Thought Leaders
Rethinking psychiatric medication: An interview with Will Hall
Influential mental-health advocate, therapist, and researcher Will Hall talks to us about his latest research on psychiatric drugs, carried out at Maastricht University in the Netherlands with fellow pioneers in the field. Drawing on his own clinical experience as a therapist and personal experience of the mental-health system, Hall’s research indicates that the current pharmaceutical approach to treating mental illnesses […]
Ladders4Action: Working for an ethical, inclusive, and collaborative research landscape
Ladders4Action is a nonprofit organisation which works to radically enhance the equality and inclusivity of the UK’s research spaces. It seeks to protect and nurture marginalised voices who might otherwise feel excluded from these spaces, fostering a community of researchers from a diverse array of backgrounds. The organisation recognises that only by translating theory into meaningful action will we create […]
The Money View: An interview with Professor Perry Mehrling
Since 2018, Perry Mehrling has been Professor of International Political Economy at Boston University. Prior to this, he served for three decades as Professor of Economics at Barnard College, Columbia University. His work is now primarily concerned with articulating and finessing the Money View, a compelling approach to monetary economics which synthesises ideas from both economics and finance. In our […]
The importance of nuanced scientific communication in an age of rising distrust
Dr Karen Jacqueline Cloete is an interdisciplinary scientific researcher whose work spans a multitude of areas. She is affiliated to the UNESCO-University of South Africa Africa Chair in Nanosciences-Nanotechnology, and the Nanosciences African Network-iThemba LABS-National Research Foundation. As well as currently working at the rich intersection between nanotechnology, chemistry and biology, Dr Cloete asks broader questions about the relationship between […]
The Open Notebook and the art of science journalism
The importance of quality science journalism has been widely recognised throughout the long months of the COVID-19 pandemic. What is less frequently discussed is the unique skillset that is required to undertake this vital form of translation: ensuring that the complexity of cutting-edge research is communicated in such a way that it remains exciting, accurate, and digestible. The Open Notebook […]
The Story Collider: Communicating the stories of science
The Story Collider is an organisation with a simple yet vital task: to collect and relay stories about science. This task is fundamentally collaborative, involving an assortment of global voices from across every demographic. There are very few lives, after all, which have not been touched in some inexplicable way by the capabilities of modern science. Research Outreach were privileged […]
Structured expert judgment using the Classical Method
When complex decisions must be made while data is unavailable, structured expert judgment can be used to combine uncertainty distributions resulting from experts’ assessments. Roger Cooke, the Chauncey Starr Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future, and Emeritus Professor at Delft University of Technology, created the well-known Classical Model to quantify uncertainty using expert opinion. Together with Dr Tina Nane, […]
The HIBAR Research Alliance: Reinvigorating research for the 21st century
How can the research ecosystem be improved so that it better contributes to solving the critical problems facing society today? That’s the motivating question behind an alliance of universities and other research organisations which believes that an answer lies in carrying out more Highly Integrative Basic And Responsive (HIBAR) research projects – efforts that are both basic and use-inspired, and […]
Writefull – Advanced academic language feedback
Writefull provides advanced academic and technical writing software that goes well beyond the tools provided by other grammar checkers. Using highly complex algorithms, it offers a full array of language feedback – covering everything from wording, syntax, and grammar – catered specifically to the academic community. Research Outreach caught up with Dr Hilde van Zeeland, Applied Linguist at Writefull, to […]
The troubling allure of predatory publishing
Predatory publishing has become increasingly ubiquitous across the sciences and beyond. Importantly, Dr Nicola Alberto Valente, Adjunct Assistant Professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, compiled and studied the barrage of invitations he received over the course of an academic year. He then attempted to quantitatively assess the impact these invitations had on him and his work. […]