World View

Having fled Ukraine owing to the war, Tamara Martsenyuk is reflecting on her experience as a refugee scholar. Ukrainian studies should become more visible within Eastern European studies, she argues.

When academics ‘westplain’ Russia’s war against Ukraine, they reinforce a culture of detachment. We must not ignore the embodied knowledge of war, writes Darya Tsymbalyuk.

Being the first in her family to graduate from university, Charisma Hehakaya discusses how academic institutions can help first-generation students to thrive.

A number of US cities and states have introduced regulations on government use of facial recognition and surveillance technologies. These efforts are vital to prevent these methods from becoming tools of oppression, argues Kade Crockford.

The stories that US universities tell about diversity, equity and inclusion do not translate to actions, explains Neil A. Lewis, Jr. Instead, their actions disadvantage the people they allegedly support.

Science could hold the answer to many of society’s challenges, if only scientists engaged with policy-makers. Alma Hernández-Mondragón explains how this realization led her to pursue a career outside the laboratory, at the science–policy interface.

Teaching students the nature of science can be difficult, but the COVID-19 pandemic offers a range of teachable examples in a form of ‘living textbook’, explains Wei-Zhao Shi.

Ethical principles dictate that limited, life-saving resources should be allocated fairly. Keymanthri Moodley affirms that achieving global distributive justice is one of the greatest challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, and current distribution strategies are ethically indefensible.

Breaking pharmaceutical monopolies helped to address the HIV crisis. The same could be done to end the COVID-19 pandemic, but we must act decisively, writes Winnie Byanyima.

Global crises require tight international cooperation. Unilateral measures such as travel bans are often not rooted in science; instead of fostering cooperation, they impede communication, discourage transparency and hinder evidence-based decision-making, writes Philani Mthembu.

Global vaccine inequity reflects deeper issues within our market-driven global health system that fixates on innovation, intellectual property and the individual good as the solution, argues Tahir Amin. To end COVID-19 and achieve real progress, we need to incentivize the collective good instead of clinging to the current system, which only fuels divisions.

Global inequities in access to COVID-19 vaccines stem from pre-existing disparities. The Global South and Global North must cooperate to address them, argues Ayoade Alakija.

Although the Global North is grappling with whether COVID-19 will turn endemic, in Mali and other resource-poor countries ‘living with COVID-19’ would be devastating, warns Samba Sow.

COVAX emerged as a key mechanism to advance COVID-19 vaccine equity. To fully succeed, it needs support that extends beyond vaccine donations, argues Anuradha Gupta.

Researchers are disincentivized from conducting urgently needed qualitative research, argues Veli-Matti Karhulahti. He recommends the adoption of registered reports for qualitative research as a remedial course of action.

Scientific fieldwork can involve travel to countries where disclosing LGBTQ+ identity is unsafe. This is a significant challenge faced by LGBTQ+ scientists, writes Christina Atchison, and should be part of risk assessments and fieldwork support.

Subjective experience of the topic of study can bring passion and creativity to cognitive research. Micah Allen describes this as a double-edged sword, as he recalls witnessing how subjective feeling overrode hard data. But there are ways in which researchers can benefit from subjectively informed research, while guarding against its pitfalls.

In fast-paced crises like COVID-19, making use of scientific discovery in policymaking is challenging. We should learn the lessons of the current pandemic to make science a better partner to decision-makers in future crises, Sandro Galea writes.

Discovering an error that leads to retraction is a harrowing experience, especially for early-career researchers. Joana Grave shares the story of the retraction of her first published paper and how community support helped her through this challenge.

It is time that we meaningfully engaged young people with mental ill-health in all research that concerns them, argues Magenta Simmons.