News archive
Nobel Prizes have a diversity problem even worse than the scientific fields they honor
8 October 2020
Marc Zimmer
This is a problem much larger than simply bias on the part of the Nobel selection committees – it’s systemic.
From impact to inequality: How post-COVID-19 government policy is privatizing research innovation
6 October 2020
Daniel Hook
Government funding post-COVID-19 will see an increased emphasis on research impact. This could see blue skies research pushed into the private sector, says Daniel Hook
Science cities seek new connections
28 September 2020
György Csomós, Zsófia Viktória Vida & Balázs Lengyel
Emerging trends are explored in this commentary on high-impact research outputs across 245 cities.
Nature Index’s top five science cities, by the numbers
28 September 2020
Nature Index
Sizing up the success of the world’s science hotspots.
Beijing, the seat of science capital
25 September 2020
Hepeng Jia
China’s powerhouse holds firm as the number one city in the Nature Index.
The top cities for research in the Nature Index
25 September 2020
Catherine Armitage
A look at the inputs that result in high scientific research outputs.
New York and Boston maintain their lead
24 September 2020
Neil Savage
The two US cities have a peerless partnership for life sciences.
Women have disrupted research on bird song, and show how diversity can improve all fields of science
16 September 2020
Kevin Omland, Evangeline Rose & Karan Odom
For decades, scientists believed that only male birds sang. Then women entered the field and showed what their predecessors had missed.
These five scientific fields win the most Nobel Prizes
4 August 2020
Gemma Conroy
Scientists in neglected research areas at risk of being considered "second-class citizens."
Google Scholar reveals its most influential papers for 2020
13 July 2020
Bec Crew
Artificial intelligence papers amass citations more than any other research topic.
Coronavirus vaccine front-runner Moderna puts MIT chemist-entrepreneur Robert Langer in the spotlight
30 June 2020
Leigh Dayton
4 lessons from his playbook.
What to do when your research comes under fire
3 June 2020
Andy Tay
3 pieces of advice from the frontlines of scientific debate.
The 5 most popular scientific papers of April 2020
29 May 2020
Bec Crew
A colossal sea beast and a swampy rainforest at the South Pole feature in some of the stand-out papers from April.
This scientific ‘power couple’ has one of the largest publishing networks in biology
27 May 2020
Gemma Conroy
Their protein-saving techniques are in high demand.
10 tips for submitting a successful preprint
26 May 2020
Jon Brock
How to stand out in the fast-growing throng.
The decline of women's research production during the coronavirus pandemic
19 May 2020
Philippe Vincent-Lamarre et al.
Preprints analysis suggests a disproportionate impact on early career researchers.
Early career success: Nobel Prize winners are twice as productive from the start
12 May 2020
Gemma Conroy
The benefits of teamwork.
Empathy and grit – not just publication records – should be considered in researcher assessment
12 May 2020
Clare Watson
Is this the future of metrics in academia?
Chemistry researchers cite their own work the most
27 April 2020
Gemma Conroy
But we shouldn't assume selfish motives.
What's wrong with the h-index, according to its inventor
24 March 2020
Gemma Conroy
"Severe unintended negative consequences."
How to demonstrate the value of your research
20 March 2020
Carsten Lund Pedersen
A tool to help you master the four Cs: citations, communication, coverage, and collaboration.
Women rival men in scientific research publications and citations
17 March 2020
Jon Brock
But short careers set them back.
Nature Index’s top 5 countries: ranked in chemistry, environmental, physical, and life sciences
6 March 2020
Gemma Conroy
Where in the world are the subject strengths?
TOP Factor rates journals on transparency, openness
18 February 2020
Chris Woolston
New tool seeks to change editorial
practices.
Five leading early career researchers in materials science
16 December 2019
Gemma Conroy, Bec Crew & Hepeng Jia
Star competitors in a highly competitive field.
