Is partial behaviour a plausible explanation for the unavailability of the ICMJE disclosure form of an author in a BMJ journal?

This case study about the ethical behaviour in the field of scholarly publishing documents an exception on the rule for research articles in the medical journal BMJ Open that ICMJE disclosure forms of authors must be made available on request. The ICMJE, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, has developed these forms for the disclosure of conflicts of interest for authors of medical publications. The case refers to the form of the corresponding author of an article in BMJ Open on retraction notices (Moylan and Kowalczuk, 2016). The corresponding author is a member of the council of COPE, the Committee on Publication Ethics. I will argue that the unavailability of the form relates to personal conflicts of interest with the corresponding author about my efforts to retract a fatally flawed study on the breeding biology of the Basra Reed Warbler Acrocephalus griseldis. I describe my attempts to get the form and I will argue that its unavailability can be attributed to partial behaviour by BMJ, the publisher of BMJ Open. This study complements other sources reporting ethical issues at COPE

Italian policies on university: a serious obstacle on the road to recovery and growth of the country

The Italian university, after the birth of the Republic, continued for many years to be characterized by a marked centralism, despite the wide autonomy recognized by the Art. 33 of the Italian Constitution. Since the last eighties a progressively increased autonomy has been granted, initially only statutory and then also regulatory, financial, didactic and in recruiting, which provided the universities with the tools to move quickly towards the European and international competition.However, starting from the financial crisis in 2008, all the governments have chosen to dramatically change the course by starting a path of downsizing the university system, with a gradual subtraction of financial resources into the universities and a parallel limitation of autonomy.The impact of the policies adopted has been a disaster and has pushed Italy into the last positions among the European Union countries for funding at universities and last place by number of graduates in the age range of 30-34 years.In line with this approach is also framed the law of December 30, 2010, no. 240, the so-called Gelmini Law, with which a radical reversal of the system has been settled with respect to the previous autonomy policies on the university.The substantial carelessness towards the university, when not the hostility, shown by the policy and the widespread idea that its funding is not seen as an investment, but rather as an expense and a luxury that we cannot afford, leaves little hope for the future of our country and lets us imagine more and more obscure scenarios. Political choices, whether deliberately or not, are progressively leading to the dismantling of the Italian university. The Italian university, after the birth of the Republic, continued for many years to be characterized by a marked centralism, despite the wide autonomy recognized by the Art. 33 of the Italian Constitution. Since the last eighties a progressively increased autonomy has been granted, initially only statutory and then also regulatory, financial, didactic and in recruiting, which provided the universities with the tools to move quickly towards the European and international competition.However, starting from the financial crisis in 2008, all the governments have chosen to dramatically change the course by starting a path of downsizing the university system, with a gradual subtraction of financial resources into the universities and a parallel limitation of autonomy.The impact of the policies adopted has been a disaster and has pushed Italy into the last positions among the European Union countries for funding at universities and last place by number of graduates in the age range of 30-34 years.In line with this approach is also framed the law of December 30, 2010, no. 240, the so-called Gelmini Law, with which a radical reversal of the system has been settled with respect to the previous autonomy policies on the university.The substantial carelessness towards the university, when not the hostility, shown by the policy and the widespread idea that its funding is not seen as an investment, but rather as an expense and a luxury that we cannot afford, leaves little hope for the future of our country and lets us imagine more and more obscure scenarios. Political choices, whether deliberately or not, are progressively leading to the dismantling of the Italian university

Errors and secret data in the Italian research assessment exercise. A comment to a reply

Italy adopted a performance-based system for funding universities that is centered on the results of a national research assessment exercise, realized by a governmental agency (ANVUR). ANVUR evaluated papers by using “a dual system of evaluation”, that is by informed peer review or by bibliometrics. In view of validating that system, ANVUR performed an experiment for estimating the agreement between informed review and bibliometrics. Ancaiani et al. (2015) presents the main results of the experiment. Alberto Baccini and De Nicolao (2017) documented in a letter, among other critical issues, that the statistical analysis was not realized on a random sample of articles. A reply to the letter has been published by Research Evaluation (Benedetto et al. 2017). This note highlights that in the reply there are (1) errors in data, (2) problems with “representativeness” of the sample, (3) unverifiable claims about weights used for calculating kappas, (4) undisclosed averaging procedures; (5) a statement about “same protocol in all areas” contradicted by official reports. Last but not least: the data used by the authors continue to be undisclosed. A general warning concludes: many recently published papers use data originating from Italian research assessment exercise. These data are not accessible to the scientific community and consequently these papers are not reproducible. They can be hardly considered as containing sound evidence at least until authors or ANVUR disclose the data necessary for replication

Stato giuridico, reclutamento ed evoluzione della docenza universitaria (1975-2015)

