Hallucinated citations are polluting the scientific literature. What can be done? Tens of thousands of publications from 2025 might include invalid references generated by AI, a Nature analysis suggests.
That's tens of thousands of authors whose submissions can be desk-rejected from here on out, leaving some more room for the rest of us.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
There's a global race to secure EV battery gigafactories & reduce reliance on China.
But not all clean-tech projects are created equal. Some generate good jobs & domestic capacities, others produce ecological harm & low value-added enclaves.
New paper & thread 👇
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
My paper with Fergus Green and Marion Dumas on computationally detecting environmental policy paradigms is going to be on the (CL10) 'European Institutions and Green Agenda Setting' panel! Come say hi - and give us some much-needed feedback! 🌱
In a complicated time when decisions with tradeoffs need to be made, we want people in charge to be able to listen to experts, make sensible (not perfect, but defensible) decisions, and being able to process them for the public.
Labour has 99 problems, but this govt's energy direction is not it.
Here's UK energy secretary Ed Miliband appearing on BBC Breakfast earlier to discuss new electricity pricing reforms being announced today by the govt
We received 171 abstracts; sadly, we could accept only ~1/2 of them.
I'm thankful to EPSS for letting the vibrant community of (Euro-but-not-only) climate/enviro/energy polisci researchers come together in this new section.
(More on that in the agenda setting panel we organized for the event 🌟)
epss 2026 climate politics section panels
Are you coming to the @epssnet.bsky.social conference this year? The programme is live 👏
@antvalentim.bsky.social and I were in charge of constructing the Climate Politics section. Check out the 19 panels crossing fields and subdisciplines!
Details here: virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/event/75765/...
🚨 EPSS 2026 Conference updates 🚨
The programme is now live. You can access the programme here: virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/event/75765/...
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how this Monday finds me
This really is the only answer. Our dependence on fossil fuels must end. For our planet, and for our society.
“I’m from the government and I’m here to help” is almost literally what Mayor Mamdani is saying and it’s great actually
every day i am reminded how sad is to see how a not well reported news story on social media can polarize and indeed trivialize what otherwise would be a nuanced and important discussion
Much of this story details that the Irish government provides stopover status for SU deportation flights, underlining that the US govt relies on other govts to facilitate its immigration enforcement
"what politicians need is not to escape, joyfully, the mental prison of the non-growing pie, but to acknowledge the bargains, trade-offs, foregone pleasures .... intrinsic to growing it again"
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
me in this collection on Abundance edited by @carsjung.bsky.social
Aus dem neuen ZDF-Politikbarometer:
correct, as we have found in other contexts - here in oil in the Uk (but see the water sources ownership analysis in the same paper’s appendix):
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Deliver...
2 things can both be true: 1) we need to ensure that all people (esp. old gens) get that the energy transition needs a lot of money and yes some disruption too; 2) we need to appreciate that energy actors in liberal capitalist enviros tend to replicate extractivist practices so we need stronger regs
Surveys done with the fab @hayleypring.bsky.social @hannahsalamon.bsky.social
Survey by Genovese, Salamon and Pring
To back this up with evidence: we have representative done surveys in the UK (2025-26) and, while the British public (here ⬇️ women and men split) all prefer green over brown industry, they have resentment towards *foreign* companies.
You can call it populism, but calling it out won‘t win elections.
My 2c: this narrative needs to be proven wrong or taken seriously. Dismissing it as lunatic won’t cut it.
I don't believe in a world where a dash of small local solar will do the massive heavy lifting we need to do, but there clearly has been bad turns/practices that created a hard narrative here.
The project discussed in this article is handled by a company owned by the Australian Macquarie Group Limited (a global financial services group).
The narrative is: these companies go in big with little oversight(?) w/ good profit given Uk 🔌 prices. This, ppl say, is green capitalist extractivism.
This article captures a side of Greens that is indisputably prominent in East Anglia (low key NIMBYies). They say they argue for small solar. Sadly small scale does not have the margin of profit that they hope for.
But there‘s more that the title doesnt capture: *foreignness* of the investor. 🪡
Man, I hate this decision. I get the drive to reduce submissions given soaring (AI) applications. But given the inherent variability of evaluations, this goes too far in cutting unsuccessful applicants out of the system for years.
(I know a good fraction of these soaring numbers is driven by AI-assisted app writing, but com’on, know your space, know your capacity)
Also reminder that it was exactly one year ago that the European institutions were encouraging American scientists to apply to the ERC to come and work in Europe.
Good job everyone.
Talking abundance:
Just like some EU countries are failing at managing decreased supply of energy sources in a world with 🔥 demand, EU institutions (the ERC) are struggling to deal with similar dynamics in the research space.
The outcome will be exiting and/or finding alternatives in both spaces.
not the cooking bit, but the eating and speaking part is 💯 my experience with genuine Italian conferences
I want a "conference" where every academic cooks a dish for everyone and we all talk about our work casually while cooking. People can sous chef for each other. We eat and talk about our work in progress. You submit an abstract and a recipe.
I come out of this convinced that we know much abt European structural blindspots & strategic weaknesses (some US-caused); we know less how to handle the East politically. We get China's economic downstream impacts; now we need to learn how politicians & voters want to treat China’s economic might.
Enjoyed the conversations in Hannover at the political economy of European industrial policy event organized this week by Hellen Callaghan, @trgn.bsky.social & Bob Hancké.
The presence, clear-eyedness and energy of the EC speaker, Maive Rute (DG Grow) were a highlight.
