Research

Editors have noted a “certain level of sloppiness” creeping into research papers, the executive editor of the Nature Publishing Group has said.

A new grouping of southeast institutions accounts for a third of EPSRC-funded work. Paul Jump reports

Husband-and-wife academics debate the merits of the research excellence framework

The divisive country-club culture at ‘Midwest University’ that places status above study and raises partying to a vocation

Entrepreneurial and academic excellence are pursued side by side, and the dividends are clear to see

But investigation finds that practice ‘did not always meet’ expected standards

Obama defends discipline from Republican attacks

A “big data” health research centre at the University of Oxford has been announced as the latest to benefit from the government’s UK Research Partnership Investment Fund.

University of London college targets graduate employability and research cash

Rather than the academy relaxing its ethical standards, perhaps areas of the media need to raise their game, argues Keith Richards

Robert Gordon head critiques traditional rationale for scholarly activity

A BBC scheme aims to tackle gender inequality

A bill to reform the libel system in England and Wales is set to become law after completing its passage through the Houses of Parliament.

The University of Oxford professor of tropical medicine and global health has been named as the new director of the Wellcome Trust.

Ensuring that knowledge translates into growth will be among the priorities the incoming government chief scientific adviser Mark Walport has set himself for the next five years.

Students at the London School of Economics who were on a controversial visit to North Korea with undercover BBC journalists have hit out at the university, saying it has placed them in greater danger than the trip itself.

Academics count the costs of Panorama’s North Korea exposé

Paul Manners worries that rush to tell research stories turns academics into salesmen and undermines collaboration

Research club offers hands-on access to fascinating materials from aerogel to baby teeth

Vast digital archive of court records 1674-1913 is ‘dead people’s big data’

Theatre director uses fellowship to give dramatic shape to the stories of ex-combatants

Exceptions in the UK funding councils’ open access policy will be made for researchers hired from abroad, the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s head of research has pledged.

The BBC’s use of a student group from the London School of Economics to gain access to North Korea could jeopardise the overseas reputation of UK universities and the work of academics more generally, according to the sector’s representative body and the LSE director

Scientists in the UK have won a major Czech research contract worth £10 million to develop laser technology.

Future European funding may depend on identifying how research affects women as well as men

Yachtswoman’s charity funds research into innovative economic ideas

In a world untouched by the Sun for millennia, a UK scientist found research heaven and arachnophobe hell

Report says distribution would change little if based on institutions’ research council income

Cardiff University’s dean of medicine has been cleared of research misconduct but the institution has found a former member of his lab guilty of image falsification in four papers.

Research Councils UK has removed from its guidance on its open-access policy an exhortation for institutions and authors to make sure a “proper market in article fees” operates.

The British Library – and the nation’s other legal deposit libraries – have officially taken on responsibility to archive UK web content, opening up immense opportunities for researchers.

Publication ethics committee issues new guidelines for peer review

Canadian human-rights case highlights disquiet at practices of Beijing-funded centres up on foreign campuses

Episciences Project offers new publishing formula

Universities should vet research outputs before they get to the publishing (and scandal) stage, say Roger Watson and Mark Hayter

US president Barack Obama’s announcement that $100 million (£66 million) is to be invested in an initiative to map the human brain has been welcomed by the country’s higher education institutions.

Newcastle University is to launch a new £7 million centre for undersea and offshore engineering on the site of a famous former shipyard.

The public-private balance of funding sources needs to be adjusted to protect the public interest, says Roger Brown

Colin Hay insists that work as chair of politics subpanel will be unaffected by new Sciences Po job

Senior humanities and social science academics come out in support of move to ‘take knowledge out of silos’

Chester tackles bodily totems and taboos. Matthew Reisz reports

REF factor may explain growing wage differential

Teams from six universities will make up the UK’s second cyber security research institute, it has been announced.

Christopher Higgins details academy’s cost burden to Booksellers Association conference

In a further demonstration of the lure of the so-called golden triangle, pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca has announced plans to relocate its UK-based research and development activities from Cheshire to Cambridge.

Council unveils five-year strategy

Chief executive Roly Keating tells Matthew Reisz he will help university libraries seek ‘the heart of the service’

‘Common principles’ plan aims to protect research from risk-averse committees. Paul Jump reports

Matthew Reisz visits an exhibition to celebrate the bicentenary of a pioneering epidemiologist

A feud at the heart of the discipline is undermining efforts to build a unified science of humanity, warns Camilla Power

Revised open-access guidance leaves unanswered questions

UK businesses are being failed by the government’s lack of a “coherent strategy to support the commercialisation of technological innovation in the UK”, MPs have said.

Artistic practice can certainly be research - but the present model in UK universities is confused and lacks intellectual rigour, argues Nicholas Till

University of Birmingham professor appointed post-Higgs boson ‘spokesperson’. By Paul Jump

West London development will provide facilities for research, translation and commercialisation, explains Sir Keith O’Nions, Imperial president

A disastrous open-access policy lashes the promise of the digital age to an outmoded buggy of a model, laments Martin McQuillan

Sir Mark Walport looks back at a highly successful decade in charge

Collection established of personal accounts of Women’s Liberation Movement activists. Elizabeth Gibney reports

Matthew Reisz meets scholars whose enquiries are intertwined with their creative endeavours

Longer embargo periods of up to 24 months for green open access will only apply when universities’ annual block grants for “gold” article fees have run out, Research Councils UK has confirmed.