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Opinion: Toward an International Definition of Citizen Science

Opinion: Toward an International Definition of Citizen Science

What exactly qualifies as "citizen science" (CS)? It is interpreted in various ways and takes different forms with different degrees of participation. In fact, the label CS is currently assigned to research activities either by project principal investigators themselves or by research funding agencies.

To Save Life on Earth, Here's the $100 Billion-a-year Solution

To Save Life on Earth, Here's the $100 Billion-a-year Solution

There have been five mass extinctions in the history of the Earth. But in the 21st century, scientists now estimate that society must urgently come to grips this coming decade to stop the very first human-made biodiversity catastrophe.

Self-organising Peer Review for Preprints - A Future Paradigm for Scholarly Publishing

Self-organising Peer Review for Preprints - A Future Paradigm for Scholarly Publishing

The development of preprint servers as self-organising peer review platforms could be the future of scholarly publication.

Making Research Open and Reproducible: An Early Career Researcher's Perspective

Making Research Open and Reproducible: An Early Career Researcher's Perspective

As an early career researcher (ECR), making the transition from the “traditional” way of doing science into methods that are more open, reproducible, and replicable can be a daunting prospect. We know something needs to change about our workflow, but where do we start?

It Matters Who We Champion in Science

It Matters Who We Champion in Science

Science is never the work of one person; it is the collaborative effort of students, technicians, professors, librarians and the support networks around them. This week, millions of girls and women around the world who have been told science is not for them found a new role model in Bouman - a new data point that told them yes you can.

Concerns of Young Protesters Are Justified

Concerns of Young Protesters Are Justified

The world's youth have begun to persistently demonstrate for the protection of the climate and other foundations of human well-being. As scientists and scholars who have recently initiated similar letters of support in our countries, we call for our colleagues across all disciplines and from the entire world to support these young climate protesters. Their concerns are justified and supported by the best available science.

A Belief in Meritocracy Is Not Only False: It's Bad for You

A Belief in Meritocracy Is Not Only False: It's Bad for You

Despite the moral assurance and personal flattery that meritocracy offers to the successful, it ought to be abandoned both as a belief about how the world works and as a general social ideal.

6 Ways to Make Your Science Advocacy Effective at the State and Local Levels

6 Ways to Make Your Science Advocacy Effective at the State and Local Levels

Advice from the first Science Day at the Arizona state legislature: learn the structure, culture, and language of politics.

Making Progress Towards Gender Parity and Increased Diversity

Making Progress Towards Gender Parity and Increased Diversity

Many previous attempts at achieving gender parity - like special awards for women - are decried as tokenism, and seem unlikely to induce sustained and systemic change. Given this mindset, our research team decided to take a slightly different approach - with promising results.

Gender Bias From A Woman In Science

Gender Bias From A Woman In Science

If sexual harassment, misconduct, and retaliation are the firing squads that assassinate individual careers, then implicit bias is the lead in the water that poisons the entire town.

Alessandro Strumia Letter: Keep Gender Bias out of Science

Alessandro Strumia Letter: Keep Gender Bias out of Science

The views of Alessandro Strumia, as expressed in your story "My big bang theory is: women don't like physics" (News Review, last week), are based on a biased interpretation of the data and are at...

Scientific Autonomy, Public Accountability, and the Rise of “Peer Review” in the Cold War United States

Scientific Autonomy, Public Accountability, and the Rise of “Peer Review” in the Cold War United States

This essay traces the history of refereeing at specialist scientific journals and at funding bodies and shows that it was only in the late twentieth century that peer review came to be seen as a process central to scientific practice

Scientists for EU | Why The President of the Royal Society Signed the Revoke Article 50 Petition

Scientists for EU | Why The President of the Royal Society Signed the Revoke Article 50 Petition

A PhD is Not Just a Degree - It is an Opportunity to Develop the Skills Needed to Deliver Impact

A PhD is Not Just a Degree - It is an Opportunity to Develop the Skills Needed to Deliver Impact

Hayley Teasdale argues that PhD studies are an ideal time for developing your research communication and impact skills and growing your entrepreneurial and organizational capabilities.

The Guardian View on Statistics in Sciences: Gaming the (un)known | Editorial

The Guardian View on Statistics in Sciences: Gaming the (un)known | Editorial

Statisticians are calling on their profession to abandon one of its most treasured markers of significance. But what could replace it?

Distributed Organisations for Collaborative Research

Distributed Organisations for Collaborative Research

This essay proposes how distributed Web technologies are poised to enable an entirely new way of communication and cooperation among scientist and citizens.

Science Should Be More Helpful to New Parents

Science Should Be More Helpful to New Parents

We need paid leave so young researchers can start families without abandoning STEM careers.

Beware the Well-intentioned Advice of Unusually Successful Academics

Beware the Well-intentioned Advice of Unusually Successful Academics

There is a wealth of advice and 'how to' guides available to academics on the subject of how research can have an impact on policy and practice. In this post Kathryn Oliver and Paul Cairney assess the value of this literature, arguing that unless researchers seek to situate research impact within processes of policymaking and academic knowledge production, this advice can ultimately reinforce current inequalities in research impact.

The Rise and Fall of Scientific Authority - and How to Bring It Back

The Rise and Fall of Scientific Authority - and How to Bring It Back

Robert P. Crease harks back to the shapers of our scientific infrastructure and what they can tell us about how to handle the threat we now face.

Inspiration, Humility, Hope, and Sadness: Reflections on the Youth Climate Strike

Inspiration, Humility, Hope, and Sadness: Reflections on the Youth Climate Strike

Last Friday, hundreds of thousands of students in the United States and around the world were out in the streets rather than in their classrooms, demanding that our political leaders address the climate crisis with the urgency and focused action that the science so clearly demands.