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Elephant in the Lab

Elephant in the Lab
Bold ideas and critical thoughts on science.
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Published
Author Elias Koch

What’s the matter? Keeping track of the latest articles published in the leading journals in one’s field of expertise can be challenging. But even if it is impossible to know literally every newly published paper in a field, having an overview of its recent, most prominent research agendas might be both inspiring and helpful to contribute to discussions with fellow scholars or students.

Published
Author Elias Koch

To what extent are research findings and theories transferable and generalizable beyond the contexts they were designed from and for? This is a main question that we, researchers, constantly think about and find it hard to answer.

Published
Author Sascha Schönig

Several universities in the country have been either completely destroyed or damaged. Most recently, the central building of the Taras Shevchenko National University standing in the center of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv suffered from an explosion nearby. At the same time, the interview itself illustrated the dramatic circumstances of this process: the online-talk was disrupted by air raid siren alerts.

Published
Author Elias Koch

Abstract Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly contributing to scientific breakthroughs in many fields. It is also clear that openness and cross-disciplinary collaboration are becoming key features of the process of modern science. Yet, we know little about the intersection of these two developments – whether and how AI may shape openness and collaboration in research.

Published
Author Sascha Schönig

In 2019 researchers at Simon Fraser University set out to catalogue the world’s scholarly publishing platforms. They restricted themselves to open source projects, and yet still identified over 50 projects to produce and host scholarly journals and books. The platforms range from established (like Open Journal Systems) to fledgling (like Rebus Ink), and everything in between.

Published
Author Sascha Schönig

For most liberal democracies, scientific expertise is an important ingredient of political decision-making. Scientific forecasts and assessments of, for example, poverty or social mobility, the impact of exhaust fumes on public health or the risks of viral outbreaks, help governments to weigh arguments and decide on policy measures. But how exactly does scientific knowledge make its way into politics?

Published
Author Sascha Schönig

Introduction The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic led to a global and accelerated digitalisation of all education systems. This quickly revealed many inequalities in access to digital resources and lack of digital skills. What concrete impact has this had on learners and teachers worldwide? How can we address these inequalities in education?

Published
Author Sascha Schönig

Human history is ridden with dreams of utopias. Ideas and visions outlining societies or communities that are free from faults and flaws, running perfectly according to plan. There is no shortage of examples. Many are political, some religious and others stacked somewhere in between.

Published
Author Elias Koch

Evidence-based policy advice and evidence-based policy-making constitute two related concepts that are widely Evidence-based policy advice and evidence-based policy-making constitute two related concepts that are widely supported. Both political and scientific actors argue that political decisions should be based on scientific evidence in order to manage societal problems;