Paul Nightingale
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paulnightingale.bsky.social
Paul Nightingale
@paulnightingale.bsky.social

Professor of Strategy at SPRU.

Associate Dean of Research, University of Sussex Business School. #1 in UK for research income.

Editor Research Policy.

Acting Director HSP.

Views mine, not my employer. Politics unfashionable since 1654 .. more

Business 41%
Economics 31%
Pinned

Reposted by Paul Nightingale

Europol are running the #traceanobject campaign, asking for researchers to geolocate objects and scenery taken from larger images from active child abuse cases. Our Discord community, independent of Bellingcat, are investigating one image. Join in with that analysis here: discord.com/channels/709...
Discord - Group Chat That’s All Fun & Games
Discord is great for playing games and chilling with friends, or even building a worldwide community. Customize your own space to talk, play, and hang out.
discord.com

This is a great summary of recent development economics policy relevant findings...
🆕 Ten key insights from development economics in 2025

The world is changing rapidly. Can research inform what comes next?

I spent a long time trying to condense everything I read this year at @voxdev.bsky.social into ten key insights, you can read the full blog here: voxdev.org/topic/ten-ke...
Ten key insights from development economics in 2025
Research on VoxDev in 2025 has shed light on getting stuff done, paying for it, the changing development landscape, and a whole lot more.
voxdev.org

Reposted by Paul Nightingale

A must watch - Mokyr's Nobel Prize speech on how ideas matter for progress, where AI fits here, and where bad institutional decisions might harm things. His ageless energy and unlimited memory for history are exactly today as I remember as his student 15 years ago. www.youtube.com/live/jQCkCcu...
2025 prize lectures in economic sciences | Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt
YouTube video by Nobel Prize
www.youtube.com

Reposted by Paul Nightingale

“Cut-price luxury and exorbitant necessity” is a great phrase by @stephenkb.bsky.social. The internet has made culture (and other superstar markets) more scalable and unequal, pushing up the price of necessities in places where superstars congregate.
www.ft.com/content/b49c...
The Netflix age has been great for consumers but terrible for artists
Returns to musicians and writers are dwindling fast
www.ft.com
I'm teaching Statistical Rethinking again starting Jan 2026. This time with live lectures, divided into Beginner and Experienced sections. Will be a lot more work for me, but I hope much better for students.

I will record lectures & all will be found at this link: github.com/rmcelreath/s...

Reposted by Paul Nightingale

🖋️ Share your memories of Wilton Park with us

Our 80th anniversary celebrations begin in January and there is still time to send us your Wilton Park stories.

If you have a memory or testimonial you'd like to share, get in touch with us.

🔗 www.wiltonpark.org.uk/share-your-w...
🆕 Ten key insights from development economics in 2025

The world is changing rapidly. Can research inform what comes next?

I spent a long time trying to condense everything I read this year at @voxdev.bsky.social into ten key insights, you can read the full blog here: voxdev.org/topic/ten-ke...
Ten key insights from development economics in 2025
Research on VoxDev in 2025 has shed light on getting stuff done, paying for it, the changing development landscape, and a whole lot more.
voxdev.org
I wanted dinner recommendations so I scraped 13,000+ London restaurants and accidentally discovered Google Maps is running a shadow economy. Anyway here's a dashboard and a political economy thesis: open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...
How Google Maps quietly allocates survival across London’s restaurants - and how I built a dashboard to see through it
I wanted a dinner recommendation and got a research agenda instead. Using 13000+ restaurants, I rebuild its ratings with machine learning and map how algorithmic visibility actually distributes power.
open.substack.com

And i think the distinction between thinking like a scientist and thinking like a lawyer is a very useful one.

The point that parallel institutions were built is important - the business model was very lucrative.

I remember this from the time.
It's very good on the social nature of epistemology and science.

Be interesting to redo the interview today.
Reading around for a pod I'm recording tomorrow I came across this classic episode of @chrislhayes.bsky.social's pod where we dug into America's epistemic crisis. Tons of gems in here. And boy has everything on this front gotten *much* worse since 2018...
David Roberts explains how America's information crisis has impacted conservatism
Chris Hayes speaks with journalist David Roberts about how the erosion of trust and manipulation of information has impacted the conservative movement.
www.nbcnews.com
Reading around for a pod I'm recording tomorrow I came across this classic episode of @chrislhayes.bsky.social's pod where we dug into America's epistemic crisis. Tons of gems in here. And boy has everything on this front gotten *much* worse since 2018...
David Roberts explains how America's information crisis has impacted conservatism
Chris Hayes speaks with journalist David Roberts about how the erosion of trust and manipulation of information has impacted the conservative movement.
www.nbcnews.com

Reposted by Paul Nightingale

Here's the full writeup, with #rstats examples of both: datavizf25.classes.andrewheiss.com/news/2025-12...