The changes in the legal status and in the recruiting procedures of Italian University professors and researchers occurred in the last forty years are summarily described.The related recruiting policies are analyzed in detail, reporting yearly data on recruitment and on the (growing) average age of access to the different roles.Data on the quantitative evolution of the academic staff and on its constant aging are presented (and discussed) on a yearly basis from the early Eighties to the year 2015. The distinct evolution of different scientific areas is analyzed. Gender effects (and in particular the “glass ceiling”) are considered.The most significant changes in the geographic distribution of Universities and of their teaching body (from the year 1939 to the present day) are described.Some general conclusions on the Italian University system and its recent evolution are drawnThe changes in the legal status and in the recruiting procedures of Italian University professors and researchers occurred in the last forty years are summarily described.The related recruiting policies are analyzed in detail, reporting yearly data on recruitment and on the (growing) average age of access to the different roles.Data on the quantitative evolution of the academic staff and on its constant aging are presented (and discussed) on a yearly basis from the early Eighties to the year 2015. The distinct evolution of different scientific areas is analyzed. Gender effects (and in particular the “glass ceiling”) are considered.The most significant changes in the geographic distribution of Universities and of their teaching body (from the year 1939 to the present day) are described.Some general conclusions on the Italian University system and its recent evolution are draw

Un elemento di valutazione della qualità della didattica universitaria

For many years, Italian Universities have been committed to to collecting "assessment questionnaires" of the courses from their students. It is not fully clear how to manage these questionnaires, though. In the present work, we propose a method to single out significant information from the wide amount of issues raised by the students. With this work, we aim at improving the services offered by Universities. Human resources dedicated to the evaluation of teaching are definitely scarse, if not absent. Thus, we believe that coordination committees must focus on the most critical issues, rather than dispersing information.In this work, we show how an almost automatic method allows to single out a very limited fraction (about 7% in the case of our Faculty of Sciences at Sapienza University in Rome) of really critical courses. Our political objective is to give a clear and objective answer to the students\u27 request of improving those courses. With this approach we do not consider the students\u27 opinions as absolute. We rather aim at respecting their implicit request of verification of their opinions.Our approach also suggests some improvements in the formulation of the questions raised in the questionnaires, so as to reduce ambiguity and obtain a more accurate statistical treatment. In the example presented here, a very high appreciation of our courses emerges if we focus on the average values. However, a punctual control of opinions for a fraction of courses is indispensable. Technically, we use the so called trimming method to single out the problematic courses. This method, used in a variety of fields, helps to control for carelessness of some students who may not take the questionnaires seriously. In our case, for each course and for each question, we delete 50% of the questionnaires, namely those corresponding to 25% of the most positive and 25% of the most negative. Still, our analysis leads to very stable results, if we focus onthe most critical courses, which is the main objective of this work.Da molti anni le Università italiane hanno l\u27obbligo di somministrare questionari sul gradimento degli insegnamenti. Non è chiaro tuttavia come utilizzare questi questionari. In questo lavoro si propone un metodo per selezionare l\u27enorme informazione contenuta nei suggerimenti di studentesse e studenti. L\u27unico obiettivo che appare utile è migliorare i servizi offerti dall\u27Università. Le risorse di personale a disposizione di coloro che coordinano le attività didattiche sono inadeguate ed a volta risibili. Pertanto sembra necessario concentrare l\u27attenzione degli organi di coordinamento sulle maggiori ciriticità. Nel nostro lavoro dimostriamo che un metodo quasi automatico permette di isolare una porzione molto limitata (il 7% circa nel caso della Facoltà di Scienze della Sapienza) di insegnamenti drammaticamente critici. L\u27obiettivo politico è rispondere, con chiarezza, nella massima trasparenza, alla domanda che viene da studentesse e studenti di migliorare quei particolari insegnamenti. Non si postula un\u27attestazione di sacralità alle opinioni espresse, ma si vuole praticare e diffondere il rispetto assoluto della richiesta di verifica, implicita in tali opinioni. Il nostro approccio suggerisce anche in che modo sarebbe utile modificare leggermente la formulazione delle domande per rendere l\u27analisi statistica ancora più accurata. Nel complesso, per la realtà studiata in questo lavoro emerge un gradimento molto alto, se si guarda soltanto a valori medi. Tuttavia esiste una porzione di insegnamenti per i quali l\u27azione di verifica puntuale delle affermazioni contenute nei questionari appare utile e doverosa.Tecnicamente, l\u27uso del cosiddetto "trimming method" appare particolarmente efficace per la selezione degli insegnamenti problematici. In sostanza si tratta di un metodo, molto adoperato in situazioni molto diverse, per ripulire il campione statistico dalla possibile presenza, in questo caso, di questionari che potrebbero essere stati compilati con scarsa attenzione. Nel nostro caso, per ogni insegnamento, e per ogni singola domanda posta nei questionari, eliminiamo il 50% dei questionari. Più esattamente, un 25% è composto dalle valutazioni più favorevoli e un 25% è composto dalle valutazioni più sfavorevoli. La nostra analisi mostra una grande stabilità dei risultati se si mantiene l\u27obiettivo della ricerca degli insegnamenti più critici

