LSE Impact Blog
London School of Economics and Political Science
The LSE Impact Blog is a hub for researchers, administrative staff, librarians, students, think tanks, government, and anyone else interested in maximising the impact of academic work in the social sciences and other disciplines. We hope to encourage debate, share best practice and keep the impact community up to date with news, events and the latest research.
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LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 16 May 2024 English
Based on an analysis of the relationship between peer review reports and subsequent citations, Abdelghani Maddi argues that longer and hence more constructive and engaged peer review reports are closely …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 15 May 2024 English
The 18th of May is International Museums Day (IMD), which, in 2024, focuses on the potential for museums and collections to unlock knowledge. Kylie Message suggests that although this objective …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 14 May 2024 English
Discussing the findings of their recent independent review of the ESRC’s research data policy, Paul Allanson, Angela Daly, Alistair Geddes, Maeve Malone, Niamh Nic Daeid, and Lucille Tetley-Brown, outline how …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 13 May 2024 English
How individuals and groups are named and designated is inextricably linked to the expected outcomes of policy decisions aimed at influencing them. Discussing her recent work on these ‘objects of …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 8 May 2024 English
Reflecting on the challenges and benefits of publishing research under a group name, Robert Thibault argues group authorship, although at present poorly supported, could be an important means of realigning …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 7 May 2024 English
The word ‘stakeholder’ stands in for a range of people and practices across many research fields. Caitlin Hafferty, Ursula Pool and Pedi Obani argue that the colonial connotations and ingrained …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 2 May 2024 English
In Who’s Afraid of Gender?, Judith Butler confronts contemporary attacks on gender from right-wing movements that have undermined the rights of women, queer and trans people in areas from reproductive …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 1 May 2024 English
As the landscape of social media is constantly shifting, and with many academics migrating from Twitter, LinkedIn has become an increasingly popular platform and is considered by many academics to …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 30 April 2024 English
Social media and a rolling news cycle have led to significant increase in and diversification of the types experts and expertise circulating in the public sphere. It has also introduced …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 29 April 2024 English
From job markets, to housing prices, to shifting quality standards, academia is arranged in a way that benefits senior faculty to the detriment of early career researchers argues Kyle Siler. …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 19 April 2024 English
Reflecting on the cancellation of New Zealand’s Performance Based Research Fund, Roger Smyth explores the origins of this policy change and what it might mean for the future prospects of …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 18 April 2024 English
Popular elections and changes of government have a significant impact on the kinds of research that are prioritised. Julián D. Cortés and Catalina Ramírez draw on a study of research …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 17 April 2024 English
Reflecting on his appearances on the GB News channel to discuss issues relating to climate policy, Bob Ward argues that researcher communicators should engage in spaces where opposing views hold …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 15 April 2024 English
Last year saw significant changes in data protections laws across Europe, the UK and the USA. Daniel Spichtinger, outlines how these changes have created a more complex, but GDPR aligned …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 11 April 2024 English
Drawing on a study of 223,587 science news stories, Hao Peng, Misha Teplitskiy, and David Jurgens find that researchers with non-Anglo names are more likely to not be directly named …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 9 April 2024 English
Following the announcement of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s new open access policy, Richard Sever assesses whether this change signals the beginning of a wider preprint-led open access transition. …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 8 April 2024 English
What exactly is a 4 star REF output or impact case study worth? Jon Collett runs the numbers and suggests how universities might use this information to shape submissions for …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 4 April 2024 English
In policy and legal systems, focusing too narrowly on one discipline can lead to questionable conclusions. Tsuyoshi Hondou and Ismael Rafols introduce ‘Concurrent evidence’, as a framework to consider evidence …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 2 April 2024 English
In The Big Con, Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington claim that our overreliance on the consulting industry has negative consequences for society, inhibiting knowledge transfer and corporate and political accountability. …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 28 March 2024 English
Reflecting on a recent LSE Library late hosted by The Women’s Library at LSE, Gillian Murphy considers the ongoing influence of the The Women’s Library on research, education, culture and …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 26 March 2024 English
The priorities of academic researchers and research users in practice and industry are poorly aligned. Drawing on the practical expertise of those working at the interface of research and practice, …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 25 March 2024 English
Strong evidence suggests that women are not cited less per article than men, but that they accumulate fewer citations over time and at the career level. Cary Wu argues that …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 22 March 2024 English
Caty Borum‘s The Revolution Will Be Hilarious: Comedy for Social Change and Civic Power considers how comedy intersects with activism and drives social change. Borum’s accessible text draws from case …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 21 March 2024 English
Open peer review is often discussed more in theory than practice. Drawing on evidence from a recent systematic review of open peer review studies, Tony Ross-Hellauer and Serge P.J.M. Horbach …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 19 March 2024 English
