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Scientific research can have a positive impact on society, particularly in a health crisis. But to fully achieve this, scientists must engage with end-users from the very beginning of the research process, writes Lea Pare Toe.
The harassment of researchers working in the social sciences—not rarely an organized effort targeting members of marginalized groups—is most alarming. Its implications reach from severe personal consequences to the risk of scientific self-censorship. We invite readers to engage in a much-needed discourse about this worrisome phenomenon.
Doubly marginalized by race and gender, Black women expend vital energy managing stereotypes. Black women should be able to succeed in ways that affirm rather than negate their identities, argues Ebony Omotola McGee.
The involvement of girls and women in the development of science and technology is vital to achieving sustainable development goals in Africa. Identifying the barriers preventing their participation and mapping strategies to overcome these barriers could proffer the way forward, explains Francisca N. Okeke
Efforts to eliminate anti-Black racism in academia must go far beyond superficial ticking of boxes. The academic community must create conditions for authentic, not tokenistic, Black engagement, argues Tony Reames.
The year 2020 has been marked by unprecedented cascading traumas, including the COVID-19 pandemic, an economic recession, race-driven social unrest and weather-related disasters. Mental health consequences of direct and media-based exposure to compounding stressors may be profound. Policymakers must act to ease the burden of trauma to protect public health.
Social and behavioural scientists have attempted to speak to the COVID-19 crisis. But is behavioural research on COVID-19 suitable for making policy decisions? We offer a taxonomy that lets our science advance in ‘evidence readiness levels’ to be suitable for policy. We caution practitioners to take extreme care translating our findings to applications.
Twitter announced on 18 June 2019 that it would remove the precise geotagging feature in tweets. In addition to protecting the location privacy of users, this change also affects human behaviour studies based on geotagged tweets. We discuss the potential impact of Twitter’s decision and how researchers can respond to this change.
The impact of pandemics is magnified by the coexistence of two contradicting reactions to rare dire risks: panic and the ‘it won’t happen to me’ effect that hastens spread of the disease. We review research that clarifies the conditions that trigger the two biases, and we highlight the potential of gentle rule enforcement policies that can address these problematic conditions.
Black early-career researchers suffer racism, discrimination and significant barriers to professional development. Mya Roberson makes key suggestions on how non-Black scientists can support Black early-career researchers.
In cases of direct replications or direct critiques of earlier work, feedback from the original authors can have an important role to play in the evaluation process, but such feedback is by definition not impartial. Our signed comments policy allows such feedback to be incorporated in the consideration process, without impacting the objectivity of peer review and editorial evaluation.
