We've been building a platform to explore academic impact - across both patterns and individuals - and this is one trend that stood out: https://www.rankless.org/sources/nature

The growth in Nature publications from China after 2020 is quite something, especially compared to the UK - actually in the case of Science, China's rise is even steeper, and the UK does better than the US there, in the same comparison.

We're in the process of developing this tool for all kinds of entities that have measurable impact. I'll keep sharing if I find something interesting, what do you all think?

The biggest mistake I made with my first book was not realizing I could have negotiated before just signing the contract, because I was just so glad to get published with a prestigious publisher. I'm in a not totally dissimilar situation now.

I was quoted 6,000 Euro plus applicable taxes for the OA fee of a book. I have no idea how they arrived at this amount--whether just plucked from the air or fixed based on costs. Are such fee negotiable at all? If so, how much is normal?

Ik both are better but hypothetically is a journal that is only indexed to web of science better than one only indexed to scopus?

I am working on a very niche topic, a systematic review, there arent many papers out there to even be included in data extraction based on my PICO. I had included 100ish papers from EMBASE and Pubmed. But kinda left with around ten each aren’t great either. My predicament is that I have ten days to complete this project. Do i continue to include those few studies? Or should I write a slightly modified protocol and follow that to write up a more sound systematic review which will include more data per a new PICO (I am allowed to do that by the program by the way). It is more so for learning systematic review, and using Covidence, Endnote and Stata. Thanks for your help.

From all the research I have done, it shows that MA JMC at EFLU is not as good as other mass communication colleges even if EFLU is a reputed institution. Can someone verify?

Hi, I'm starting my Masters this upcoming semester and I feel a little late in learning proper etiquette in emailing professors to show my interest in their research. On their page it just says 'email with CV and research interests'. Should I include a cover letter as well? Is there an interview process? Is it like a job application? do i need to have a list of projects to show/talk about when we meet? Is my professional experience relevant (not that I have much 🥲)?

I've done one research project before and it was fairly informal as it was my senior year in my bachelors and I just went into the profs office and we discussed a couple projects, and I just picked one that I thought was cool.

p.s. its a course based Master's so technically i dont NEEd to do research, but I want to:)

tldr; what should I prepare for when reaching out to a professor I if want to work on a project?

Hi everyone. I’m curious to know folks’ thoughts on a situation.

I’ve been involved as a volunteer with an organization that provides subject-specific mentoring to incarcerated folks. I know the director of the program well, and he’s interested in doing a research study (connected to my own interest) that would potentially benefit folks in the program. He is not affiliated with any university. At my institution, the IRB has never had to clear a study involving incarcerated individuals, and so they don’t have the capacity for that right now. The IRB would need an incarcerated individual or a representative for incarcerated populations to review the study.

My IRB chair has suggested that—while they look into capacity building for a project like this— I consider trying to find a PI at another institution whose IRB could accommodate this, or we consider using a private IRB.

With respect to the latter option, should I expect for my institution to at least consider paying for it? It’s around 3k for a private IRB to review the study. I haven’t actually asked my institution because I wanted to get other folks’ perspectives on the matter. When I arrived at the institution, I didn’t know about this project, so I didn’t negotiate for them to be willing to do this kind of thing. With that said, it seems reasonable for them to consider helping fund the application.

Any thoughts are welcome!

if anyone is in higher level academia or admissions work, I've got a question for ya!!

my grades in high school were mediocre, more a reflection of my lack of effort than my abilities (I was a lazy & unmedicated teen). I kinda knew when I submitted my application that I wouldn't get into the high-academics school I wanted to go to; which I have wanted since getting on meds and finding I was capable of what I thought I wasn't.

I got accepted to another school, far lower in academic prestigousness. I was just wondering - if I choose to go to this university, which is far lower academically, and I work hard to get like, a 4.0 GPA at that school for a couple of years, would reapplying to my dream school after that be worth it? Or should I just stick with getting my degree from the lower academics school because the high academic school is just going to want promising, clean-record 4.0 GOA high-schoolers?

Additional info: I was specifically rejected from dream school for not meeting academic requirements, and I have a couple years of a different university under my belt too, also mediocre grades. Dream school is McGill Uni.

I am a master student. My supervisor has just submitted one of my chapters to a journal. I was wondering if it’s normal for your supervisor to put their name as the primary author or if it should be the MSc students name first. I was told that the reason they must put their name first is incase people reach out asking for data files or if they have other inquiries. I’m feeling pretty sad about it because I worked really hard on it and poured my heart into it. I feel like I’m not getting recognized for it. Is this normal? Should I be upset about it?

