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Can we amend the laws of scholarly publication?

As part of its celebrations to mark the 350th anniversary of the publication of Philosophical Transactions, the world’s longest-running scientific journal, the Royal Society arnessas convened a meeting...

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Pre-prints: just do it?

There is momentum building behind the adoption of pre-print servers in the life sciences. Ron Vale, a professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology at UCSF and Lasker Award winner, has just added a...

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Ch-ch-ch-changes…

There’s a very real chance that this could turn out to be an actual blogpost. In the original sense of the word: a web-log of what’s been happening. Posts have been rather sparse on Reciprocal Space of...

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Interview with the author

Those of you who have read all 346 posts on my Reciprocal Space blog will have no need to read this one. You probably already have a sense of what I do and what I’m like – my science, my … Continue...

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University rankings are fake news. How do we fix them?

tagThis post is based on a short presentation I gave as part of a panel at a meeting today on Understanding Global University Rankings: Their Data and Influence, organised by HESPA (Higher Education...

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Ten Years a Blogger

Today is the tenth anniversary of my very first blog post. When I look back at that day in 2008 when I set out my stall on Reciprocal Space it seems a long time ago and a long distance away. … Continue...

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Endings and Beginnings

New Year’s Eve is almost upon us, so here we are again at the close of one long year and the start of another. Personally, it has been a year of endings and beginnings. Readers of this blog would be …...

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The unsustainable goal of university ranking

Ranking organisations are seeking to diversify the measures use to evaluate universities. But without addressing the fundamental flaws in their methods, they will crush rather than embrace the rich...

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I told myself…

I am on holiday – on the island of Mauritius, a tiny tropical island in the Indian Ocean. And when I go on holiday, I make ridiculous plans.  I told myself I’d start running again. I’d get up early...

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My carbon bootprint

What was your carbon footprint for 2019? Mine was more of a bootprint, almost entirely because of flying. International travel has long been considered one of the perks of academic life, something that...

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2019 in 31 photographs

My computer tells me I took over 3,700 photographs in 2019. Yikes! However, I have winnowed them down to just 31, should you care to take a look. I have been fortunate this year to travel far and wide...

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The still unsustainable goal of university ranking

The new and improved Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings 2020 were published this week with as much online fanfare as THE could muster. Unfortunately, they are not improved enough. Sydney...

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In our elements

I have been coming to the Lake District on and off for much of my life. It is my favourite corner of England. I first came in 1981 when I was seventeen, as one of half a dozen venture scouts … Continue...

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In defence of the bureaucracy of equality, diversity and inclusion

The UK government’s new policy to reduce bureaucracy in research institutions aims at an easy target. But the bonfire of administration lit by the Prime Minister’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings,...

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To be or not to be exceptional?

I can’t remember how I came across this video from philosopher Alain de Botton, but I feel seen. Like many academics, I guess, I have always prized scholarly achievement. And of course, within our...

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