News & Views Index
May
2011

 

 

 

The Tortuous Path of the ERA -- 3½ Years On and No Resolution.    30/05/11

    Does a Ministerial statement to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee allow us to ask are we witnessing the further expenditure of many millions of dollars in what looks increasingly to be a counter-productive exercise? [More

 

What the EC Wants From Its 8th Framework Program.    27/05/11

    The first thing FP8 wants is innovation. [More]

 

Government Commits to Protection of Academics' Intellectual Freedom.    26/05/11

     There will be an explicit acknowledgement that university staff have a right and a responsibility to exercise free intellectual inquiry. [More]

 

Ben Bernanke Speaks on "Promoting Research and Development: The Government's Role".    26/05/11

    "Governments that choose to provide support for R&D... [should avoid] a pattern of 'feast and famine.'" [More]

 

Mark Diesendorf: Australia’s Confused Solar Policy Lacks Energy.    25/05/11

    [W]hy is our commitment to solar so half-hearted? [More]

 

Science and Technology: Key Table from the OECD -- GERD as a Percentage of GDP.    24/05/11 [More]

 

FASTS' Response to the Climate Change Commission's Report, The Critical Decade.    24/05/11

    And the four key messages of the report. [More]

 

The Last Word (We Should be So Lucky) on Mobile Phone Radiation.    24/05/11 [More]

 

University of Wollongong Duo World's Best in Optically Stimulated Luminescence Dating.    23/05/11

    Public research dollars should target the research group not the institution [More]

 

Archive of PCAST's May 19, 2011 Webcast.    21/05/11

    The archive of the May 19, 2011 meeting of the US President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology is now available. [More]

 

University of Western Australia's V-C Addresses Co-operative Research Centres' Conference.    20/05/11

    To sustain economic competitiveness Australia cannot rely on a strategy of passive absorption of foreign technology. Free-riding on the rest of the world’s research is not a realistic option... [More

 

Fix the PhD: a Rebuttal.    19/05/11 [More]

 

Labor Government's Analysis for Higher Education Funding 2001 -2012.    18/05/11

    By manipulating the figures as it has, Labor unnecessarily calls into question its objectivity in assessing the relative support by the two governments. [More]

 

Oxford Congregation to Vote on No Confidence Motion in UK Minister of State (Universities and Science).    18/05/11

    Karma Nabulsi: The government's higher education policies as "incoherent and incompetent. [More]

 

IPCC Agrees to Overhaul Its Procedures.    17/05/11

    The decision to reform how the IPCC did business was in response to recommendations made by the InterAcademy Council. [More]

 

Innovation in Teaching Physics to Large Classes.    15/05/11

    Carl Wieman: We found increased student attendance, higher engagement, and more than twice the learning in the section taught using research-based instruction. [More

 

ERA Journal Rankings Still in the News, Still Controversial.    14/05/11

    "The desire to evaluate quality is not a desire that is antithetical to scholarship, because scholarship is about good-quality work. It's whether or not a kind of bureaucratic mode of evaluating quality actually allows the real quality to become visible." [More

 

California Leads on Clean Energy.    14/05/11

    A bill requiring utilities in California to obtain at least 33% of their electricity from clean, renewable sources by 2020 was signed into law on April 20, 2011. [More

 

It's a Question of Which End of the Dog do You Believe.    14/05/11

    As the old gag has it: If a dog approaches you with teeth beared and tail wagging, which end should you believe. [More]

 

Updated Agenda for May 19, 2011 Meeting of PCAST.    13/05/11

    NASA's science activities and the NRC's "Conceptual Framework" of science education standards are to be discussed. [More

 

Where Science Took Some Hits in the 2011/12 Federal Budget.    12/05/11 [More]

 

FASTS Takes Issue With the Government's Stance on Climate Change.    11/05/11

    Budget a win for climate change deniers [More]

 

Australian Academy of Science Gives a Mixed Report on Federal Budget's Support for Science.    11/05/11 [More]

 

Senate Committee Makes 8 Recommendations with Regard to TEQSA Legislation.    11/05/11 [More]

 

The PhD Glut and What Can be Done About It.    09/05/11

    Shirley Tilghman: my foremost concern is that we continue to replenish the pool of brilliant and ambitious students whose energy and curiosity—and yes, sometimes even naïveté—are so crucial for discovery. [More

 

European Science Foundation Releases the European Peer Review Guide.    07/05/11

     The 88-page guide is the set of international guidelines for the peer review of research grants developed through the coordination by the ESF of the joint effort among the over 30 national funding and performing organisations. [More]

 

A Secondary School Student Makes a Suggestion.    06/05/11

     I propose a graduate school–style approach to primary and secondary school STEM education. [More

 

QS World University Rankings for Biological Sciences, Medicine and Psychology.    06/05/11

    Not unexpectedly the United States leads the pack in all three categories with the UK coming in second. [More

 

Cathy Foley: Almost Any Major Development These Days Has a Rich Core of Science Running Through It.    03/05/11

    Yet science is increasingly under attack. So what's not to like? The answer is possibly twofold — science reveals "inconvenient truths" and nobody likes a smarty pants. [More

 

Chair of the Group of Eight to Tell Government "Quality is Not Some Minimum Standard Set by a Group Such as the TEQSA".    03/05/11

    To continue to be a major economic earner for the country Australian higher education must obsess about being internationally competitive. [More]