From: Ari Belenkiy <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2013 15:19:19 -0700

"Political science" is not a science but politics. Perhaps good that
it is not to be funded anymore by NSF.

Ari Belenkiy


On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 8:50 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:17:33 -0500
>
> You may have heard that the Senate has just passed legislation, likely
> to be passed by the House also, that removes most funding of political
> science research by the NSF.  In this case, austerity was used as an
> excuse to do something that Republicans have long wanted to do for
> political reasons anyway.
>
> Sandy Thatcher
>
> At 9:44 AM -0700 3/22/13, Heather Morrison wrote:
>
> > Many governments around the world are very much in austerity mode, and this will impact funding for scholarly research. Recent examples include the closure of the Experimental Lakes Area in Canada and the letter regarding sequestration sent to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the world's largest funder of medical research.
> >
> > This might make for an interesting real-world case study on the inelastic market that has protected the profits of a very few large commercial publishers (at the expense of the majority of publishers) even in difficult financial times such as the 2008 financial melt-down.
> >
> > Will this continue through the current round of austerity? Or, will researchers and their funders take notice and take action to ensure that keeping the funding flowing to research projects and researchers themselves is a priority over keeping the likes of the Elsevier in the 36% profit margin range?
> >
> > Examples of actions could include such steps as eliminating impact factor from consideration in promotion & tenure, a move already under discussion in the U.K. Many scholarly societies have always been a great deal more cost-effective than the large commercial companies, and surpluses tend to return to the research community. This might be a good time to advocate for a growing role for this sector in future. However, in the short term, perhaps it would be more important for scholarly societies to advocate for scholarship per se rather than publishing? If no one is doing the work, there won't be anything to publish!
> >
> > best,
> >
> > Heather Morrison
> > The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
> > http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com