Publishers, reviewers and other members of the scientific community must fight science’s preference for positive results — for the benefit of all, says Devang Mehta.

Russian science stays at home

10 October 2019

Dalmeet Singh Chawla

Out of step with international norms.

Personal biases speed up research publication

8 October 2019

Gemma Conroy

Megajournal editors under the microscope.

How researchers can improve the quality of systematic reviews

24 September 2019

Jon Brock

A guideline to boost transparency is being updated.

Elsevier investigates hundreds of peer reviewers for manipulating citations

12 September 2019

Dalmeet Singh Chawla

The publisher is scrutinizing researchers who might be inappropriately using the review process to promote their own work.

Museum volunteering among new impact indicators for UK universities

11 September 2019

Elisabeth Jeffries

How to compare apples with apples.

The allure of the journal impact factor holds firm, despite its flaws

29 August 2019

Jon Brock

“Science needs a healthy dose of its own medicine, yet refuses to take the pill.”

A call for funders to ban institutions that use grant capture targets

7 August 2019

Dorothy Bishop

The practice has led to peverse incentives for researchers.

Here’s how to deal with failure, say senior scientists

5 July 2019

Bec Crew

Don’t take it personally.

In a race for mentions, it’s open season on researchers

18 January 2019

Alexandra Lippman and Christopher Kelty

The growing clamour for open access results makes scientists vulnerable, say Alexandra Lippman and Christopher Kelty.

China's Belt and Road Initiative finds new research partners in Europe

11 January 2019

Marijk van der Wende & Robert Tijssen

Smaller member states are the beneficiaries of China's global trade and diplomacy project.

From punish to empower: A blame-free approach to research misconduct

16 October 2018

Lex Bouter

Research institutions have a duty to foster integrity, and that includes monitoring.

Power balance in clinical trials exposed

9 October 2018

Gemma Conroy

Industry funders routinely take charge of analysis and reporting.

When breaking free is a mark of success

3 October 2018

Gemma Conroy

Two new measures aim to assess researchers' independence from their former lab heads.

The cost of staying put

18 September 2018

Smriti Mallapaty

In academia’s great migration, some researchers are at a disadvantage.

Africa should set own standards of research excellence

13 September 2018

Munyaradzi Makoni

'Most highly cited' criterion is not the most appropriate.

Q&A Koenraad Debackere: Impact assessment to become more complex

28 August 2018

Smriti Mallapaty

We need to define impact more clearly to be able to measure it effectively.

The A to Z of paper authorship

21 August 2018

Gemma Conroy

It's bad news for Z but A is AOK for authors listed alphabetically.

How freely should scientists share their data?

16 August 2018

Daniel Barron

The Open Science movement champions transparency, but how much and how quickly is a matter of dispute.

Q&A Adam Russell: The search for automated tools to rate research reproducibility

8 August 2018

Dalmeet Singh Chawla

A US project is exploring the use of software to assign confidence levels to published research.

Japan weighs the value of imported academics

2 August 2018

Futao Huang

Foreign faculty in Japan are less productive than their local counterparts on many measures, but better connected to global collaborations.

Indian translation pipeline in patent need of overhaul

31 July 2018

Virat Markandeya

Report recommends removing obstacles to the conversion of scientific research into products and services.

Early-career researchers herald change

25 July 2018

David Nicholas et al.*

The younger generation sees a collaborative system as key to discovery and advancement, a three-year tracking project reveals.

Italian scientists increase self-citations in response to promotion policy

4 June 2018

Dalmeet Singh Chawla

Study reveals how research evaluations can lead to self-serving behaviour.

Scientists get more bang for their buck if given more freedom

23 May 2018

Smriti Mallapaty

Multi-national study challenges long-held assumptions about efficiency.

China's pick of university winners raises eyebrows

13 October 2017

Hepeng Jia

Many fear a plan to elevate 42 universities to world class status will deepen inequality.

High-impact papers score well in REF, study finds

9 October 2017

Anthea Lacchia

Researchers in the UK find that the impact factor of journal articles matches judgements by a panel of experts on research quality.