Scooped in science? Relax, credit will come your way
2 December 2019
Ewen Callaway
A study of protein databases shows that discoverers who are second to publish still end up getting a substantial portion of the recognition.
Unmasking the hidden networks behind academic success
25 October 2019
Margath Walker
They work well for some.
Publication is not enough, to generate impact you need to campaign
3 October 2019
Toby Green
Regarding publication as only one part of a long-term and cumulative communication campaign is integral to achieving impact.
"There is a problem": Australia's top scientist Alan Finkel pushes to eradicate bad science
19 September 2019
Alan Finkel
A new publishing standard should be introduced to weed out unscrupulous research journals.
Research returnees boost China’s scientific impact
18 September 2019
Dalmeet Singh Chawla
An unprecedented rise to world-class status.
Times Higher Education releases its World University Rankings 2020
12 September 2019
Bec Crew
The United States dominates, but cracks are showing.
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 hidden cost of having a eureka moment, but not being able to put it in your own words
29 August 2019
Sneha Kulkarni
Publishing in an “international” journal now refers to an English-language journal.
5 features of a highly cited article
23 August 2019
Mohamed Elgendi
The difference between highly cited and lowly cited papers.
Government funding will be tied to uni performance from 2020
21 August 2019
Emmaline Bexley
How will performance-based funding shake out for Australian universities?
Out of date before it's published
30 July 2019
Jon Brock
Zika provides a vision for how to keep pace with a fast-moving research field.
10 key insights from the first research scorecards for G20 countries
19 July 2019
Bec Crew
Australia shines; the US, not so much.
Preprints boost article citations and mentions
9 July 2019
Gemma Conroy
The benefits of showing your hand early.
Four reasons to graphically illustrate your research
4 July 2019
Gemma Sou
Academic writing is often criticised for being overly complicated and impenetrable to anyone outside of a small circle of experts.
Gender is not the biggest barrier to career success
14 June 2019
Gemma Conroy
Study paints bleak picture of disadvantage attached to ethnicity and socioeconomic status.
In science, some ideas are more contagious than others
13 May 2019
Viviane Callier
An infectious disease model shows that ideas from prestigious institutions are more likely to spread farthest.
Impact factors are still widely used in academic evaluations
18 April 2019
Holly Else
Survey finds that 40% of research-intensive universities mention the controversial metric in review documents — despite efforts to dampen its influence.
Hidden lake on Mars raises questions
22 January 2019
Gemma Conroy
Radar data of the red planet’s south pole had scientists deliberating over the possibilities. Could it really be liquid water?
A tally of mass destruction
15 January 2019
Gemma Conroy
A massive study on the planet’s biomass was among the top five most talked-about articles of 2018.
Coral bleaching pushes alarm buttons
9 January 2019
Gemma Conroy
A study revealing the decline of the Great Barrier Reef was one of the most discussed articles of 2018.
An unpalatable message about the climate’s point of no return
3 January 2019
Gemma Conroy
A dire warning from climate scientists was the second most discussed paper in the past year.
Data brief: Female first-authors attract more readers
2 January 2019
Gemma Conroy
The work of female researchers has a broader impact than citation analysis suggests, but not in India.
False news travels fast
28 December 2018
Gemma Conroy
One of the year’s hottest papers shows online
story-tellers are lukewarm when it comes to truth.
Egypt and Pakistan had highest rise in research output in 2018
27 December 2018
Anita Makri
Global production of scientific papers hit an all-time high this year, estimates show, with emerging economies rising fastest.
The right tools to empower researchers
11 October 2018
J. Britt Holbrook
Too many tools used to promote accountability benefit research managers and for-profit companies at the expense of individual researchers.
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.
European Commission to consult the people on science spending priorities
14 August 2018
Elisabeth Jeffries
Radical proposal will be difficult to implement, say NGOs.
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.
Earth and environmental sciences must zoom in on the big picture
13 July 2018
Richard Kingsford
Academic reward structures discourage the pursuit of vital research.
