Science of Science

Ofer is interested (as a curiosity) in the science of the scientific method itself, and how it has evolved over the years (for better and worse). This includes dynamics of research, publishing, research evaluation, as well as the level of influence and impact science has over society.

Here are some interesting reads we've collected over the years to get the juices flowing:

1. "Are China's universities really the best in the world?"

2. "Scientists hide messages in papers to game AI peer review"

3. "The pivot penalty in research"

4. "Replicability and the evolution of scientific norms"

5. "Catchy, clear, concise: three-part phrases boost research paper citations"

6. "Shoddy commentaries—a quick and dirty route to higher impact numbers—are on the rise"

7. "Springer Nature IPO valuation at 4.5 billion$"

8. "Why I've removed journal titles from the papers on my CV"

9. "Do grant proposal texts matter for funding decisions? A field experiment"

10. "A researcher who publishes a study every two days reveals the darker side of science"

11. "Surge in number of ‘extremely productive’ authors concerns scientists"

12. "Google Scholar is manipulatable"

13. "Authors’ names have ‘astonishing’ influence on peer reviewers"

14. "Where Nobel winners get their start"

15. "These four journals publish the most Nobel Prize-winning papers in physics"

16. "Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?"

17. "Impact or perish, gaming the metrics and Goodhart's law"

18. "In some scientific papers, words expressing uncertainty have decreased"

19. "Wavering impact-factor trajectories: How academia is exploring new approaches for evaluating researchers"

20. "Revealed: the millions of dollars in time wasted making papers fit journal guidelines"

21. "The illusion of moral decline"

22. "Distortion of journal impact factors in the era of paper mills"

23. "EU council’s ‘no pay’ publishing model draws mixed response"

24. "Anonymizing peer review makes the process more just"

25. "Temporal dynamics of faculty hiring in mathematics"

26. "Fake scientific papers are alarmingly common"

27. "Is MDPI a predatory publisher?"

28. "Nine reasons why Impact Factors fail and using them may harm science"

29. "Exploring Gender Bias in Six Key Domains of Academic Science: An Adversarial Collaboration"

30. "Saudi universities entice top scientists to switch affiliations — sometimes with cash"