Chatter makes popular metric unreliable: Study

29 September 2017

Ivy Shih

An analysis of a popular reputation metric concludes it relies too heavily on social interaction.

Measure for measure

26 September 2017

Aidan Byrne

COMMENT: Numbers on science and innovation do not always reflect performance.

Funding debate over paper quality vs quantity

21 September 2017

Dyani Lewis

Researchers disagree over whether performance-based metrics adversely affect publication behaviour.

Better measures needed for research cooperation

23 June 2017

Anthea Lacchia

Researchers wrestle with a measure of collaboration increasingly used to assess the impact of their work.

Reading between the lines on citation value

13 June 2017

Adrian Barnett

COMMENT: Cited work often has little, if any, influence.

China's higher ed reforms are ambitious, but can they address systemic issues?

29 May 2017

Wang Qi

The country is casting a wider net for excellence in higher education.

Young researchers preach open access, yet many don't practice

22 May 2017

Ivy Shih

Early-career researchers in the UK are less likely to choose open access over subscription journals.

Japan's plan to cultivate more entrepreneurial scientists

10 May 2017

Ian Munroe

Although government efforts to encourage innovation face significant obstacles.

Australian funding agency announces new chief

27 April 2017

Bianca Nogrady

Former microbiologist Sue Thomas will lead the Australian Research Council from July.

Japan university reform 'unrealistic' without proper funding

7 April 2017

Atsushi Sunami

To unleash the potential of universities as engines of economic growth, further investment is necessary.

Incomplete descriptions in publications wasting healthcare research

10 March 2017

Tammy Hoffmann

COMMENT: Researchers, explain yourselves

China and South Korea flash the cash in R&D race

24 February 2017

Ivy Shih

G20 countries dominate global research spending and production, but the mix is changing.

Bigger is better for quality research

31 January 2017

Ivy Shih

Size does matter when it comes to research performance.

Thailand's basic science grows despite limited resources

24 January 2017

Tim Hornyak

More scientists could help sustain the country's recent growth in research output.

Prominent female scientists struggle to retain their edge

11 January 2017

Anthea Lacchia

Tracking the careers of leading scientists reveals maintaining an edge is harder for women in Italy.

Success is just a bolt from the blue

5 January 2017

Adrian Barnett

Citations don't always reflect the quality or impact of a researcher's work.

My corporate experiment - a scientist learns from business

16 December 2016

Sidonia Eckle

Academics can learn a lot from the corporate world.

I made my grant application public, here's why you should too

8 December 2016

Adrian Barnett

If funding applications were made under open access, science would benefit from more universal scrutiny.

Brexit uncertainty disrupting EU-UK research

29 November 2016

Mark Peplow

Uncertainty surrounding Britain’s future in EU research may be damaging science.

New award highlights gender imbalance among peer reviewers

7 November 2016

Ivy Shih

A new online award that recognises the contributions of highly-productive peer reviewers also highlights biases in the system that underscores scholarly publishing.

Comment: It's time to break ranks on university assessment

4 November 2016

Adrian Barnett

Ranking systems for universities need to be re-evaluated.

How Australian universities spent $4.5b on research in four years

27 October 2016

Bianca Nogrady

Assessing the research performance of universities is a difficult pursuit.

Comment: Research needs less 'excellence', more competence

20 October 2016

Adrian Barnett

The research sector loves talking about it but is excellence best for science?

How should governments measure innovation?

11 October 2016

Branwen Morgan

There is a need to account for all types of innovation, from big to small.

Measuring the impact of R&D spending

6 October 2016

Myles Gough

Does pouring money into research always translate into better outcomes?

In research, time is as important as money

18 August 2016

Branwen Morgan

Do longer periods of funding lead to greater scientific returns?

What's the best measure of research output?

21 March 2016

Nature Index

"The trend transforming science" - Jonathan Adams

16 March 2016

Jonathan Adams and Tamar Loach

The small but focused snapshot of research afforded by the Nature Index helps fine-tune analysis of global scientific collaboration, say Jonathan Adams and Tamar Loach.