Following the release of the British Library’s cyber incident report, Simon Bowie argues that the hack was symptomatic of an under-resourced technical team and the outsourcing of key infrastructure. The …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 18 March 2024 English
There have long been calls for policies to be evidence-based. Christian Gade reflects on the conditions under which a policymaker is justified in claiming that a given policy is evidence-based …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 15 March 2024 English
The use of AI-generated images, text and code are becoming a normal occurrence in academic work. Mohammad Hosseini and Kristi Holmes reflect on a recent misadventure with AI image generation …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 14 March 2024 English
In Tactical Publishing: Using Senses, Software, and Archives in the Twenty-First Century, Alessandro Ludovico assembles a vast repertoire of post-digital publications to make the case for their importance in shaping …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 11 March 2024 English
Does all policy research benefit from co-production? Matthew Johnson, Elliott Johnson, Irene Hardill and Daniel Nettle argue that the key benefits co-production for policymaking lie not in areas of high …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 8 March 2024 English
Higher education is often presumed to be a uniquely egalitarian and meritocratic field. However, persistent inequalities within academic work and increasingly the current and historic mechanisms underlying them that disadvantage …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 8 March 2024 English
Drawing on qualitative data and CV evidence Margaretha Järvinen and Nanna Mik-Meyer explore the gendered nature of academic service work and highlight how different expectations and strategies affect the workloads …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 7 March 2024 English
For PhD researchers it can be hard to say no to the opportunity to take on new “side projects”. Pat Thomson considers when and how side projects can be useful …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 4 March 2024 English
The qualitative-quantitative debate, that has been a defining feature of social scientific research, has become a hinderance. Alex Gillespie, Vlad Glăveanu, and Constance de Saint-Laurent argue, in their new book …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 28 February 2024 English
Reflecting on how they brought about “Swiftposium” (an academic conference focused on all things Taylor Swift) Hannah McCann, Eloise Faichney, Rebecca Trelease and Emma Whatman consider the value of academic …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 27 February 2024 English
As Research England considers increasing the weighting of environment statements to 25% in REF2029, there is a heightened focus on what exactly constitutes a high-quality statement. Based on a textual …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 26 February 2024 English
Research on corporate cartels plays an important role in how competition authorities address and prevent business collusion. Based on an analysis of two decades of collusion research, W. Benedikt Schmal …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 22 February 2024 English
ITV’s primetime drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office hastened legislation to compensate sub-postmasters caught up in the Horizon scandal, overturning the judicial process after years of legal wrangling. Joseph …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 21 February 2024 English
Despite being emulated in similar exercises around the world, the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) had been widely criticised in the UK. One sticking point is the use of narrative …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 20 February 2024 English
In Understanding Humans: How Social Science Can Help Solve Our Problems, David Edmonds curates a selection of interviews with social science researchers covering the breadth of human life and society, …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 15 February 2024 English
Policy engagement is often described in terms that are universal and without specificity to the individuals undertaking this kind of research. Sarah Weakley and David Waite argue that for early …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 14 February 2024 English
In Global Language Justice, Lydia H. Liu and Anupama Rao bring together contributions at the intersection of language, justice and technology, exploring topics including ecolinguistics, colonial legacies and the threat …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 13 February 2024 English
In the past the preservation of the scholarly record relied on physical print publications being archived in multiple places by different institutions. In principle this holds true for digital preservation, …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 12 February 2024 English
The humanities can make a significant contribution to both the realisation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and to the design of Australia’s new national assessment model. Kylie Message argues …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 9 February 2024 English
Across all disciplines norms are being established around the role of generative AI in research. Discussing a recent LSE Impact Blogpost on academic responses to AI, Eric A. Jensen suggests …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 8 February 2024 English
Drawing on insights from a recent international survey on research integrity and a recent high-profile case, Nick Allum and Robin Brooker find previous work on scientific plagiarism may have underestimated …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 6 February 2024 English
Following the resignation of Harvard president Claudine Gay over allegations of plagiarism, questions around research integrity and the integrity of the scholarly record have come to the fore. Till Bruckner …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 5 February 2024 English
Drawing on findings from the SHAPE in Schools project, Tallulah Holley argues that the prioritisation of STEM subjects in schools risks the creation of a pipeline of students unable to …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 31 January 2024 English
Research data repositories play a vital role in ensuring research is reproducible, replicable and reusable. Yet, the infrastructure supporting them can be impermanent. Drawing on a new dataset Dorothea Strecker, …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 30 January 2024 English
Open access is built on the promise that more people are able to access and use research. Putting this to the test, Chun-Kai (Karl) Huang, Cameron Neylon and Lucy Montgomery …
LSE: London School of Economics and Political Science · 26 January 2024 English
In Art, Science and the Politics of Knowledge, Hannah Star Rogers challenges the traditional dichotomy between art and science, arguing that they share common approaches to knowledge-making. Drawing on Science …