Fieldwork is an important component of data collection in environmental sciences and other related disciplines. Sensitive to the ways in which field based environmental sciences (FBES) research is often unsafe and lacks inclusivity, we explore findings from a mixed methods study that identified barriers to inclusion and overlooked risks to safety…

For over two decades now, the application of Citizen Science to Education has been evolving, and fundamental topics, such as the drivers of motivation to participate in Citizen Science projects, are still under discussion. Some recent developments, though, like the use of Artificial Intelligence to support data collection and validation, seem to…

Collaboration is a modern mantra of the neoliberal university and part of a discourse allied to research performativity quantitatively measured via co-authorship. Yet, beyond the metrics and the positive rhetoric collaboration is a complex and paradoxical concept. Academic staff are exhorted to collaborate, particularly in respect to research…

Introduction: We report an investigation on collaboration practices in research papers published in the most prestigious English-medium astrophysics journals. Method: We propose an evaluation method based on three numerical indicators to study and compare, in absolute terms, three different types of collaboration (international, national and…

Contact between practicing researchers and local school students is a recognised means of furthering student opportunities, encouraging a widespread interest in science and allowing development of teaching and communication skills for the participating scientist. The Researchers in Residence (RinR) scheme is a national initiative that promotes…

Purpose: Owing to the specialist nature of biological experimentation, scientific research staff have been largely neglected from the pro-environmental initiatives which have inundated other areas of higher education. This dearth of studies is surprising given that scientific research is recognised as a substantial contributor to the environmental…

Purpose: This paper aims to present findings from a survey that aimed to identify the issues around the use and linkage of source and output repositories and the chemistry researchers' expectations about their use. Design/methodology/approach: This survey was performed by means of an online questionnaire and structured interviews with academic and…

Academics are now expected to manage increasingly demanding research, administrative, and teaching obligations. These demands in practice mean that the pressures to balance teaching and research duties render cultivating links between the two activities a less-than-intuitive process. The author describes the difficulties faced by academics in the…

This article highlights the British Educational Research Association (BERA) conference, which took place on September 15-18 at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) campus in Manchester. In this conference, delegates were told that the UK teaching profession needs to develop new "standards of evidence"…