La valutazione d’impatto socio-economico e culturale della ricerca nelle scienze umane e sociali: uno studio di caso in una Università del Regno Unito

The aim of this paper is to describe the impact of research on society, economy and culture in the Humanities and Social sciences. In the first part of the paper, we describe the principal characteristics of the evaluation of research impact in the United Kingdom (UK), with a special focus on the new national exercise of research evaluation: the ‘Research Excellence Framework’ (REF2014). In the second part of the paper we present a case study in a British university campus where good practices of impact evaluation have been recently introduced. The main results of this study show that impact evaluation of Social sciences and Humanities research is a today’s key challenge for the academia, especially due to the difficulty in identifying the appropriate indicators for research impact measurement. Finally, we present the main themes of the current debate about the evaluation of the impacts in different fields of research.The  aim  of  this  paper  is  to  describe  the  impact  of  research  on  society,  economy  and culture in the Humanities and Social sciences. In the first part of the paper, we describe the principal characteristics  of  the  evaluation  of  research  impact  in  the  United  Kingdom  (UK),  with  a  special focus on the new national exercise of research evaluation: the ‘Research Excellence Framework’ (REF2014). In the second part of the paper we present a case study in a British university campus where good practices of impact evaluation have been recently introduced. The main results of this study show that impact evaluation of Social sciences and Humanities research is a today’s key challenge  for  the  academia,  especially  due  to the  difficulty  in  identifying  the  appropriate  indicators for research impact measurement. Finally, we present the main themes of the current debate about the evaluation of the impacts in different fields of researc

Italian university in Europe: remarks on equivalence of diplomas and freedom of movement within the Union

In this paper I discuss aspects of the problems arising when a recognition of qualifications for the profession of university professor acquired in foreign states members of the European Union is attempted in Italy. I show that different obstacles still exist to the achievement of the free movement of workers -a fundamental principle of the Union enshrined in article 45 of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union. In this sense I also comment on the obligation for university professors of Italian university to reside within the municipality of their university.In this paper I discuss aspects of the problems arising when a recognition of qualifications for the profession of university professor acquired in foreign states members of the European Union is attempted in Italy. I show that different obstacles still exist to the achievement of the free movement of workers -a fundamental principle of the Union enshrined in article 45 of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union. In this sense I also comment on the obligation for university professors of Italian university to reside within the municipality of their university

Science Policy for an increasingly diverging Europe

This paper argues about the need for a revisited public policy framework giving priority to knowledge and technological change across the entire Europe, by discussing new cumulative data on R&D expenditure and the qualification of human resources across Europe. It takes a wide international comparison after a decade hit by recession and economic and budgetary problems, which shows an increasing internal divergence on knowledge investments across Europe, beyond the increasing gap between Europe as a whole and North America. As a result, the paper argues that new paradigms and conditions for responsible science and innovation policy across EU require the collective action of R&D institutions and a system approach to higher education, together with new initiatives towards international cooperation across an enlarged Europe.Analysis shows that chronic backwardness in science and technology in many European peripheries, including in EU southern and eastern regions, have been significantly overcome over the last decade. Nevertheless, their growing scientific and technological capacity is now associated with an increasing vulnerability as a result of the growing international competition for qualified human resources. Additionally, the comparative analysis of levels of economic diversification and sophistication across Europe, suggests the need to insist on qualification and institutional strengthening. This should consider active public policies to attract and retain qualified human resources all over Europe, as well as considering public actions towards promoting new markets. The way in which the economic fabric may gain competitiveness and access to external markets may require enhancing the degree of internationalization of the scientific community and encouraging international knowledge and innovation networks.

University ranking methodologies. An interview with Ben Sowter about the Quacquarelli Symonds World University Ranking

University rankings represent a controversial issue in the debate about higher education policy. One of the best known university ranking is the Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings (QS), published annually since 2004 by Quacquarelli Symonds ltd, a company founded in 1990 and headquartered in London. QS provides a ranking based on a score calculated by weighting six different indicators. The 2015 edition, published in October 2015, introduced major methodological innovations and, as a consequence, many universities worldwide underwent major changes of their scores and ranks. Ben Sowter, head of division of intelligence unit of Quacquarelli Symonds, responds to 15 questions about the new QS methodology.

Some remarks on the division of cognitive labor

Since the publication of Kitcher’s influential paper The Division of Cognitive Labor, some philosophers wondered about these two related issues: (1) which is the optimal distribution of cognitive efforts among rival methods within a scientific community?, and (2) whether and how can a community achieve such an optimal distribution? Though not committing to any specific answer to question (1), I claim that issue (2) does not depend exclusively on an invisible hand like mechanism, since both intra-scientific and extra-scientific institutions may play a major role. Finally, I examine some practical difficulties of reallocating scientists from a method to another, which leads to stress the importance of well-planned training and recruitment