I’m proud to run a project on the second Science Hackathon! Call for applications here: http://sciencehackathon.com/

Our project is about long- vs. short-term incentives in science and research. We are going to use the REF to see its impact on faster vs. slower-paced disciplines. We are looking to assemble an interdisciplinary team with natural scientists, economists, as well as social scientists – ideally from the faster and slower-paced disciplines. If you are used to writing books in 10 years time, we are looking for you even though this is a 3-day event!

Join us in Cambridge this November.

FAQs.

I’m very open to adapt to expectations, skills, and ideas – I’m sure that non-economists have a different view on many things that I don’t even anticipate!

What skills do I need? Quantitative analysis skills would be great. But I’m open: if someone with programming skills decides to program a website that allows us to collect incentive structures across universities, why not?

Do I need to commit to work on this after the weekend? This is the first time for me so I decided not to have high expectations. I know that the past Hackathon teams published papers, with the original team – I think that’s the best outcome. But I expect that some members of the team drop out after the weekend, and there are some people who are very interested but not available on that weekend. One of my main goals for the weekend is to generate a plan going forward taking these into account.

What kind of publications are you aiming for? I know that everyone has different publication goals, so it was important for me that the topic is broad enough that it can support publications on different levels. I understand that some team members from faster paced disciplines probably won’t hang around for three years to work with me on a paper which would be my horizon, and that other team memebers usually take ten years to write a book, which would be a very long time for me. But some of us can do more data work up front and publish, say a descriptive paper, and others can take more time to go in depth.

Which disciplines should apply? My ideal plan is to have reprensented in the team a fast one (e.g., computer science), a medium one (e.g., economics), and a longer-term oriented one (e.g., political science). For the weekend, I will then generate data for the disciplines which the team members come from to maximize internal knowledge.

I don’t have time on that weekend but can I work with you on this in the future? Yes! Please let me know and we talk about your expectations and what you can do.

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