact
Phys.org May 8, 2024 When a discovery or technique becomes common knowledge, its citations suffer from what Robert Merton called “obliteration by incorporation.” This phenomenon leads to the concept of hidden citations, representing unambiguous textual references to a discovery without an explicit citation to the corresponding manuscript(s). Previous attempts to detect hidden citations have been limited to manually identifying in-text mentions. Researchers at Northeastern University relied on unsupervised interpretable machine learning applied to the full text of each paper to systematically identify hidden citations. They found that for influential discoveries hidden citations outnumber citation counts, emerging regardless of publishing venue […]
Illuminating ‘the ugly side of science’: fresh incentives for reporting negative results
Nature May 8, 2024 A 2012 study showed that, from 1990 to 2007, there was a 22% increase in positive conclusions in papers; by 2007, 85% of papers published had positive results. People fail to report [negative] results, because they know they won’t get published — and when people do attempt to publish them, they get rejected. A 2022 survey of researchers in France in chemistry, physics, engineering, and environmental sciences showed that, although 81% had produced relevant negative results and 75% were willing to publish them, only 12.5% had the opportunity to do so. One factor that is leading […]
Scientific fraud is rising, and automated systems won’t stop it. We need research detectives
Phys.org June 21, 223 A group of multidisciplinary scientists are working to tackle research fraud and poor practice using metascience. Fraud in science is alarmingly common – sometimes researchers lie about results and invent data to win funding and prestige, researchers might pay to stage and publish entirely bogus studies to win an undeserved pay rise—fueling a “paper mill” industry worth an estimated €1 billion a year. More sophisticated AI which can generate plausible scientific data is a new threat. Some of this can be easily spotted by peer reviewers, but the peer review system has become badly stretched by […]
Accountants’ tricks can help identify cheating scientists, says new study
Phys.org April 13, 2023 Procedures for monitoring the trustworthiness of research, and for investigating cases where concern about possible data fraud have been raised are not well established. Based on the well-established practices of financial auditing, researchers in the UK have suggested a practical approach for the investigation of work suspected of fraudulent data manipulation using Benford’s Law. They provided synthesis of the literature on tests of adherence to Benford’s Law, culminating in advice of a single initial test for digits in each position of numerical strings within a dataset. They recommend further tests which may prove useful if specific […]
Study reveals inequity in journal peer review
Phys.org March 13, 2023 An international team of researchers in the US ( Michigan State University, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Cornell University) used peer review data from 312,740 biological sciences manuscripts across 31 studies to (1) examine evidence for differential peer review outcomes based on author demographics, (2) evaluate the efficacy of solutions to reduce bias and (3) describe the current landscape of peer review policies for 541 ecology and evolution journals. They found notably worse review outcomes (for example, lower overall acceptance rates) for authors whose institutional affiliations were in Asia, for authors whose country’s primary language […]
Negative feedback is part of academia (and life). These six strategies can help you cope
Phys.org September 14, 2022 According to researchers in Australia feedback is a key component for any academic career and it is part of how the profession maintains rigor and quality in what it does. While it can be positive, research shows, it tends to be negative. On top of calls to improve training for academics, managers, and leaders on how to provide helpful feedback, being able to use the feedback we get is also important. Researchers suggest six things to do when you get negative feedback – 1. Empathize with the person giving feedback – when anonymous reviews are negative, […]
Recent Review Articles [from the Royal Society of Chemistry]
The Royal Society of Chemistry January 24, 2022 In addition to first reports of new concepts, Materials Horizons publishs topical review and minireview articles. Reviews will be added to this webpage as soon as possible after publication…read more.
Why Discovering ‘Nothing’ in Science Can Be So Incredibly Important
Science Alert January 9, 2022 What we don’t usually hear about is the years of back-breaking, painstaking hard work that delivers inconclusive results, appearing to provide no evidence for the questions scientists ask. Yet without non-detections – what we call the null result – the progress of science would often be slowed and stymied. Null results drive us forward. They keep us from repeating the same errors and shape the direction of future studies. Often, however, null results don’t make it to scientific publications. This not only generates significant inefficiencies in the way science is done, but it’s also an indicator […]
NSF-funded study will examine college tenure and promotion process, challenge assumptions
EurekAlert June 30, 2021 At the core of the college tenure and promotion system is the notion that those who are the most deserving are promoted. But, is that truly the case? In a 3-year study sponsored by NSF, a team of researchers in the US (University of Houston, Hampton University, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, University of Alabama, Louisiana State University, Texas A&M University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Rice University) is examining the college tenure and promotion process in academic careers in STEM and challenge some basic assumptions regarding merit as the sole driving force. They posit that candidate […]