Magic Smoke
Stian WestlakeThis Substack is a place where I'll post occasional personal reflections on economic growth, intangible capital, metascience, and research and innovation policy.
| Platform |  | Pricing | Only free issues | Publishes | Weekly |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Issues | 12 | Founded | 3 years ago | Last Issue | 4 months ago |
| Active | |||||
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magicsmoke.substack.comLatest Issues
Technoscience, Metascience and Social Science
Here’s a common theme I’ve noticed in several recent metascience policy documents*: the claim that one of the reasons it would be good to fund new types of research organisations is that they would do research in a different way.
One term...
Searching for the Mushroom Gnome
For most of my life, I’ve had a vivid but untraceable memory of a children’s story I remember being read to me when I was very young: the story of a gnome who lived under a mushroom.
For decades, I’ve tried to discover what the book was. L...
Promoting economic growth
One thing my colleagues and I are currently working on is ESRC’s future strategy, and our 2025-27 Strategic Delivery Plan. I wanted to talk about a significant aspect of this strategy: a new commitment on ESRC’s part to the promotion of eco...
Apollonian and Dionysian Metascience
TL;DR: When we talk about metascience, we are to some extent talking about two complementary movements, with important differences in style and spirit. There is a place for both these movements, and the creative tension between them is valu...
"Woke waste" and diversity of thought
From time to time, a piece of publicly funded research gets accused of being a bad use of taxpayers’ money. This is particularly likely when the research can be characterised as “woke”.
Since I took up the role of Executive Chair of ESRC,...
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Authors
The writers behind this newsletter.
Executive Chair of the Economic and Social Research Council
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