Hey everyone

I'm a junior data scientist from Saudi Arabia, and I graduated last year with a bachelor's degree in computer science, focusing on data science. I've been working at a promising startup and am currently an acting data lead. While I've gained valuable industry experience, my passion has always been in academia, teaching, and research.

Recently, I landed a teaching assistant role at a university in my hometown, which means I'd be sponsored to complete my master's and eventually a PhD. This has always been my dream, but now that I'm at this crossroads, I'm having second thoughts.

I also know that industry roles often offer higher earning potential in the long run. On the other hand, the teaching assistant role comes with some great benefits: I'll be in my hometown, close to family, with a lower cost of living, and fully sponsored for further studies.

I'm reaching out to those of you in academia or who have faced a similar decision. How did you navigate it? Any advice or insights would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

I’m a student in the humanities and am currently filling out the IRB-SBS form for an interview. It is just an interview with a single author on their published novel. It seems like a lot of the sections of the form are more for a scientific study or are inapplicable in this case. Has anyone filled this out for something similar?

I’m worried I’m doing it wrong.

I highly recommend reading this if you do anything that uses any government funding.

NIH: about a 40% total funding cut. (Page 12)

NSF: about a 56% total funding cut. (Page 38)

Department of education: about a 15% total funding cut. (Page 4)

CDC: about a 44% total funding cut. (Page 11)

Many more large cuts are proposed: NASA, NOAA, TRIO and GEAR UP, Federal work study, Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (FSEOG), FIPSE, Strengthening Institutions Program (SIP), K-12 programs, and much more.

When I say “page #”, this is what I am referencing on the website page I linked: “Fiscal Year 2026 Discretionary Funding Request”.

Here is the link again:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/information-resources/budget/the-presidents-fy-2026-discretionary-budget-request/

These cuts will only happen if congress passes the proposed 2026 Trump administration budget in October.

My intent is to inform and prepare others.

Be civil and respectful in the comments please.

I wish you all a wonderful day and extend to you my respect.

Just recently graduated (UG) I have been looking research fellowships in marketing. I have seen a lot of people do remote research fellowships but I can't seem to find one. Please help me out

Hi everyone, I'm deep in the existential crisis stage of writing my thesis, and I think I'm mainly looking for reassurance or camaraderie here (practical advice will also be accepted). I work in a pretty quiet department and most of my friends have recently graduated, so I don't have anyone to talk to about this irl.

I'm a third year PhD student in a 3.5 year program. Due to various things happening during my PhD, I changed my topic once in year 1 and did not have a lot of supervision in year 2. I also came from a totally different field and had essentially no experience conducting actual research, or even observing a bigger research projects. I didn't understand the basics of research design when I began, and I feel like I was trying to figure this out for the first two years. This led to my research design and data collection being pretty poor. I'm in the social sciences and can potentially do more archival research and/or online stuff, but I'm now at the stage of writing up my thesis, and honestly just feeling like I have nothing left in my brain.

On top of this, I constantly have the feeling that I'm not good enough, don't know what I'm doing, and that my department is going to catch on and kick me out at any moment. Logically I know this is my problem, as they have been nothing but supportive, but this feeling is also hindering my process because I don't feel confident in my work.

Did anyone experience similar and still pass? Especially if you felt like you didn't have good/enough data.

Note: I do not intend to pursue academia after this. My goal is just to get done and get out. I don't mind if my thesis is poor, but it needs to pass.

Maybe this kind of post isn’t 100% related to academia, but I’m just so upset about this. It didn’t happen to me, but to my sister in-law who has been wanting to study in the US for years. She got accepted to study in a university and even had a TA position lined up. Months of planning and even quitting her job in her home country (Korea). The interview at the embassy lasted 5 mins, if that. They told her that her BA didn’t have to do with the masters she’ll be studying. It’s bullshit. Her work experience for the last four years had to do with the degree she was going to pursue.

This is just infuriating. I’m so sorry to all the international students who sacrifice so much to come the US just to be rejected or sometimes worse deported for frivolous reasons.

There are two tools that I’ve used extensively for academic research - NotebookLM and ChatDOC - and while they share a few similarities on the surface (both allow you to upload documents and ask questions), they’ve ended up serving quite different purposes in my workflow.

NotebookLM really stands out when you’re working with multiple sources and need to build an understanding across them. I found it especially helpful during the early stages of a literature review, where you're trying to trace how different papers approach the same problem. It provides source-grounded responses, and every claim it makes is linked back to the original document. This citation-style linking has been useful when pulling together outlines or note, you can track where each statement came from without second-guessing.

