Top stories of 2023: Opinion

From funding and evaluation, to AI and the climate crisis—some highlights of the year

This year, the perennial issues of how to support and assess researchers came under new pressure from international economic challenges, populist politics and the acceleration of artificial intelligence.

Selected by our editorial team, these are some of the Research Professional News opinion pieces capturing how these and other issues are shaping high-level policies and day-to-day lives.

1. Reshape climate R&D for a world headed past 1.5°C (12 January)

Abdulrafiu Abbas writes about how research needs to be globally coordinated, decolonised and much more interdisciplinary.

2. Universities face a crisis in professional culture (1 February)

The current focus on research culture obscures wider and deeper problems, say Paul Manners and Rory Duncan.

3. Stop judging scholarly books by their publishers (9 March)

National lists of prestigious presses don’t work—instead, openness should be encouraged, urges Eleonora Dagienė.

4. Winning funding isn’t the job (24 April)

Universities should be exploring non-competitive ways of allocating resources for research, says Arne Vandenbogaerde.

5. Intellectual superiority will not protect academic freedom (11 May)

Legislation will inevitably be imperfect, but doing nothing would be worse, writes Christian Ehler MEP.

6. REF 2028: What could go wrong? (28 June)

The next REF’s details are more devil-ridden than has been appreciated, according to Anna Grey.

7. While universities crumble, the political silence is deafening (13 September)

Bold education policy commitments were needed from the main parties—but would probably not be forthcoming during conference season, predicted Nick Hillman ahead of the annual gatherings.

8. Labour faces another white-hot opportunity (4 October)

The party’s conference mirrors Harold Wilson’s defining moment at Labour’s 1963 gathering, notes Melanie Smallman.

9. Plans for REF 2028 should be debated, not throttled (20 October)

Moves against the new emphasis on research culture are mistaken, argue Stephen Curry, Elizabeth Gadd and James Wilsdon.

10. Generative AI makes fraud an existential threat to science (2 November)

Stop judging researchers by their publications or risk a tsunami of fakes, warns Jorge Quintanilla.