Steps to a top-scoring impact case study
12 July 2018
Mark Reed et. al.
Describing the benefits of excellent research in simple language gets high marks in the REF.
Green stories greatest hits
7 July 2018
Gemma Conroy
We look at the top 5 Earth and environmental science articles by Altmetric Score from 2012 to 2017.
A better measure of research from the global south
6 July 2018
Jean Lebel & Robert McLean
Funders Jean Lebel and Robert McLean describe a new tool for judging the value and validity of science that attempts to improve lives.
Citation analysis reveals the game changers
29 May 2018
Gemma Conroy
A study identifies papers that stand the test of time.
Wikipedia’s top-cited scholarly articles — revealed
16 May 2018
Giorgia Guglielmi
Gene collections and astronomy studies dominate the list of the most-cited publications with DOIs on the popular online encyclopaedia.
Q&A Trish Greenhalgh: Linear impact narratives encourage easy science
19 April 2018
Smriti Mallapaty
The REF’s approach to impact incentivizes research that can be obviously linked to outcomes.
How researchers are ensuring that their work has an impact
5 April 2018
Jack Leeming
Finding purpose and meaning in the lab.
Experts fear irrelevance for assessment of research relevance
28 March 2018
Smriti Mallapaty
Australian academics will need to prove that they have demonstrated the usefulness of their work to communities, industry and government.
World’s oldest fossils rock the web
25 January 2018
Gemma Conroy
A controversial fossil discovery has whipped up online discussions about alien life.
Artificial womb system raises ethical debate
15 January 2018
Gemma Conroy
A system for bringing premature baby lambs to gestational term caused much online debate about whether the technology should be applied to humans.
Dinosaur fossil ruffles feathers online
11 January 2018
Gemma Conroy
Flesh and feathers trapped in amber were the talk of the internet in 2017.Girls will be girls? Gender stereotyping among six-year olds sparks debate
5 January 2018
Gemma Conroy
A study revealing that girls are more likely to link brilliance with boys than with their own gender made headlines on the web.
Pharma could cut its losses with a bit of sharing
2 January 2018
Phillip Phan & Dean Wong
COMMENT: Life science companies are missing out on the benefits of open innovation.
Designer babies, the year’s most talked about story from a Nature Index-tracked journal
29 December 2017
Gemma Conroy
A gene-editing breakthrough topped all other papers for online attention.
Why we left academia: Corporate scientists reveal their motives
28 December 2017
Elie Dolgin
Five scientists discuss the reasons they moved to an industry lab.
Here’s what’s wrong with companies backing out of science
12 December 2017
Ashish Arora, Sharon Belenzon & Andrea Patacconi
The shifting corporate–academic relationship in pictures
11 December 2017
Nature Index
Research partnerships between industry and academia have more than doubled in five years.
The top academic and corporate partners in the Nature Index
8 December 2017
Mark Zastrow
Help wanted: Industry seeks science alliances
7 December 2017
Katharine Gammon
China's citations catching up
30 November 2017
Hepeng Jia
Papers from China are growing in influence and volume, yet the US remains supreme.
An alternative metric for Chinese social media chatter
27 November 2017
Hepeng Jia
UK deliberations leave young researchers in limbo
16 October 2017
Anthea Lacchia
Lack of clarity on changes to the country's research assessment system provokes anxiety among early-career researchers.
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.
Turning science into social outcomes
29 August 2017
Richard Jefferson
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.
China trades science along ancient Silk Road
30 May 2017
Hepeng Jia
The ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative will expand scientific collaborations with 64 countries in the region.
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.
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.
In research, time is as important as money
18 August 2016
Branwen Morgan
Do longer periods of funding lead to greater scientific returns?
China's top 10 research universities in 2015
15 July 2016
The country's contribution to top journals continues to grow.
Could a 'Brexit' impact UK research partnerships?
11 April 2016