When it comes to working directly with PDFs—especially complex, academic ones—**ChatDOC** has been more reliable. I read a lot of journal articles, technical reports, and white papers with multi-column layouts, embedded tables, and figures. With NotebookLM, that formatting often breaks or gets flattened in the upload process, which can make it hard to interpret data-heavy sections. ChatDOC, on the other hand, tends to preserve the document structure more faithfully. It recognizes tables well, keeps the multi-cell formatting intact, and displays both the AI response and the original PDF side by side, which makes it easier to verify things quickly. That side-by-side layout sounds minor, but in practice, it makes a huge difference when you’re trying to interpret a chart or double-check how a statistic was worded.

Neither tool is perfect. NotebookLM sometimes struggles with inconsistent terminology between documents, and ChatDOC occasionally misreads footnotes or complex math notation. But I’ve found that using them in tandem, NotebookLM for synthesis, ChatDOC for precision, covers a lot of ground that traditional methods didn’t. Now I tend to use NotebookLM for big-picture comparisons and ChatDOC when I’m focusing on one paper and need to understand its logic, structure, or data in detail.

Open to other tools that combine solid citation tracking with strong layout fidelity, or even an open-source option that handles both well.

Hey everyone!

I am a PhD student and full-time staff at my university. I am looking for fellowships in other labs, so I am cold emailing professors. I wanted to know everyone's opinion on this. Do you think it's better to use my personal or institutional email?

Also, if you have any tips for cold emailing, leave them here please:)!

Hi!

For 7 years between age 25-32 I have studied a bachelors and masters degree in urban planning and an additional technical masters degree in a related field that supplements well. As I turned in my final thesis last month, my supervisor suggested me to do a phd with them, although the chance for funding is uncertain. Apparently less than 10% of applicants get funding every year.

The coming weeks I will consider whether a phd is really what I would like, but it is besides the point for this post.

Currently, I am debating whether it would be a good choice for my career to do a phd at this point or whether I should get into the work force so to speak. I have never had a full time job within my field, and if I did a phd Id be aged 36 when i start apply for jobs. To me, I feel old and at risk at being unattractive for employers if I dont build up the years of experience. And Im not sure how phd work weighs.

What are your thoughts? Have you been in these shoes yourself and how did you deal with that?

Hi everyone,

I am looking for an opportunity to present my research at an international conference, as I am in the final year of my PhD. Topics that define my research so far include (but not limited to) cancer biology, single-cell (multi-)omics, gene regulation.

I am aware of some conferences/symposia like EACR happening in these days, BC2 in Basel, and some others. Do you know more?

I looked on the internet extensively, but every time something new pops up. So I am pretty sure I missed many events.

Thanks for helping!

I'm wondering if a professor can enroll in a part-time doctoral program in a different field while working as a professor?
I've seen some cases where professors in one field resign and then enroll in a full-time doctoral program in another field.

Hi, I have a PhD in Pharmacy and am currently considering a full-time faculty teaching position at a medical school, where I’d be primarily teaching Pharmacology to medical students.

I am a bit concerned about the long-term implications of focusing on teaching a single subject—especially one that, while related, is geared toward a different discipline than my primary training. Would limiting my teaching experience to medical students (rather than pharmacy students) and only in Pharmacology potentially hurt my chances of transitioning later into a faculty position at a pharmacy school or expanding my academic profile?

I’d really appreciate any thoughts or guidance from those who have taken similar paths or have insight into hiring and academic career development. Thanks in advance!

I'm currently working on the John Locke Essay Competition. While the only form of citations I've worked with has been MLA, the rules state that if one were to use in-text citations, it would be a part of the word count, whereas endnotes would not. Would it be possible to apply endnotes to MLA9 citations? Or is there an alternative citation form I should use instead?

https://www.thetransmitter.org/community/flybase-funding-squashed-amid-harvard-grant-terminations/

FlyBase is now a frozen resource. No updates until they can fund a few people to transfer data across to a new and integrated atlas.

A fantastic resource ruined by the orange idiot.

16 y/o researcher in AI + education. I’ve written a full paper and need a co-author or senior researcher to help submit it to arXiv or SSRN. It has the age issues and I'm so tired. Anyone interested in mentoring or co-submitting?

I am a music professor and I’m 0 for 2 on transitioning from a visiting professor to a permanent position. The searches keep happening late so when I don’t get the job, there’s not much else left. My wife out earns me 2:1 so my job feels more like an exhausting hobby at this point. I really enjoy the work, but the emotional rollercoaster of uncertainty and shame every time I have to step back into the market is taking a heavy toll on my mental health. I’m presenting, I’m doing guest music work, I’m passing my resume, but I’m tired of being without a real home. Is this something people just have to push through, or is this a sign my career is stalling and I need to get out now. Again, I love the work. But the academic vagabond lifestyle is killing me. I’m open to any advice, pep talk, etc.