“Jumping in first, I want to recommend Debt: The First 5000 Years as a book that ought to interest just about everyone interested in the way societies are organized. I learned a lot from it, well beyond the core point about the centrality of debt …” (more)
[John Quiggin, Crooked Timber, 22 February]
“Over the past two decades in the United States, there has been a new wave of criticism of higher education. Much of it has condemned the rise of ‘academic capitalism’ and the corporatization of the university; a substantial wing has focused on the deteriorating conditions of academic labor; and some of it has pointed out the problems of students and their escalating debt …” (more)
[Jeffrey J Williams, Chronicle of Higher Education, 19 February]
“NPR ran a good piece on the Elsevier saga before the weekend. I found one part of the broadcast particularly interesting. A director of Elsevier, Alicia Wise, makes the case for Elsevier as follows …” (more)
[Crooked Timber, 21 February]
“Five new spin out companies came out of the commercialisation of research at University College Dublin in 2011 and plan to employ more than 50 people by the end of 2013 between them …” (more)
[Business and Leadership, 21 February]
“University College Dublin (UCD) is beefing up its cybercrime research unit by appointing a new head of cybersecurity. The university has announced that it is looking for applications for the a new permanent post …” (more)
[Dick O'Brien, Business Post, 20 February]
“The Minister for Research and Innovation, Séan Sherlock, TD, today Monday welcomed the continuing success of Irish researchers in winning €362 European funding for international collaborative research projects. ‘Irish researchers are engaging in pan-European research projects to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing the EU, using funding from Europe’s €50 billion Research and Development fund, the Seventh EU Framework Programme FP7 …’” (more)
[The Labour Party, 20 February]
“Scientists at University College Dublin have identified a potential new treatment for life-threatening complications associated with chronic obstructive lung diseases like emphysema and chronic bronchitis …” (more)
[Business Post, 20 February]
“After a few very busy weeks, and little or no blogging, I had an opportunity to catch up on some recent articles related to SFI in the news over the weekend. So, without further ado, and in no particular order, here are a few of the stories that caught my attention …” (more)
[Steve Flinter, 20 February]
“… The electronic revolution is edging its way into the classroom. The ebook is here, but it is not so obvious yet that it is here to stay. At a recent seminar, alongside the shiny new hardbacks and marked-up photocopies, a few ebook readers were to be seen. All was going swimmingly until someone mentioned a passage on a particular page …” (more)
[Jonathan Wolff, Guardian, 19 February]
“To publish or not to publish? That is the question medical and science academics are asking after 6,000 of their colleagues boycotted one of the world’s largest publishers …” (more)
[CBC News, 17 February]
“… But there is still a long way to go yet, as much of the world’s scientific knowledge remains locked up behind publisher’s paywalls, unavailable for re-use by text-mining software and inaccessible to the public, who often funded the research through taxation. Ironically, some of the papers that are inaccessible discuss or even champion the very Open Access movement itself …” (more)
[O'Really?, 15 February]
“Silicon Valley start-up Compact Imaging has just signed a two-year research collaboration with University of Limerick (UL) and National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG). The two universities will be working with Compact Imaging on the area of biophotonics and will also gain a stake in the tech start-up …” (more)
[Carmel Doyle, Silicon Republic, 17 February]
“The UK Research Integrity Office has welcomed calls for it to be placed at the centre of a toughened research integrity oversight regime in the UK. The call came in a ‘consensus statement’ agreed following a high-level summit on research misconduct earlier this year, organised by the British Medical Journal and the Committee on Publication Ethics …” (more)
[Paul Jump, Times Higher Education, 17 February]
“Timothy Gowers is boycotting Elsevier and hopes to spark reform that will replace expensive journals with a more rational system. For many years, I, like several other mathematicians, have been careful not to submit papers to journals published by the huge publishing conglomerate Reed Elsevier. Our reasons will be familiar to many readers of Times Higher Education …” (more)
[Times Higher Education, 16 February]
“Why isn’t co-authorship more prevalent in the arts? At a recent promotions committee meeting, I was struck by the extent to which sole-authored publication remains the norm – even though there can be genuine intellectual benefits when collaboration succeeds …” (more)
[Stephen Mumford, Times Higher Education, 16 February]
“Spain no longer has a ministry of science. In the last days of 2011, its new government transferred national science policy to the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, a duty for which this ministry seems most unsuited …” (more)
[Amaya Moro-Martín, Nature News, 15 February]
“… The simplest explanation to describe this trend is that the library has lost its coveted position as the intellectual hub of the university; that administrators don’t think of the library anymore — after all, information that arrives on one’s desktop must be free; and that students value the library more as a quiet place to nap …” (more)
[Phil Davis, The Scholarly Kitchen, 15 February]
“Reviewing papers for journals can be a chore sometimes, especially if the submission is from a non-English speaker and you spend all of your time trying to decipher what the authors are trying to say. However, it is an aspect of my job that I enjoy as it makes me think about some of the deeper, philosophical issues that arise in science …” (more)
[educationandstuff, 14 February]
“The SFI Research Centres Programme will consolidate the existing Centres for Science, Engineering and Technology (CSET) Programme and Strategic Research Cluster (SRC) Programme into a ‘single-entry’ competition …” (more)
[Sally Anne Hinfey, Ireland IP & Technology Law Blog, 14 February]
“… A year ago, Obama proposed bold increases for science agencies, but a Congress intent on curbing government spending refused to back many of them. This time, the White House has scaled back in several areas but boosted overall funding for non-defence research and development by 5%, pushing it up to US$64.9bn …” (more)
[Ivan Semeniuk and others, Nature News & Comment, 14 February]
