Last year, I served on a couple NSF panels*, and I’d like to share some thoughts. Instead of a coherent narrative, I’ll just give a bulleted set of observations and ideas.

Mr. Beall’s website, which identifies “predatory open access scholarly publishers” that masquerade as scholarly journals, has grown to 923 publishers from 18 in 2011.

Universal Green OA Is the Most Efficient and Fairest of Science Publishing Strategies.

So why make your work available as preprints? There are perceived positives and negatives to disclosing scientific work in the form of a preprint, explored here in the form of 10 Simple Rules.

The EU’s fresh round of billion-euro Flagship research projects must be open to all types of science.

A Q&A with outgoing science adviser John Holdren.

This January will not only mark a new year but a new administration and with that over 4000 new presidential appointees across the federal government.  One appointment that has the potential to either hinder or benefit the biomedical research community is that of the director of the National Institutes of Health.

It’s easy for UK researchers to focus on the downsides of leaving the EU. A House of Lords report today calls for a more positive approach.

Open access publishing that permits commercial reuse enables the kinds of public-private partnerships that are essential to scientific innovation.

How a likely change in science policy in the US may result in a shift of the centre of gravity of research, particularly in certain disciplines.

The Journal Impact Factor (JIF) has been heavily criticized over decades. This opinion piece argues that the JIF should not be demonized. It still can be employed for research evaluation purposes by carefully considering the context and academic environment.

'Pick an issue on any president's agenda, and scientific literacy will be important.'

Why does a mole rat live 30 years but a mouse only three? With $1.5 billion in the bank, Google’s anti-aging spinout Calico is rich enough to find out.

Evidence to parliamentary inquiry puts some figures on the uncertainty hanging over EU university staff.

A perspective by Kathy L. Hudson and Francis S. Collins on the 21st Century Cures Act.

Elsevier explains the thought process behind its new journal impact metrics.

Sociologist Matthijs Rooduijn explains why the darkening political mood must force academics to step up and choose sides.

The measurement of Impact Factor – how many citations a publication or a researcher is able to attract, is one of the most controversial yet most widely used quality indicators in science.

How to address high tech’s missing XX factor

Promises made by researchers to participants to elicit the truth may not be worth the paper their written on if the courts can bulldoze though them.

Two men came to Zurich. Their mission: to persuade Albert Einstein to join them in Berlin...

Writers from the Guardian’s science blog network pick out the books from across the cultural spectrum that delighted them most this year

Fellow Congress members should rely on peer-reviewed science, not fake news.

Dwindling gains in science, medicine and technology hold back growth; is America too risk-averse?

Scientists should challenge online falsehoods and inaccuracies — and harness the collective power of the Internet to fight back, argues Phil Williamson.

Technology and practice can help shy and introverted researchers to succeed when reticence is risky.

As the far-reaching Higher Education and Research Bill reaches the House of Lords, further amendments are needed to ensure it succeeds in its aims

MIT president L. Rafael Reif writes that in the 1970s government spending on fundamental research was 2% of GDP. That’s how to beat cancer, climate change and more.

Job insecurity and the impact it is having on family life.

To claim credit for a discovery, we publish it in a peer-reviewed journal; to get a job in academia or money to run a lab, we present piles of these published papers to universities and funding agencies. Publishing is so embedded in the practice of science that whoever controls the journals controls access to the entire profession. It is, therefore, worth examining to whom we have entrusted the keys to the kingdom of science.