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Background: Reports of questionable or detrimental research practices (QRPs) call into question the reliability of scientific evidence and the trustworthiness of research. A critical component of the research ecosystem is the organization within which research takes place. We conducted a survey to explore the attitudes and beliefs of European and American researchers about the organisations in which they work, their own research practices and their attitudes towards research integrity and research integrity policies. Methods: We administered an online survey (International Research Integrity Survey (IRIS)) to 2,300 active researchers based in the US and 45,000 in Europe (including UK, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland). We employed a stratified probability sample of the authors of research articles published between 2016 and 2020 included in Clarivate’s Web of Science citation database. Coverage includes researchers in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and medical sciences, who hold at least a master’s level degree. Results: In comparison to researchers in the US, European researchers admit to more QRPs and are less confident in maintaining high research integrity (RI) standards. In the US and Europe, many researchers judge their organization to fall short of best RI practice. All researchers recognize the benefits of RI, reliable knowledge and the trust of colleagues and the public, and there is support for RI training particularly among Europeans. Conclusion: To create and maintain a culture of integrity in scientific research, a collective commitment from researchers, their institutions and funders is needed. Researchers rely on many channels of communication about research integrity and thus the involvement of many different participants in the research system is required to make improvements. Policies must be developed to reinforce best practice rather than being seen as an irrelevance to the real business of research.

The possibilities offered by digital and Computational Social Science can improve our understanding of human behaviour as never before. The availability of behavioural data in a society where the digital has been widely adopted is because of two reasons: first, the vast amount of digital traces produced by people in their daily lives and related behaviours and, second, the possibility of running online experiments that can cover a large segment of a target population (we have seen online experiments with hundreds of thousands of participants). This chapter will discuss the opportunity offered by online large behavioural experiments. The implications for policymakers of this shift are the possibility of having behavioural insights both across different societies and better understanding and capturing within a country heterogeneity. In other words, large-scale online experiments combined with computational methods allow for unprecedented cognitive and behavioural based segmentation.

While traditional Saudi Arabian courtship is rigidly structured according to Islamic codes of conduct, Saudis over the past decade have increasingly turned to unconventional means, e.g., matrimonial websites, to find and court a potential spouse. Using qualitative semistructured interviews (N = 36), the analysis of the data revealed four main categories that demonstrate the reasons behind Saudis joining matrimonial websites: more opportunities, freedom from the limitations of offline interactions in Saudi culture, personal reasons, and encouragement.

A discussion of the overall findings specifically aimed at highlighting the implications for policy-making. We will argue that sense-making processes can play an important role in helping design policies, in mapping and in understanding how people of given social milieus interpret social reality and therefore intend to act or react upon it. In recent years, a more realistic understanding of human behaviour and decision-making has challenged the often-implicit assumptions about people on which policies were often conceived. From the individual rational choice based citizen we moved to a bounded rationality perspective. A further step, outlined by this project, is to take into account the interpretative and cultural nature of human behaviour as a fundamental element to consider at both the policy design and implementation stages. At the descriptive level, revealing the cultural landscape of a community that is the target of a policy intervention ensures an alignment between the normative behaviour contained in the policy and its cultural compatibility and acceptance. At the more transformative level, culture can become the target itself of policies, when cultural change is collectively accepted as necessary.

This chapter outlines the implication of the Re.Cri.Re. analysis of European societies’ cultural milieu for policy-making. It is claimed the strategic need of carrying out policies of cultural development, as intended within the Re.Cri.Re. framework, a policy of cultural development is aimed at two main purposes: on the one hand, to define social practices that promote semiotic capital, namely the positive experience of institutions and more in general of the systemic rules; on the other hand, to introduce constraints on the opacification of the system, in order to reduce the deficit of sense it fuels. The chapter is dedicated to outline the purpose and the methodological framework of policies of cultural development as well as to present thirteen suggestions of possible actions of this kind. These suggestions target three broad domains: institutions, economy and vital worlds. In order to clarify the methodological tenets and the suggestion, a few stylized excerpts from case-studies examined during the Re.Cri.Re. project are provided.

This chapter is a revised and reduced version of Salvatore, S., Mannarini and colleagues (2018). Globalization, demand of sense and enemization of the other. A psycho-cultural analysis of European societies’ socio-political crisis. Culture & Psychology.; International audience; This chapter will deal with an interpretation of the current socio-political European scenario (populism, raise of ultra-right parties, Brexit) in the light of the cultural analysis provided in the previous chapters. The main thesis that will be discussed concerns the persecutory valence assumed by otherness and how such a semiotic process works as a device for satisfying a demand of “thinkability” of a context that is less and less cognitively graspable. On the other hand, symbolic universes are discussed in terms of their capability of working as semiotic capital, namely as cultural resource feeding civic and social development. In this perspective, the notion of “mentalization of the system” will be presented as a strategic perspective for dealing with a post-crisis scenario. The mentalization of the system consists of the embodied interiorization of the rule, i.e. the rule assumes the mental function of object of desire rather than limit to it (as it is now). This is possible once and as far as models of practices make the systemic rule (which is by definition abstract and impersonal) something that can be experienced as the mediator of desire (i.e. as the way through which the subject finds satisfaction to their demand of sense).

The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Italy provides a comprehensive account of Italy and Italian politics in the 21st Century. Featuring contributions from many leading scholars in the field, this Handbook is comprised of 28 chapters which are organized to deliver unparalleled analysis of Italian society, politics and culture. A wide range of topics are covered, including: Politics and economy, and their impact on Italian society Parties and new politics Regionalism and migrations Public memories Continuities and transformations in contemporary Italian society. This is an essential reference work for scholars and students of Italian and Western European society, politics, and history.