Science maps for exploration, navigation, and reflection-A graphic approach to strategic thinking

The world of science is growing at an unprecedented speed with more and more scholarly papers produced each year. The scientific landscape is constantly changing as research specialties evolve, merge or become obsolete. It is difficult for researchers, research managers and the public alike to keep abreast with these changes and maintain a true and fair overview of the world of science. Such an overview is necessary to stimulate scientific progress, to maintain flexible and responsive research organizations, and to secure collaboration and knowledge exchange between different research specialties and the wider community. Although science mapping is applied to a wide range of scientific areas, examples of their practical use are sparse. This paper demonstrates how to use a topical, scientific reference maps to understand and navigate in dynamic research landscapes and how to utilize science maps to facilitate strategic thinking. In this study, the research domain of biology at Aarhus University serves as an example. All scientific papers authored by the current, permanent staff were extracted (6,830 in total). These papers were used to create a semantic cognitive map of the research field using a co-word analysis based on keywords and keyword phrases. A workflow was written in Python for easy and fast retrieval of information for topic maps (including tokens from keywords section and title) to generate intelligible research maps, and to visualize the distribution of topics (keywords), papers, journal categories, individual researchers and research groups on any scale. The resulting projections revealed new insights into the structure of the research community and made it possible to compare researchers or research groups to describe differences and similarities, to find scientific overlaps or gaps, and to understand how they relate and connect. Science mapping can be used for intended (top-down) as well as emergent (bottom-up) strategy development. The paper concludes that science maps provide alternative views of the intricate structures of science to supplement traditional bibliometric information. These insights may help strengthen strategic thinking and boost creativity and thus contribute to the progress of science.

Research sites get closer to field camps over time: Informing environmental management through a geospatial analysis of science in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica

As in many parts of the world, the management of environmental science research in Antarctica relies on cost-benefit analysis of negative environmental impact versus positive scientific gain. Several studies have examined the environmental impact of Antarctic field camps, but very little work looks at how the placement of these camps influences scientific research. In this study, we integrate bibliometrics, geospatial analysis, and historical research to understand the relationship between field camp placement and scientific production in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of East Antarctica. Our analysis of the scientific corpus from 1907-2016 shows that, on average, research sites have become less dispersed and closer to field camps over time. Scientific output does not necessarily correspond to the number of field camps, and constructing a field camp does not always lead to a subsequent increase in research in the local area. Our results underscore the need to consider the complex historical and spatial relationships between field camps and research sites in environmental management decision-making in Antarctica and other protected areas.

Personal perspective on inequality: conference attendance as an Iranian citizen

Science is expected to be borderless and inclusive of any interested individuals. The efforts made by academic institutions to promote diversity and inclusiveness are unfortunately undermined by discriminatory government policies. Iranian researchers suffer from limited mobility for attending scientific gatherings and are underrepresented due to lack of exposure, as they can be subject to discrimination for entering some countries, e.g. the US travel ban. As an Iranian citizen, I was denied an academic visitor visa to attend FEMS congress in Glasgow in 2019 to share my Ph.D. research results. This resulted in considerable waste of time, funds and efforts leaving me with a great deal of pain and frustration. In this article, I share my story to help raise awareness about compromised equity in the scientific community as a result of institutional discrimination and racism.

Supporting and leveraging science as a social activity: The value of sharing ideas early and often

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Against Scientism: Corrupted Science and the Fight for Medicine's Soul

This article maintains that via the current form of evidence-based medicine, scientism (a pseudo-religious belief in science that is itself not scientific) has been allowed to encroach into medicine. By setting out the philosophical limits of what it is science can do, the effects of this encroachment are discussed in terms of upsetting the balance between the necessarily conflicting art AND science of medicine. In this context, one effect of the Covid-19 pandemic might be to act as a timely reminder - as if it was needed - of the importance of the Hippocratic Oath, which is and always has been the soul of medicine.

Changing the editorial process at JCI and JCI Insight in response to the COVID-19 pandemic

The editors of JCI and JCI Insight are revisiting our editorial processes in light of the strain that the COVID-19 pandemic places on the worldwide scientific community. Here, we discuss adjustments to our decision framework in light of restrictions placed on laboratory working conditions for many of our authors.

