iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Simon Gates

John Stott @jpsastro.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Had a UKRI funded grant proposal rejected at the "AI triage stage". "This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review." 🧪 #academicsky

I am writing to let you know that, unfortunately, your application was not successful.

Review process

As part of the initial triage of the 179 proposals submitted to this call, each was assessed using an AI-based review. Every proposal was read independently by several different AI models against the same seven criteria used to shape this call (including cyber security relevance, research quality and novelty, importance of the problem addressed, feasibility of the project plan, likely outputs and impact, value for money, and responsible research practice), with each model asked to give a score and a written justification with supporting quotations from the text. To guard against any one model's idiosyncrasies, we also ran a second, independent process in which different AI models debated the merits and weaknesses of each proposal before reaching a judgement, again against the same criteria. Scores from both processes were combined to produce an overall ranking.

This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review. Projects selected for funding were drawn from those that progressed to the full human review stage. We recognise that AI-assisted assessment is a new and evolving part of the review process, and we are continuing to evaluate how well it aligns with the judgements of human reviewers on this call. We will soon produce a document detailing our method, so that others can build upon it and improve it.

Feedback on your application

Your application was not selected to progress beyond the AI triage stage. To provide transparency on the outcome of this assessment, we are sharing below the scores (out of 5) from each of the two AI review processes described above, together with the mean score across the two processes.

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Reposted by Simon Gates

Quiet Majority @majorityquiet.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

We loved this so much we just had to put English subtitles on it, apologies to the French speakers for our translation. But this is what it would look like here in the UK if Farage or Lowe or another of their ilk got their own way.

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Christopher McCabe @cjmccabe.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

The level playing field is through highly regulated spending with long prison sentences for breaches. It requires courage which, so far, has been completely absent from the UK government.

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Reposted by Simon Gates

Stella Creasy MP @stellacreasy.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

It’s not too late to stop this madness - the government has said the uk mega donors are a problem. The lords can bring in a cap on UK donors to stop any attempt to buy the next election. Share this and ask your MP to join us protecting British democracy.

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Simon Gates @sim0ngates.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Can anyone explain why it is that when you move house, it takes months for your old GP to send your medical information to your new GP? I moved in May and... still waiting. This seems a basic piece of patient care.

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Reposted by Simon Gates

Roland Pierik @roleo.eurosky.social · 08/09/2026

The number of cases of cervical cancer reported in Scotland among women given the HPV vaccine at 12-13 years of age is now zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. www.bbc.com/news/article...

bbc.com

No cervical cancer cases in fully HPV-vaccinated women in Scotland

A study published by Public Health Scotland finds that the HPV vaccine is "highly effective".

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Cold War Steve @coldwarsteve.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

rnli.org/support-us/g...

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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

90 years ago, Parliament responded to the rise of Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts by passing the Public Order Act, which banned political uniforms, private militias and the threat of force for political objects. The debates make very resonant reading today. Here's the Liberal Robert Bernays. (Short 🧵)

You cannot conduct a fair match when one side is playing with a ball and the other with bombs and, if democracy is to survive, it must be conducted according to definite and recognised rule. One of them is that no political party should resort to any weapon other than reason and argument. The introduction of private armies, as I see it, strikes at the root of democracy. I know it is contended that the Blackshirts are not armed and, therefore, are not an army, but I do not think that argument can be upheld. … Uniformed men in military formation suggest, and are meant to suggest, the idea of force. It is no argument to reply that at this or that demonstration no force is intended. It is an inescapable fact that a uniform in politics symbolises force, to be used either now or in the future.

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Reposted by Simon Gates

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Last year, I publicly complained multiple times (see e.g. elevanth.org/blog/2025/07...) that the open access movement had been captured by publishers, and we are now worse off than before open access. Well people got mad at me for saying it. But I think things are still getting worse.

