Comment in 2019

This paper calls for actors working to end violence against children to situate online violence within the broader violence against children agenda. This requires a common conceptual framework that addresses violence in all areas of children’s lives, improved data collection efforts and integrated implementation guidance for prevention.

We present a consensus-based checklist to improve and document the transparency of research reports in social and behavioural research. An accompanying online application allows users to complete the form and generate a report that they can submit with their manuscript or post to a public repository.

Whether or not social networks are significantly changing due to emergent technologies continues to be contested by researchers. Our understanding may advance by clarifying the cognitive mechanisms through which people curate their connections, along with the accompanying role of personality in shaping networks in the future.

Studies have provided rich data on global preferences for how autonomous vehicles should act in collisions. We describe a framework for incorporating such preferences in policy. Preferences should inform the design of autonomous vehicles only after being screened for bias and only to the degree to which they match major ethical theories.

Interactive technologies are changing the ways we learn facts, develop attitudes and participate in politics, with the ensuing risk of increasing pre-existing inequalities. Addressing this challenge is the duty of researchers, technology companies, governments and news organizations.

Neuroscientists are amassing the large-scale datasets needed to study individual differences and identify biomarkers. However, measurement reliability within individual samples is often suboptimal, thereby requiring unnecessarily large samples. We focus our comment on reliability in neuroimaging and provide examples of how the reliability can be increased.

Scientists’ own perspectives on research funding are often missing. To address this, we surveyed Danish scientists about their ideal research grant. In contrast to a trend towards larger grants, most surveyed scientists prefer small or mid-sized grants to pursue their ideas and advance their scientific careers.

Reproducibility and replicability are fundamental requirements of scientific studies. Disagreements over universal definitions for these terms have affected the interpretation of large-scale replication attempts. We provide a visual tool for representing definitions and use it to re-examine these attempts.

Although low- and middle-income countries experience more adversity, and this is associated with higher rates of mental health problems, most people in these countries cannot access evidence-based mental health care. There are opportunities to implement affordable evidence-based programs in ways that are sustainable in low- and middle-income countries.

Against those who believe democracy is unable to address climate change effectively, we argue that a more deeply deliberative democracy can better equip the world to meet the challenge.

Antibiotic resistance is an emerging global danger. Reaching responsible prescribing decisions requires the integration of broad and complex information. Artificial intelligence tools could support decision-making at multiple levels, but building them needs a transparent co-development approach to ensure their adoption upon implementation.

The physical and social environment that surrounds us has a profound impact on our brains and behaviour. This impact is so fundamental that a complete understanding of neural mechanisms cannot be developed without taking into account the extensive interactions between neurobiology, psychology, behaviour and the environment.

Despite a century of convergence, there is still no evidence of fully closing gender gaps in employment and wages, possibly reflecting a suboptimal allocation of talent. Economic research has emphasized the role of gender differences in preferences, work–life balance considerations and gender identity norms in shaping the observed gender trends.

The benefits of data sharing to the scientific community are widely agreed upon. But does data sharing also benefit individual scientists? I argue that data sharing may carry tangible benefits to one’s own research that can outweigh any potential associated costs.

Human enhancement technologies are opening tremendous opportunities but also challenges to the core of what it means to be human. We argue that the goal of human enhancement should be to enhance quality of life and well-being not only of individuals but also of the communities they inhabit.

Scientific research on consciousness is critical to multiple scientific, clinical, and ethical issues. The growth of the field could also be beneficial to several areas including neurology and mental health research. To achieve this goal, we need to set funding priorities carefully and address problems such as job creation and potential media misrepresentation.

Gender inequalities in work–family balance have wide-reaching ramifications: women shoulder the greatest burden of unpaid work and care, both decreasing their opportunities for employment and contributing significantly to the gender pay gap. Concerted measures at both the policy and ideological level are required to redress this problem.