research
-
Between truth and trust – young and established scientists discuss public trust in research
The pandemic has changed a lot in our society, including the perception of science by the general public, politicians and governments. The general media has increasingly covered science news during the rise of the health crisis. Shortly after the start of the coronavirus outbreak, public confidence... -
Sophie Gutenthaler: "Understanding a process is the key to not being afraid or suspicious of it"
Sophie Gutenthaler received a B.Sc. in Biochemistry and Chemistry and a M.Sc.in Chemistry from LMU Munich, supported by a Deutschlandstipendium. As part of her studies, she gained international experience during a three-month research internship at the University of York, funded by PROSALMU. During her... -
A scientist’s opinion: interview with Maria Elena Bottazzi on vaccines in low- and middle-income countries
Maria Elena Bottazzi, born in Italy, raised in Honduras, is a microbiologist and infectious disease expert at Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, United States). She and her colleague Peter Hotez led a team in India to develop the Covid-19 vaccine Corbevax, get it manufactured, and then give it away... -
Low cost and open source: vaccines in developing countries
In South Africa, a scientific knowledge transfer hub is working to create a Covid-19 vaccine based on the publicly available sequence of Moderna's mRNA vaccine, without Moderna's involvement but with its approval. In India, scientists are also testing a vaccine to fight SARS-CoV-2. These seem to be big... -
A scientist’s opinion: interview with Petro Terblanche on the first African vaccine hub
Petro Terblanche is Health Science Professor at North-West University and is Managing Director at Afrigen Biologics in South Africa. Next to developing an open source vaccine, Afrigen hosts a global vaccine hub to build capacity and capabilities in low- and middle-income countries to design, develop... -
Interview with Dr. Paul Stoneman: 'We see an increase in polarisation of complete trust or no trust at all in scientists'
Paul Stoneman is a political scientist who specialises in quantitative methods and social and political attitudes. He is currently one of the principal investigators of the World Values Survey, an international research program devoted to the study of social, political, economic, religious and cultural... -
'Predatory' publications put pressure on the integrity of scientific literature
Over two million scientific papers are published every year worldwide. Faced with the pressure to 'publish or perish', researchers can be tempted by journals that charge low publication fees and publish articles of dubious quality. The scale of these 'predatory publication practices' and 'predatory publication... -
An expert’s opinion: Interview with David Moher on predatory journals
Professor David Moher, Director of the Canadian Centre for Journalology, a centre that conducts research on publication practices, speaks about the, in his words, "perverse incentives in academia to publish", and about the impact of less trustworthy sources of scientific information on policy. How...