Sock puppets, muzzles and the impact agenda
February 24, 2016
This is a post by JOHN HOLMWOOD A new threat to the contribution of university research to public debate has been identified. This derives from Cabinet Office rules that would prevent bodies in receipt of grants from Government from lobbying. It has been suggested that this could muzzle academic research. Ironically, the rules derive from …
Seduced by the Dark Side? Embracing Impact
December 24, 2015
This is a guest post by Philip Moriarty, PI on a project, just funded by the EPSRC, entitled Mechanochemistry at the single bond limit: Towards deterministic epitaxy. We both hope to bring you more news about work on this project in the future. Some of you who have been reading the Making Science Public blog …
RRI and impact: An ‘impossiblist’ agenda for research?
November 22, 2014
Richard Jones has written a long, profound and thought-provoking blog post on (ir)responsible innovation (stagnation). I read his post alongside a recent post on the social impact of research, its challenges and opportunities. This made me think that we are witnessing a confluence of agendas which are generally only looked at separately but that should …
Black sky research
August 2, 2014
A few days ago I chatted with an industry-based innovations manager who, in passing, mentioned the word ‘black sky research’. We didn’t get a chance to explore this concept further but the phrase stuck in my mind. Then Philip Moriarty tweeted a link to an article on the threat of the impact agenda to blue …
The Impact awards: A short story for the Circling the square conference
May 22, 2014
This is a fictional story about impact written by Kate Roach for the Circling the Square conference on research, politics, media and impact (20-22 May 2014) The Impact Awards By KATE ROACH May 2114 “And here she is folks, the one and only Professor Madeleine Davies.” Vic Baker broadcast to the whole table as …
The impact of impact
April 25, 2014
This article by Ernesto Priego first appeared in Research Information and is reposted here with the author’s permission. It is based on a presentation at the UKSG conference (Connecting the Knowledge Community) earlier this month. Ernesto also maintains a blog on Digital Scholarship. The article complements an old blog post of mine on impact, but …
Rebuttal to “The privatisation of science is not in the public interest”
February 26, 2013
This post reproduces the main arguments I used when I argued against Alex’s motion that “The privatisation of science is not in the public interest” at the launch of the ‘Making Science Public’ programme at the University of Nottingham on 11th February 2013. Alex opened with his argument and I responded along the following lines. …
The language of knowledge: A new tower of Babel?
February 15, 2013
For some time I have been intrigued by the word ‘knowledge’. The more I hear it being used, the less I understand its meaning. The confusion increases with every ‘compound’ use that I come across (in linguistics a ‘compound’ refers to a combination of two or more words). Most recently I came across the compound …
Science in Public 2013 – Call for Panel Proposals
December 14, 2012
UPDATE: You can see the full Call For Papers including details of all the proposed panels at http://scienceinpublic.org/conference/ 8th Annual Science in Public Conference, 22-23 July 2013 on ‘Critical Perspectives on Making Science Public’ Call for Panel Proposals The University of Nottingham is proud to host the 8th Annual Science in Public Conference, 22-23 July 2013. …
The end of journals? Open access, impact and the production of knowledge
December 6, 2012
Under direction from the government, there is a drive to make publicly funded research open access; that is, if you go to the website where the journal article resides, non-subscribers will not be met by a page asking you to part with $30+ for the privilege of reading. Research articles will be free to read….but …
MSP bookmarks
- Twitter May 8, 2017
- Social innovations in Europe #RRI November 3, 2015
- Harvey Graff, the undisciplinarian September 20, 2015
- Replacing Pesticides With Genetics August 31, 2015
- Addressing hazardous chemicals in the circular economy August 25, 2015
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