Reposted by Paul Nightingale

Russia’s hybrid warfare puts Europe to the test on.ft.com/4iOL7xA
Russia’s hybrid warfare puts Europe to the test
Officials suspect a campaign of sabotage that once looked opportunistic may be a strategic escalation
on.ft.com
I've now updated this with a few updates:

1. I've added the JFE, JF, and RFS
2. I've added QJE and (most of) JPE
3. I've fixed some bugs
4. I added a way to adjust for length of papers over time
5. I've added citation counts (per OpenAlex)

paulgp.com/econlit-pipe...

The case in the post is about sociology from Turner (who is extremely clever), but it's just one case.

My anecdote (artisan crafted data point) would be an engineering department I interacted with (quickly ran from). It was like a Maoist personality cult. Safeguarding alarms going off everywhere!
I'm not sure sociology is any worse than other disciplines. There is rubbish but also fantastic work. But it's the same in every other area.

One reason sociology and social science more generally get a bad rap is because, as the Rothschild report 1983 noted, it looks at things we all have ...1/2
We're recruiting for a Research Assistant

We're looking for someone interested in one or more of the following - institutions; governance; devolution; place-based policy; and public administration.

📆 Apply by 5 January 2026

🔗https://www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/research-assistant-fixed-term-jb48083

If it turns out British MEPs took Russian bribes (right now it is just an allegation) and they are found guilty it needs to be called out for what it is - treason. And they need to be sent to prison for decades.

Yep.

Sociology researches things we all have experience of (society) so if we agree with it, it's "bleeding obvious" and if we disagree it's just nonsense. We don't have that with other disciplines. I think Rothschild was right - he was defending social science against an ideological attack.

2/2

I'm not sure sociology is any worse than other disciplines. There is rubbish but also fantastic work. But it's the same in every other area.

One reason sociology and social science more generally get a bad rap is because, as the Rothschild report 1983 noted, it looks at things we all have ...1/2

You will take my Christmas kumquat latte and £8 cinnamon cake out of my cold dead hand....

👀!!
The book is now online!

While logged in at your university, if you go here and click on "Download book PDF", you can freely download the book PDF:
link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

Reposted by Paul Nightingale

The book is now online!

While logged in at your university, if you go here and click on "Download book PDF", you can freely download the book PDF:
link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

Reposted by Paul Nightingale

Don’t agree with everything here, but this is a valid question: “How is it that 450 million Europeans need 350 million Americans to defend them from 140 million Russians?”

open.substack.com/pub/chinaart...
A New National Security Strategy
More continuity than the Administration, or its critics, would have you believe
open.substack.com
We're half a decade into studies finding that improving airflow in classrooms will reduce disease transmission enormously, and that bleaching surfaces etc. does very little. And yet nothing changes. Waves of flu and colds wash over schools, and the schools pretend it's an act of God.
The relative contribution of close-proximity contacts, shared classroom exposure and indoor air quality to respiratory virus transmission in schools - Nature Communications
The relative importance of close-proximity interactions, shared space and air quality to the transmission of respiratory viruses is not well understood. Here, the authors investigate this question by ...
www.nature.com

Little bit of personal glee on this one. I got a pile on for highlighting some problems
... and... here.... we... go.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Science journal retracts study on safety of Monsanto’s Roundup: ‘Serious ethical concerns’
Paper published in 2000 found glyphosate was not harmful, while internal emails later revealed company’s influence
www.theguardian.com

VP fully signed up to STS-SSK interest theory of science here. I hope a UK sociology department gets a good REF impact case study out of this. #impact

Reposted by Paul Nightingale

As the Salisbury inquiry issues its final report, I reflect on how Sergei Skripal dreams of sanctuary in this country were shattered (£) t.co/CK1scYjwzT
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/sergei-skripal-novichok-poisoning-inquiry-7kk9hzrb7
t.co
Three more British MEPs in Nigel Farage’s bloc now alleged to have “followed the script” given to Nathan Gill by an alleged Russian asset, according to prosecutors.

At least eight UKIP and Brexit Party MPs were focus of efforts by Nathan Gill

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Three more Farage bloc MEPs alleged to have followed Russian asset’s script
At least eight MEPs elected for Ukip or Brexit party now known to have been focus of efforts by jailed Nathan Gill
www.theguardian.com
Incredible book, if you haven’t seen it. I think about the “technologically precocious boy” all the time.