Selection Criteria

Countries and research carried out within those countries is selected using a random selection technique.  Each week I will blog about recent research carried out in a randomly selected country somewhere in the world. This may vary from 1-7 posts (1 per week to 1 per day) each covering a different institution within that country.

My methodology for selecting articles for discussion is very simple.  The country where the research is located will be selected randomly using the tried and true ‘spinning globe and pin‘ method.  A list of research universities will be found for that country and again, one will be selected at random.

I will simply plug in the institution selected for the day into a science search database.  I am very fond of Web of Science, although you do need institution access – I am using mine from The University of Queensland.  I will then write about the first article listed (which will be the most recent) which is actually from the selected institution.

It does not matter what the article is about or where it is from – this blog is not about writing about ‘rockstar’ research but about giving every institution a chance to have their work critiqued and disseminated.

If no results are found then I will do a broader search for papers (involving Google, a paper clip and chewing gum, a la Macguyver style).  If a country should be spun up again on a subsequent day in the future that spin will be rejected and another spin for a country not yet selected will be carried out.