Tag Archives: Peer review
The day when science is truly open
Jan Velterop: further opening science thanks to a cultural shift
Reviewer anonymity: a hindrance to self-correction in science?
Kamila Markram: changing the way academics work
ScienceOpen: the next wave of Open Access?
Alternative modes of research funding: exceptions or growing trend?
Peer-review of projects dominates when it comes to decision on how to allocate funding for science. But is it really the best way? Funders certainly think so. Over 95% of biomedical funding in the UK, for example, relied on peer-review grant allocations, a 2012 report found. In the absence of tried and tested alternative, peer review has become the default solution. But there is a clear demand for new and less onerous ways of funding research. Read more [...]
Evaluation moves in mysterious ways
With the development of web-based technologies, the new generation of scientists, often referred to as digital natives, will not be evaluated in the same way as previous generation scientists, the digital migrants. This creates a generational divide. It also could create some potential tensions between them. Read more [...]
Mentors, mates or metrics: what are the alternatives to peer review?
You think that scientists, being quite clever people, would be able to agree on the best way to rank each other's work. Oh no, not any longer. For this article, the EuroScientist asked Science, Cell and Nature as well as eLife and independent commentators to go on the record with their thoughts on how they see the peer review system, as it stands, and what alternatives should be considered. Read more [...]

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Evaluation: dogma of excellence replaced by scientific diversity
The current dogma says that the largest part of available research funds must be assigned only to the best scientists. This way, researchers are put in competition with each other . Only a small fraction will be able to obtain the research funds needed to fully develop their own scientific projects. There is a fundamental flaw in this strategy. If some competition is good for public research, it is clear that there is a threshold beyond which competition creates more adverse than positive effects. Read more [...]
Mary Phillips: The academic evaluation conundrum
Mary Phillips has worked as an academic in biomedical sciences at Oxford University, UK, as a funder with the Wellcome Trust, in London, and as director of research planning for University College London. Find out her unique perspective on the limitations of the existing evaluation systems, be it for academic institutions or individual scientists. In this exclusive interview with the EuroScientist, she shares the lessons learned from her various positions related to academia. Read more [...]
Croatia’s top scientists demand radical policy changes
A group of prominent scientists working in Croatia have made fresh demands for urgent policy changes to move Croatian science from the "bottom of European" science to a meritocratic and internationally integrated system.
The letter follows a recent Read more [...]