Can scientists fill the science journalism void? Online public engagement with science stories authored by scientists

In many countries the public's main source of information about science and technology is the mass media. Unfortunately, in recent years traditional journalism has experienced a collapse, and science journalism has been a major casualty. One potential remedy is to encourage scientists to write for news media about science. On these general news platforms, scientists' stories would have to compete for attention with other news stories on hard (e.g. politics) and entertaining (e.g. celebrity news) topics written by professional writers. Do they stand a chance? This study aimed to quantitatively characterize audience interactions as an indicator of interest in science news stories authored by early career scientists (henceforth ‘scientists’) trained to function as science reporters, as compared to news items written by reporters and published in the same news outlets. To measure users' behavior, we collected data on the number of clicks, likes, comments and average time spent on page. The sample was composed of 150 science items written by 50 scientists trained to contribute popular science stories in the Davidson Institute of Science Education reporters’ program and published on two major Israeli news websites—Mako and Ynet between July 2015 to January 2018. Each science item was paired with another item written by the website’s organic reporter, and published on the same channel as the science story (e.g., tourism, health) and the same close time. Overall significant differences were not found in the public's engagement with the different items. Although, on one website there was a significant difference on two out of four engagement types, the second website did not have any difference, e.g., people did not click, like or comment more on items written by organic reporters than on the stories written by scientists. This creates an optimistic starting point for filling the science news void by scientists as science reporters.

A new twenty-first century science for effective epidemic response

With rapidly changing ecology, urbanization, climate change, increased travel and fragile public health systems, epidemics will become more frequent, more complex and harder to prevent and contain. Here we argue that our concept of epidemics must evolve from crisis response during discrete outbreaks to an integrated cycle of preparation, response and recovery. This is an opportunity to combine knowledge and skills from all over the world-especially at-risk and affected communities. Many disciplines need to be integrated, including not only epidemiology but also social sciences, research and development, diplomacy, logistics and crisis management. This requires a new approach to training tomorrow's leaders in epidemic prevention and response.

Distribution and retention trends of physician-scientists in Japan: a longitudinal study

BACKGROUND

Physician Scientists (PSs) play a significant role in medical science because of their clinical practice and research expertise. Although it is important to analyze the distribution and retention trends in the number of PSs in Japan, research on this topic has been insufficient. Thus, the purpose of this study is to analyze PSs distribution and retention trends, identify factors related to their retention, and consider the policy implications.

METHOD

I analyzed individual data from 1996 to 2016 from a national census survey that had been administered by the national government of Japan every 2 years. The number of PSs in 1996 and 2016 were 4930 (2.1% of all physicians) and 5212 (1.6%), respectively. I conducted a descriptive analysis and identified retention trends. I then used a multivariable logistic regression analysis to identify the factors related to the retention of PSs.

RESULTS

Between 1996 and 2016, the total number of PSs in Japan increased by 6%. The number of PSs aged 39 years or younger decreased by 48%, while those aged between 55 and 69 increased by 91%, indicating a notable decrease in the number of PSs under the age of 39. From 2014 to 2016, the annual retention rate of PSs was estimated to be 75.5%, which represented a low and stable rate compared to other physicians over the study period. The odds of continuing to practice as a PS were significantly higher for those who have between 15 to 29 years of experience after qualification as a physician.

CONCLUSION

This study indicates that it is likely for the total number of PSs to decrease in the future. Although the Japanese government has implemented various measures to retain PSs, these have not been effective. Possible new interventions to address this problem include increasing the knowledge of medical students and younger physicians of the role of PSs and the benefits of a career as a PS, providing specific career paths for PSs, securing specific positions for PSs, and increasing the compensation for PSs.

Design of a student-led organizational partnership to host an annual statewide Science Olympiad K-12 outreach tournament

Since fall 2015, the University of Virginia's (UVA) Engineering Student Council (ESC) has partnered with the nonprofit Virginia Science Olympiad (VASO) organization to host a Science Olympiad (SciOly) state tournament in Charlottesville, Virginia, each spring. This annual tournament brings over 2,000 middle and high school students, teachers, and parents to the UVA campus, and teams of 15-17 people from roughly 90 schools across Virginia participate in 46 different events (23 middle school, Division B; 23 high school, Division C) relating to the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields throughout the day-long competition. The national SciOly organization sets the events and rules to comply with national education standards, and the VASO board coordinates the teams and tournaments within the state. By collaborating with VASO, UVA ESC was able to plan a large-scale SciOly tournament at UVA in approximately 10 mo with the support of the UVA School of Engineering and Applied Science. Since this event was planned and executed solely by undergraduates in cooperation with the nonprofit organization, there were institutional hurdles that were overcome through the months of planning. The Virginia SciOly state tournament has continued to be held at UVA with the support and cooperation of the UVA ESC and VASO, and bringing this tournament to UVA has allowed for increased excitement for participating K-12 students and a mitigated burden to the VASO organizers in planning the state competition. This paper aims to provide a resource for other universities to support STEM activities in K-12 outreach organizations, like SciOly, in the future.

