As Coronavirus Spreads, Universities Stall Their Research to Keep Human Subjects Safe

The Chronicle of Higher Education
Marc Parry
March 18, 2020

A basic calculation governs research on human beings: How do the benefits stack up against the risks?

The coronavirus pandemic doesn’t much alter that calculation for studies that can directly improve the health of seriously ill participants, such as trials of new cancer treatments.

But the pandemic could stall other researchers: neuroscientists who put people in MRI scanners to study normal brain functions, business professors who gather them for focus groups, oral historians who take their testimonies, criminal-justice scholars who interview people coming out of prisons. Those kinds of studies, which didn’t previously expose the participants to any risk, could now sicken them with Covid-19.

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NSF Creates New Research Security Chief Position

National Science Foundation
March 2, 2020


Rebecca Spyke Keiser, expert in international research issues, named as first chief of research security strategy and policy

The National Science Foundation has appointed Rebecca Spyke Keiser to the newly created position of chief of research security strategy and policy as part of its continuing effort to ensure the security of federally funded research while maintaining an open international collaboration.

In this role, Keiser will be tasked with providing the NSF director with policy advice on all aspects of research security strategy. She will also lead NSF’s efforts to develop and implement strategies to improve research security and the agency’s coordination with other federal agencies and the White House.

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Elsevier and Carnegie Mellon Reach Transformative Open-Access Agreement as Research Universities Seek Major Change

The Chronicle of Higher Education
Lindsay Ellis 
November 22, 2019

The impact of the University of California system’s decision in February to walk away from negotiations with Elsevier over journal subscriptions has rippled out to Pittsburgh, where Carnegie Mellon University’s libraries have struck a deal with the company that marks a significant stride in open-access publishing.

Under the agreement, Carnegie Mellon researchers will be able to read all Elsevier academic journals and, next year, can publish their articles in front of a paywall without having to pay an extra fee. The company and the university on Thursday said it was the first contract of its kind between Elsevier and an American university.

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NIH Annual Snapshot – FY 2018 By the Numbers

NIH Open Mike Blog
Mike Lauer
March 13, 2019

We recently released our annual web reports and success rate data with updated numbers for fiscal year (FY) 2018. These web products represent annual snapshots of NIH research investments, which are highlighted in this post.

Before delving into the numbers, we want to draw your attention to the new and modernized NIH Data Book recently released. This easy to navigate tool enables users to access and interact with a wealth of data ranging from NIH funding, research grant types, success rates, and much more (see this NIH Open Mike post for more).

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NSF Dear Colleague Letter: Research on Sexual Harassment and Other Forms of Harassment in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Contexts

NSF Dear Colleague Letter 19-053
March 29, 2019

Dear Colleagues:

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has publicly communicated its commitment to promoting safe, productive research and education environments for current and future scientists and engineers, including efforts to help reduce sexual harassment and other forms of harassment in STEM contexts.

Recently, to learn about the challenges related to sexual harassment in STEM settings, NSF and other organizations funded the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) to conduct a study on the prevalence and impact of sexual harassment in science and engineering departments and programs. The results of the study are available in the report, Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture and Consequences in Academic Science, Engineering, and Medicine. As the most comprehensive examination to date of sexual harassment in academic science, engineering, and medicine, the report brings together behavioral and social research on types of sexual harassment and prevalence, data on legal and policy mechanisms, and new approaches for changing the climate and culture in higher education to prevent and effectively respond to sexual harassment.

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How Political Science Can Be Most Useful

The Chronicle of Higher Education
Henry Farrell and Jack Knight
March 10, 2019

Agatha Christie’s murder mystery The Mousetrap is the longest running play in history. Its first run began in 1952, and it hasn’t stopped since. Another perennial whodunnit — "Who Murdered Political Science" — is mounting a strong challenge for the runner up. Regularly repeated performances haven’t stopped audiences from enjoying the traditional denouement, in which the detective accuses Quantitative Methods and Game Theory of conspiring to bash the victim’s head in.

Discerning critics were unimpressed with Michael Desch’s recent "cult of the irrelevant" production, which played recently in this magazine. They found it too reminiscent of past stagings — all recycled quotes and stale nostalgia — and would have preferred a more novel interpretation. Even so, like Christie’s play, it’s a traditional crowd-pleaser.

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How Political Science Became Irrelevant: The Field Turned Its Back on the Beltway

The Chronicle of Higher Education
Michael C. Desch
February 27, 2019

In a 2008 speech to the Association of American Universities, the former Texas A&M University president and then-Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates declared that "we must again embrace eggheads and ideas." He went on to recall the role of universities as "vital centers of new research" during the Cold War. The late Thomas Schelling would have agreed. The Harvard economist and Nobel laureate once described "a wholly unprecedented ‘demand’ for the results of theoretical work. … Unlike any other country … the United States had a government permeable not only by academic ideas but by academic people."

Gates’s efforts to bridge the gap between Beltway and ivory tower came at a time when it was growing wider, and indeed, that gap has continued to grow in the years since. According to a Teaching, Research & International Policy Project survey, a regular poll of international-­relations scholars, very few believe they should not contribute to policy making in some way. Yet a majority also recognize that the state-of-the-art approaches of academic social science are precisely those approaches that policy makers find least helpful. A related poll of senior national-security decision-makers confirmed that, for the most part, academic social science is not giving them what they want.

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