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Simon Gates @sim0ngates.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Words "for me" accidentally-on-purpose omitted

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Reposted by Simon Gates

patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

UK energy bills are the highest in the World and will get even higher. They are nearly 60% profit. France has Nationalised their Energy grid and their bills are 40% lower, and they still make a profit, and the people who sell them Uranium and Natural gas still make a profit too.

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Reposted by Simon Gates

Peter Tennant @pwgtennant.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Does the new shingles vaccine (Shingrix) protect against cardiovascular disease (CVD)? Yes, according to a new 'natural experiment' study in @natmed.nature.com. But the truth is sadly far less convincing! Pull up a chair and let's examine another peer review failure in a Nature journal. 1/10 🧵

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Simon Gates @sim0ngates.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Bit of shameless self-promotion: a bunch of us are running a pre-conference workshp on design and analysis of trials in rare diseases, at ICTMC 2026 in Birmingham. Workshop is morning of Monday 14th September. Places are limited! Info here: ictmc.org/workshop-pro...

ictmc.org

Workshop Programme – ICTMC 2026

14-17 September 2026

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Reposted by Simon Gates

Dr David Robert Grimes @drg.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

The tragic death of Jason Arday is an awful story. There's been much (often nasty) commentary on Arday's scholarship, with UK redtops pretending now to be concerned bastions of research integrity. Utter nonsense: misconduct in academia is EXTREMELY common, and media rarely cares. Let's review 🧵

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Kert Viele @kertviele.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

CHIPS trial (Cold Platelets) published in JAMA jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... Adaptive trial to assess how long platelets can be stored cold while maintaining noninferiority to warm stored platelets (the trial gradually extended the duration as noninferior data came in).

jamanetwork.com

Cold and Room-Temperature Platelets in Cardiac Surgery

This noninferiority randomized clinical trial determines the maximum cold-storage duration and hemostatic efficacy of cold-stored vs room-temperature platelets in patients undergoing transfusion for a...

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Nettlecake @nettlecake.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Brilliant letter from Stuart Thompson to Jeremy Clarkson about his comments that benefit claimants should write weekly thank you letters to tax payers detailing how they spend their benefits each week.

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Reposted by Simon Gates

Byline Times @bylinetimes.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

'Patriot News' reporter Chris Atkins (scatatkins.bsky.social) was just kicked out of Liz Truss' CPAC conference for asking the wrong questions. So much for free speech.

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Reposted by Simon Gates

👻madeline bOoOoOoOodent👻 @oldenoughtosay.com · 08/07/2026

Right. Okay. This requires some backstory. In 1984, a small, low budget film studio in North Carolina produced a parody of Star Wars, called Hyperspace. It was released in the U.K. as ‘Gremloids’. The main character, shown here, was Lord Buckethead.

A somewhat grainy, sorry, theatrical release poster.

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Reposted by Simon Gates

Mike Galsworthy @mikegalsworthy.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Britain says rejoin

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Daniel Westreich @epidbydesign.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

With everything going on in the world, what better time than now to re-up my thoughts (that is, rant) about scientific posters? (Thread!)

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Cold War Steve @coldwarsteve.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

My first in a series of World Cup collages for @theguardian.com 👇 www.theguardian.com/football/pic...

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Reposted by Simon Gates

Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

NEW from me today: ICYMI it earlier, I've written for @arguablymag.bsky.social about the quiet crisis destroying almost everything important about universities, and why no-one's talking about it. Take a look: www.arguably.uk/p/the-quiet-...

arguably.uk

The quiet collapse of British universities

One of our great triumphs and economic advantages is fading away

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Simon Gates @sim0ngates.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

The thing that strikes me about Brexit is how accurate were the predictions of the experts who really knew what they were talking about.

