Category: Research

Bibliometrics, Part the First

The shock and horror generated by proposals of teaching-only universities makes it pretty clear that most of Canadian academia thinks that research is important. So important, indeed, that we want every professor to devote 40% of his or her time (under the 40-40-20 rule) to it. Now, that’s a pretty serious commitment. Even before you get to the costs of graduate students, research grants and research infrastructure, 40% of staff time equals $2 billion/year on research. So why do we

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Ivory Tower Stakhanovites

Those of you familiar with mid-century Soviet culture will be acquainted with the work of Alexey Stakhanov, a Ukrainian miner who was so enthused by the ideals of socialism that he would constantly overfulfill his coal quota. On one occasion in 1935, he managed to mine 227 tons of coal in a single shift, which was equivalent to about 30 times his production target. It was a propaganda stunt, of course. But Stakhanov’s legend lives on, not least in the

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Great Journal Articles of Our Time

Some of you may have been amused recently by some psychological research out of Brock University which suggested that left-wingers were smarter than right-wingers. This one went globally viral in about six minutes, with front-page treatment in the U.S., the U.K. and elsewhere. So, what else might be psychologically determined? How about choice of field of study? Two Princeton scientists, publishing on PLoS One, find the following: From personality to neuropsychiatric disorders, individual differences in brain function are known to

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Comparing Support for the Social Sciences and Humanities

After writing about SSHRC a couple of weeks ago one very loyal reader requested that I elaborate on the point that the social sciences and humanities are treated well in Canada compared to other countries. I’m a sucker for loyal readers, so: I’ll say straight off that that comparing national granting council budgets is tricky because there are some significant structural differences in the way research gets funded in different countries (i.e., not all funding goes through granting councils). When

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Weak Arguments

I am a social scientist. I like the social sciences. I also like the humanities, even if I do find many people’s defense of the humanities to be shrill and weirdly ahistorical. So, naturally, I’m a fan of SSHRC. What I am not a fan of, however, is some of the drivel that passes for advocacy on SSHRC’s behalf. One argument that gets pulled out every once in awhile and which annoys me immensely is the one that says, “Social

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