Author Archives: Stephen

ICYMI No. 9: Preprints and Embargoes

Posted on December 31, 2016 by Stephen

I’m rather late getting round to this but, for the record, here is a piece I wrote for Research Fortnight in late November on the challenges that preprints pose to embargoed press releases of research reports. The tl;dr version (though the piece … Continue reading →

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ICYMI No.8: Being Professorial

Posted on November 14, 2016 by Stephen

I was among several people who contributed to a feature in this weeks’ Times Higher Education on being a professor. My brief was (briefly): “Questions you might want to address are whether you should somehow have to conduct yourself differently? … Continue reading →

Posted in ICYMI | 2 Comments

President Trump – first response

Posted on November 9, 2016 by Stephen

This morning I was asked for a comment on the implications of the US presidential election for the scientific world. This was my immediate response: Unlike the day after the EU referendum vote, when I was bitterly upset, I just … Continue reading →

Posted in Science & Politics | 7 Comments

Higher Education and Research Bill – Letter to my MP

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Stephen

Science is Vital this week launched a campaign to seek amendments to the Higher Education and Research Bill 2016. The bill is a rather dry and procedural piece of legislation but hidden amongst its many sections and schedules are real … Continue reading →

Posted in Science & Politics | 1 Comment

Ways of Seeing

Posted on October 9, 2016 by Stephen

It is the weekend and I have been treating myself to some time with the paper. Usually, I buy the Saturday Guardian. On occasion I will also get The Observer on a Sunday but most weekends I don’t have the … Continue reading →

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Pride and Prejudice and journal citation distributions: final, peer reviewed version

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Stephen

Today sees the publication on bioRxiv of a revised version of our preprint outlining “A simple proposal for the publication of journal citation distributions.” Our proposal, explained in more detail in this earlier post, encourages publishers to mitigate the distorting effects … Continue reading →

Posted in Academic publishing | Tagged | 1 Comment

ICYMI No.7: a day in the life of a naked scientist

Posted on September 2, 2016 by Stephen

In case you missed it last week, I had a segment in the Naked Scientist’s 15th anniversary radio show. Or rather, three segments, based on a day-in-the-life-of-a-scientist piece that I wrote a few months back on the Guardian, that were … Continue reading →

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ICYMI No. 6: What is the meaning of Brexit?

Posted on August 4, 2016 by Stephen

Today EMBO Reports has published my commentary on the implications for scientific research of Britain’s recent decision to leave the EU. It’s free to read. The piece is trying to be more analytical than the more personal response that I posted at … Continue reading →

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Pride and Prejudice and journal citation distributions

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Stephen

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a researcher in possession of interesting experimental results, must be in want of a journal with a high impact factor. It is also true – and widely understood – that journal impact factors … Continue reading →

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Letters from Europe

Posted on June 5, 2016 by Stephen

This weekend’s Guardian has a quite wonderful feature comprised of letters to Britain from European writers about the decision to be made in the upcoming referendum. It offers a fresh and little-heard perspective on a debate that has become worn … Continue reading →

Posted in International | 2 Comments

How to look at Art?

Posted on May 30, 2016 by Stephen

I was sneered at on Twitter yesterday for sneering at people taking pictures of the Impressionist paintings on display at the Musée D’Orsay in Paris. Fair enough perhaps. I had adopted an exaggerated version of the pontifical tone that comes … Continue reading →

Posted in Science & Art | 1 Comment