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Theiss Bendixen @theissbendixen.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

New blog post! 🚨 "From Bucher to Bayes: A Brief Introduction to Bayesian Model-Based Network Meta-Analysis for Indirect Treatment Comparisons using R" theissbendixen.com/mbnma/

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Reposted by Simon Gates

UK CTU Network @ukctunetwork.org · 04/06/2026

🌏 As we near #WorldEnvironmentDay, May’s UK heatwave has highlighted the urgency of climate action. The #UKCTUNetwork is proud to mark 2 years as a Supporter of the Concordat for Environmental Sustainability of Research and Innovation Practice. 🔗Learn more here: tinyurl.com/bam2wcu9

tinyurl.com

Marking the Second Year of our Commitment to Environmental Sustainability in Research 2026

We’re proud to mark two years as a Supporter of the Concordat for the Environmental Sustainability of Research & Innovation Practice.

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Reposted by Simon Gates

Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Climate change is real and it's happening and it's only going to get worse until everyone wakes the fuck up. By far the biggest threat to us all. We don't have another planet we can go to.

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Reposted by Simon Gates

Rutger Bregman @rutgerbregman.com · 21/05/2026

This sounds nice, but it's a great way to undermine the welfare state. When the middle class has skin in the game, they defend the system. When welfare is 'just for the poor', it becomes a poor program: stigmatized, underfunded, easy to gut. That's why billionaires keep pushing this idea.

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Nicola Rennie @nrennie.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Regular reminder that there are alternatives to Google Search and Google Chrome. Some European alternatives are listed here: european-alternatives.eu/alternative-... (where you can also find alternatives for other tech products should you be looking for them)

european-alternatives.eu

European alternatives to Google Search | European Alternatives

Google is the biggest search engine in the world, from the USA-based company Alphabet.

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Simon Gates @sim0ngates.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Staggering really that anyone thought this "show" was a good idea, let alone that they were actually allowed to produce the thing. An exploitative abomination.

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Peter Tennant @pwgtennant.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Good news, everyone! I have a short piece coming out in The Conversation on Monday that explains the main issues with this study. It's impossible for me to have the same media reach as the original press release. So I'd be extremely grateful if people could help me share it as widely as possible 🙏

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Reposted by Simon Gates

Mark Rubin @markrubin.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

"Conventional statistical practice, which systematically ignores certain sources of error ..., is bound to yield overconfident results that will often fail to replicate." New preprint by Knief & Forstmeier (2026): doi.org/10.1101/2025... #stats #MetaSci

When multiple studies on the same research question, or multiple analyses of the same dataset are summarized in a meta-analysis, our confidence intervals (CIs) are put to a relentless test of reliability. While we might hope that 95% of the CIs would contain the meta-analytic mean value (and therefore presumably also the true value), a recent meta-analysis of 512 meta-analyses in ecology and evolution suggests that only a sobering 45% of them do. As this paradox of overconfidence continues to confuse researchers, we attempt to explain where most of the heterogeneity in findings might be coming from. Much of it is unsurprising, because conventional 95% CIs reflect only sampling noise and ignore other sources of error such as arbitrary analysis decisions ("model uncertainty"). Being aware of multiple sources of error beyond sampling noise, the replication crisis logically follows from an anticonservative statistical practice that allows for overinterpretation beyond the legitimate inference space, which in fact is narrower than commonly acknowledged. We explain how to calculate extended confidence intervals (CIext) that also cover other sources of biological and analytical heterogeneity, and we clarify which CIext is valid for which extended inference space. We further show how multiple versions of analysis of the same dataset can be merged into a many-analyses meta-analysis (MAMA) which yields a CI that accounts for two sources of error. At the same time, we recognize that high heterogeneity estimates can be artefactual, arising from "comparing apples and oranges" (either in terms of statistical metric or biological interpretation). The estimate of only 45% deserved confidence therefore appears far too pessimistic. Overall, we argue for greater caution in interpreting both confidence intervals and heterogeneity estimates, and for clearer separation of comparable from non-comparable evidence.

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Sarah Kendzior @sarahkendzior.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

I wrote this in 2016.

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