The practical work described here is designed for third-year bachelor students in Life Sciences attending a kidney physiology course. It illustrates how urinary biochemistry can be used for a medical diagnosis. Students have to measure glucose, proteins, and creatinine concentrations in three simulated urine samples. First, they independently…

Every university has many ways to make changes, and institutional transformation is one of the strategic choices to achieve excellence. However, the transformation of higher education is still dynamically defined and open. The practice also has many models and differences. This article examines the scientific paradigm shift to rethink the practice…

The aim of this article is to address some of the questions Dr. Paula S. Nurius presents in her article, "Innovation and Emerging Scientific Careers: Is Social Work Prepared to Compete in Today?s Scientific Marketplace?" Specifically, this article will focus on what we can do to better prepare our emerging research scholars to be…

In the past, humanists and scientists have held very different views about the role of collaboration in scholarly research. From the point of view of a Principal Investigator in a scientific laboratory, this article examines the increasingly dominant role of collaboration in scientific research. In contrast to the "consensus research" model of the…

Throughout the social work profession, there is ongoing interest in building a social science agenda that can address the complex practice-based questions faced by social work professionals today. Methodological innovations and unique funding opportunities have already significantly advanced research on social work practice. Still, there is…

The origin of life is one of the most interesting and challenging questions in biology. This article discusses relevant contemporary theories and hypotheses about the origin of life, recent scientific evidence supporting them, and the main contributions of several scientists of different nationalities and specialties in different disciplines. Also…

UCLA's Howard Hughes Undergraduate Research Program (HHURP), a collaboration between the College of Letters and Science and the School of Medicine, trains a group of highly motivated undergraduates through mentored research enhanced by a rigorous seminar course. The course is centered on the presentation and critical analysis of scientific journal…

Professional societies and institutes have stressed the importance of a dialogue between scientists and the public over the past decades. Especially the life sciences include many highly relevant research topics pertaining not only to scientific progress but also to decision-making in society. Surprisingly, few educational researchers and…

The emerging discourse about the science of social work has urged doctoral social work programs to reexamine assumptions about conducting research and responding to new expectations for scholarship. This article examines three promising models to guide scientific research in social work (evidence-based practice, team science, and multi- and…

This article describes a general education course offering, Physics and the Arts. During the development of this course, physics and arts faculty collaborated closely. We cover the usual physics phenomena for such a course--light, color, and sound--in addition to gravity, equilibrium, and spacetime. Goals of the course are to increase students'…

Shaping public research to enhance its societal contribution has become a key policy concern. Against this background, how research funding may stimulate the societal orientation of scientific research--or how funding is societally targeted--has been underexplored. This article proposes an exploratory approach to characterize societal targeting in…

The field of biomedical research has undergone several changes in recent years. These include increased funding, the rapid development in scientific knowledge which speeds up the obsolescence of equipment, facilities and knowledge and the growing complexity of scientific problems. Research administrators can take steps to address these changes…

Incorporating research activities at the secondary-school level is an effective method to teach science; however, students and teachers may feel intimidated when trying to identify a suitable research topic. Ideas may be obtained from short articles in periodicals or newspapers to allow students to design their own experiments and interpret data.…

This article describes and analyzes the collaborative design of a citizen science research project through co-creation. Three groups of secondary school students and a team of scientists conceived three experiments on human behavior and social capital in urban and public spaces. The study goal is to address how interdisciplinary work and attention…

Interdisciplinary research collaboration is needed to perform transformative science and accelerate innovation. The Science of Team Science strives to investigate, evaluate, and foster team science, including institutional policies that may promote or hinder collaborative interdisciplinary research and the resources and infrastructure needed to…