Publications related to Three essays on university-industry technology transfer and the economics of science

Hits and Misses: Digital Contact Tracing in a Pandemic

Traditional contact tracing is one of the most powerful weapons people have in the battle against a pandemic, especially when vaccines do not yet exist or do not afford complete protection from infection. But the effectiveness of contact tracing hinges on ...

SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD2023

Digital Intervention for Collaborative and Human-Centered Activities in Design-Based Learning Scenarios

Denis Gillet, Isabelle Barbara Marie-Hélène Cardia

Training science and engineering students to become responsible citizens and professionals requires novel and creative pedagogical approaches, such as design thinking. This concept relies on processes and tools to develop creativity and problem-solving ski ...

IEEE2023

OSSCAR, an open platform for collaborative development of computational tools for education in science

Giovanni Pizzi, Sara Bonella, Dou Du

In this paper we present the Open Software Services for Classrooms and Research (OSSCAR) platform. OSSCAR provides an open collaborative environment to develop and access educational resources in the form of web applications, for which various deployment m ...

ELSEVIER2023

A landmark environmental law looks ahead

Devis Tuia

In late December 1973, the United States enacted what some would come to call “the pitbull of environmental laws.” In the 50 years since, the formidable regulatory teeth of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) have been credited with considerable successes, ob ...

American Association for the Advancement of Science2023

Predicting Survey Response with Quotation-based Modeling: A Case Study on Favorability towards the United States

Saleh Baghersalimi, Jonathan Philippe Reymond, Alireza Amirshahi

The acquisition of survey responses is a crucial component in conducting research aimed at comprehending public opinion. However, survey data collection can be arduous, time-consuming, and expensive, with no assurance of an adequate response rate. In this ...

IEEE COMPUTER SOC2023

Quantifying online citizen science: Dynamics and demographics of public participation in science

Steven Piguet, Jérôme Baudry

Citizen scientists around the world are collecting data with their smartphones, performing scientific calculations on their home computers, and analyzing images on online platforms. These online citizen science projects are frequently lauded for their pote ...

2023

First-person experience cannot rescue causal structure theories from the unfolding argument

Michael Herzog, Adrien Christophe Doerig, Aaron Schurger

We recently put forward an argument, the Unfolding Argument (UA), that integrated information theory (IIT) and other causal structure theories are either already falsified or unfalsifiable, which provoked significant criticism. It seems that we and the cri ...

Elsevier2022

Roadmap on Machine learning in electronic structure

Michele Ceriotti, Andrea Grisafi, Max David Veit, Jigyasa Nigam

In recent years, we have been witnessing a paradigm shift in computational materials science. In fact, traditional methods, mostly developed in the second half of the XXth century, are being complemented, extended, and sometimes even completely replaced by ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022

Beyond scientific excellence: International mobility and the entrepreneurial activities of academic scientists

Valentina Tartari, Wolf-Hendrik Peter Uhlbach

As the international mobility of academic scientists is ever increasing, its effects on outcomes beyond research productivity deserve more attention. In this paper, we therefore investigate to what extent academics with different international mobility exp ...

ELSEVIER2022

A Theory of Value for Service Ecosystems

Blagovesta Hristova Kostova

In this thesis, we present a theory of value for the design and analysis of service ecosystems. The theory is based on general systems thinking. The concept of a system is used for relating knowledge from different disciplines (such as software engineering ...

EPFL2022

Turning crowds into communities: The collectives of online citizen science

Jérôme Baudry

Over the past two decades, a number of digital platforms have been developed with the aim of engaging citizens in scientific research projects. The success of these platforms depends in no small part on their ability to attract and retain participants, tur ...

2022

Archiving the Leftovers of Science: Metadata and Histories of Scientific Institutions

Alina Volynskaya

In this article, I focus on digital scientific archives which are made up of the leftovers of science, such as drafts, obsolete instruments, photographs, documentation, etc. The artifacts exhibited in such collections were neither meant to be representatio ...

2021

Science's Response to CoVID-19

Yimon Aye

CoVID-19 is a multi-symptomatic disease which has made a global impact due to its ability to spread rapidly, and its relatively high mortality rate. Beyond the heroic efforts to develop vaccines, which we do not discuss herein, the response of scientists a ...

WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH2021

The organisation of science: topics, incentives and funding

Omar Ballester Gonzalez

Ever since the links between the development of new technologies and economic growth became evident, researchers have attempted to study how the creation of knowledge fosters progress. If pushing the frontier of knowledge has an impact on progress and well ...

EPFL2020

Increasing the relevance of science for practice and practice for science: Quantitative empirical insights

Claudia Rebeca Binder Signer, Livia Bianca Fritz, Ralph Hansmann

We present results of a survey conducted with researchers and practitioners involved in a Swiss National Research Programme on steering energy consumption. We analyse what motivates practitioners and researchers to engage in a collaborative research projec ...

2020

Highlights of the Science and Life of Peter Varga (1946-2018)

Wolf-Dieter Schneider

Peter Varga has passed on October 27, 2018. His pioneering discoveries of chemical resolution at the atomic scale on surface alloys, atomic resolution of ultrathin alkali halides, nucleation of bcc iron in ultrathin films, and the microscopic structure of ...

2020

Prepare Scientists to Engage in Science‐Policy

Julia Schmale

There is a dire need for deeper science‐policy engagement to face recent developments such as entering into the Anthropocene and our dependence as a species on technological and scientific advancements. However, there is a lack of preparedness and training ...

2020

The politics of participation in transdisciplinary sustainability research: an analysis of knowledge, values and power at the science-society interface

Livia Bianca Fritz

Problem. In the field of sustainability, scholars and policy-makers herald the transformative power of participation in transdisciplinary (TD) research. The increasing use of TD in science policy is rooted in the expectation that involving practitioners in ...

EPFL2020

Ethics in Research

Science is in revolution. The formidable scientific and technological developments of the last century have dramatically transformed the way in which we conduct scientific research. The knowledge and applications that science produces has profound conseque ...

2019

From research to sustainability transitions - Identifying pathways to societal effects

Thorsten Schilling

Problem statement. The rise of sustainability as a guiding norm for societal development also affects knowledge production in science. Particularly in the context of sustainability science, researchers are increasingly confronted with claims for creating s ...

EPFL2019