Null Hypothesis Testing ≠ Scientific Inference: A Critique of the Shaky Premise at the Heart of the Science and Values Debate, and a Defense of Value-Neutral Risk Assessment

Many philosophers and statisticians argue that risk assessors are morally obligated to evaluate the probabilities and consequences of methodological error, and to base their decisions of whether to adopt a given parameter value, model, or hypothesis on those considerations. This argument is couched within the rubric of null hypothesis testing, which I suggest is a poor descriptive and normative model for risk assessment. Risk regulation is not primarily concerned with evaluating the probability of data conditional upon the null hypothesis, but rather with measuring risks, estimating the consequences of available courses of action and inaction, formally characterizing uncertainty, and deciding what to do based upon explicit values and decision criteria. In turn, I defend an ideal of value-neutrality, whereby the core inferential tasks of risk assessment-such as weighing evidence, estimating parameters, and model selection-should be guided by the aim of correspondence to reality. This is not to say that value judgments be damned, but rather that they should be accounted for within a structured approach to decision analysis, rather than embedded within risk assessment in an informal manner.

Follow the leader: On the relationship between leadership and scholarly impact in international collaborations

National contributions to science are influenced by a number of factors, including economic capacity, national scientific priorities, science policy, and institutional settings and cultures. Nations do not have equal opportunities to access the global scientific market, and therefore, often seek out international partners with complementary resources and expertise. This study aims at investigating national collaboration strategies, with a focus on research leadership-measured through corresponding authorship-and its relationship with scientific impact. Results show that countries with higher R&D investments are more scientifically independent, and confirm that international collaboration is positively related to citation impact. However, leadership in international collaboration is inversely related with a countries' share of international collaboration and there is a very little relationship between citation impact and international leadership. For instance, most countries-and particularly those that have fewer resources-have higher scientific impact when they are not leading. This suggests that, despite increasing global participation in science, most international collaborations are asymmetrical, and that the research system remains structured around a few dominate nations.

From North American hegemony to global competition for scientific leadership? Insights from the Nobel population

Based on the entire population of Nobel laureates in science from 1901 to 2017, we show that North America’s rise as global power in science started in the 1920s. Following a transition period (1940s to 1960s), its scientific hegemony was consolidated in the 1970s. Yet since the 2000s, North America’s global leadership in science has come under pressure. In that time, its share of laureates across disciplines dropped, although it has retained its attractiveness as a destination for future laureates from Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. In addition, we find that North America has become apparently less effective since 2010 in transferring capacities for conducting ground-breaking research from one generation of scientists to another. Furthermore, both Europe and the Asia-Pacific region have similarly high shares of newcomer organizations with regard to where prize-winning work is conducted, indicating that these two regions are very active in the inter-organizational competition for scientific talent. Despite this competition, however, we find no support for the rise of a new global center of science.

Changing times for science and the public: Science journalists' roles for the responsible communication of science

The increasing number of corrections in the scientific record and the debate about reproducibility affect journalists’ reporting about science and thereby public opinion on scientists and research.

Motion sickness as metaphor: engaging with diversity in STEM

Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) continue to work to increase the diversity of the fields, yet there are still significant historical and societal hurdles to be overcome before we reach full representation throughout STEM. The concept of science identity has become a point of interest in this process; it has been suggested that development of one's identity as a scientist is critical to persistence in the field. Metaphors that are rooted in bodily experience can provide a starting point to understand abstract concepts, including science identity and how we as STEM educators respond to increasing diversity within our fields. Given the history of STEM being predominantly populated by people who are white and male, disorientation or discomfort with increasing diversity is not unexpected, and many women and people of color report discrimination and marginalization as a part of their experience in STEM. Here I present a neuroscience-based metaphor that can serve as a starting point for understanding some of the potential disorientation or discomfort that we may experience as we engage with the increasing diversity of STEM and acknowledge this experience as a normal but temporary part of the process of growth and development as a field. I encourage the development and use of further discipline-based metaphors to enhance our discussion and understanding of this important work.

Mapping do-it-yourself science

The emergence of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) science movements is becoming a topic widely discussed in academia and policy, as well as by the general public and the media. While DIY approaches enjoy increasing diffusion even in official research, different social actors frequently talk about them in different ways and circumstances. Interaction and negotiation processes amongst actors (e.g. policy makers and DIY communities) define the premises upon which different conceptualisations of DIY science are deployed.In this paper we offer a framework for analysing the discourse on DIY science.Our study consists of a field research of three spaces active in DIY science premises, two dedicated events of the DIY community, and an auto-ethnography in the field of DIY biology.By relying on the theory of social worlds/arenas (SW/A), we collected data on how notions of DIY science are constructed by different social actors and how conceptual borders are built or are likely to shift, resulting in multiple possible SW/A mappings. We conclude that each and every conceptualisation of DIY science cannot stand independently from the situatedness of its multiple contexts, therefore making its usage in policy making and governance particularly complex.