The past years have shown that science can play an important role in societal debates. Science was clearly pivotal in the development of COVID-19 vaccines. In addition, many of the interventions and policies, such as masking, school closures or even curfews, were presented as evidence-based solutions, motivated by scientific advances in our understanding of the virus.
Greetings from Peru, nestled in the heart of the Andes, where I find myself reflecting on two transformative events in my scientific journey: the CWTS Scientometrics Summer School (CS 3 ) and the 27th International Conference on Science, Technology, and Innovation Indicators (STI 2023). As a bibliometrics enthusiast for the past two decades, this experience has been nothing short of a revelation—a journey that prompted me to question
Open science was one of the key topics at the Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (STI) conference that CWTS organised in September 2023 in Leiden, the Netherlands. Open science was not only discussed at the conference but was also put into practice in the publication and peer review process of the conference. By way of experiment, all papers submitted to the conference were published as a preprint before they were peer reviewed.
Every four years the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) and the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) join forces to organize the largest conference in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) in the world. From 16 to 19 July, 2024 the conference is hosted by the Athena Institute in Amsterdam.
To develop our CWTS knowledge agenda we formed three focal areas at the start of this year to organise our activities. Here, we introduce the vision and roadmap of the Focal Area Engagement & Inclusion. Our vision In today's rapidly changing world, fostering a collaborative, diverse and inclusive science ecosystem that engages with society is of paramount importance.
Open access: a change in publishing with a limited reach Open Access is a movement and policy directive dedicated to reforming the closed or subscription-based gatekeeping of scientific research.
CWTS is an interdisciplinary institute at Leiden University with a diverse multinational academic culture. PhD candidates, early career researchers, and visiting scholars from around the world gather at CWTS to pursue their research journeys. The journey can be an inspiring yet challenging experience.
On the occasion of the 2023 Nobel Prize announcements, the Rijksmuseum Boerhaave symposium “ Does science need heroes?” attempted to explore the evolution of prize cultures over time and examine the current and potential roles of prizes in contemporary scientific practices.
The CWTS Leiden Ranking has always been a bit different from other university rankings. It has never sought to identify an overall ‘winner’ from amongst all the universities it features, preferring instead to offer a range of indicators and rank institutions on each one separately. It also looks beyond traditional citation measures and reputation surveys to assess concepts such as open access and gender balance.
Research assessment practices that largely rely on publication-driven assessments of research(ers) are slowly running out of steam. A remnant of a science system that is largely inward-focused and output-oriented, these assessments paint a rather monochrome picture of science that is not fit for today’s developments that reconfigure the relationship between science and society.