Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz

Alexia Katsanidou @alexiakatsanidou.bsky.social · Jul 16

🚨 We're hiring!
Join our CSES Team @gesis.org Cologne as a Senior Researcher. If you’re into comparative electoral research and love diving into data, this is your moment.
Come shape global democracy with us! 🌍📊
www.gesis.org/en/institute...

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Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 28

Perhaps @kunkakom.bsky.social (?)

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Reposted by Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz

Lucy Butler @lucy-h-butler.bsky.social · Jun 27

A 2023 NHB paper concluded that corrections of science-relevant misinformation are, on average, ineffective. Our response (in press) challenges this conclusion, showing why corrections *are* effective, and why considering measurement is important:
🔗 osf.io/preprints/ps...
(1/5)

OSF

osf.io

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Reposted by Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz

Violeta Haas @haasvioleta.bsky.social · Jun 23

🚨 New working paper 🚨

Can protests move Bystanders, citizens who observe protest without participating?

We tested this in a 3-wave field experiment. Check out our thread below👇🧵

Danbischof @danbischof.bsky.social · Jun 23

🪧 New research 🪧

osf.io/preprints/os...

Can protests move bystanders, people who observe protests without being part of the march?

We conducted a 3-wave field experiment during real Fridays for Future (FFF) protests in Berlin.

Here's what we found 🧵👇

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Reposted by Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz

Roman Senninger @rsenninger.bsky.social · Jun 20

Very excited to share a new preprint.

@jesperasring.bsky.social and I study how politicians engage with evidence in the real world.

Link: osf.io/8zv9s

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Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 13

I feel personally attacked by this—damn you GPT.

I have all my Overleaf documents full of "---" to prove it.

a cartoon of homer simpson is holding a newspaper that says old man yells at cloud

ALT: a cartoon of homer simpson is holding a newspaper that says old man yells at cloud

media.tenor.com

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Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 13

Thanks, Stuart. That is a really nice compliment, especially coming from you. I am always looking at the illustrations in your work and thinking to myself, "Damn, those are good." I really appreciate it.

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Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 13

Thanks a lot, @mathiaswullum.bsky.social! Really appreciate it. I see a lot of conceptual overlap with your work on citation concentration in the academic space. Would love any feedback you might have, and always open to ideas on where to take the data next!

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Reposted by Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz

Federica Genovese @fgenovese.bsky.social · Jun 12

Cool data! The Global North is really where expert knowledge is produced.

Not fair, not just, but yes soft power is mostly concentrated there. Wish GN elites cared.

Also: differently from elsewhere, 60% of expert refs in USA docs cite papers with only USA-based academics as authors #exceptionalism

Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 12

📄 Whose expert knowledge informs policymaking around the world?

@rsenninger.bsky.social and I analyze data from 1.2 million government policy documents from 185 countries—and find a prominent pattern:

🌍 Policy evidence is overwhelmingly sourced from the Global North.

Preprint: osf.io/w8q3y

🧪🧵👇

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Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 12

Huge thanks to @rsenninger.bsky.social for an amazing collaboration and to everyone who shared their thoughts and helped shape this project—especially @simonsaysnothin.bsky.social, Asya Magazinnik, @conjugateprior.org and all the wonderful people at @hertiedatascience.bsky.social! 🙏✨

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Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 12

This is a VERY LONG thread with lots more in the paper. I am surprised you made it this far! Please check it out & share your thoughts 📝

There are millions of research questions we can explore with these data. Got ideas? Reach out!

We will be at EPSA and would love to grab coffee & chat ☕️🤝

a boy in a blue shirt is looking at a computer screen

ALT: a boy in a blue shirt is looking at a computer screen

media.tenor.com

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Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 12

The expert knowledge in official docs is not evenly spread and holds signals about who gets seen in global policymaking 🌍⚖️📚

All-in-all, I take from this project that expert info use globally is not just about ideas—it is shaped by visibility, access, perceived legitimacy, and ultimately power.

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Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 12

Or this thread by @rebekahtromble.bsky.social

These knowledge systems are fragile...

bsky.app/profile/rebe...

Rebekah Tromble @rebekahtromble.bsky.social · May 13

The worst happened. We were DOGE’d. Our NSF funding is gone.

So now there’s nothing stopping me from sharing Expert Voices Together, a crisis response system for US-based researchers and journalists facing harassment.

It's a true passion project. 🧵 1/

expertvoicestogether.org

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Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 12

Think of this commentary by @briannosek.bsky.social and the @cos.io team about executive action in the U.S.

bsky.app/profile/bria...

Brian Nosek @briannosek.bsky.social · May 29

Complementing other communications about the "Restoring Gold Standard Science" Executive Order, here is a statement from COS. Also, see the links to stories from previous attempts to co-opt open science for policies that undermine science and evidence-based policymaking.

www.cos.io/about/news/c...

COS Statement on “Restoring Gold Standard Science” Executive Order

The Executive Order issued on May 23, 2025, Restoring Gold Standard Science, references several open science practices championed by COS and the open science and metascience communities more generally...

www.cos.io

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Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 12

The places that are reference points in our corpus—like 🇺🇸, 🇬🇧, and 🇪🇺—also lead global R&D & host strong academic & policy institutions fueling steady evidence flows.

But these systems ARE NOT GUARANTEED: political shifts, funding cuts & ideology can undermine their resilience.⚠️📉

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Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 12

This matters because as @evavivalt.bsky.social et al. suggest, policy professionals might prefer locally relevant knowledge.

But acting on those preferences, well... barriers like limited capacity & budgets might lead them to rely on what's visible and accessible instead.

bsky.app/profile/evav...

Eva Vivalt @evavivalt.bsky.social · Dec 12

Our paper "Local knowledge, formal evidence, and policy decisions" (with Aidan Coville and @sampada.bsky.social) is out at the JDE.

Many people have the intuition that policymakers prefer evidence from their own context. To what extent is this true? 1/ 🧵

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Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 12

So WHAT TO MAKE OF THIS?

Our document corpus (Overton) reflect the visible layer of knowledge in govt policy docs—shaped by who can (or is willing) to produce, preserve & share evidence digitally.

🌐 Countries with stronger institutions & digital infrastructure appear more prominently.

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Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 12

Across policy domains:

📚 Some lean more on scholarly research, others on policy sources (think of lit on 'cultures of evidence').

Yet across all domains, 🌍 governments mainly cite knowledge from high-income countries.

Bottom line: origins of references stay stable despite domain differences.

Share of policy-based and scholarly references across policy domains.

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Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 12

Who's cited most across borders?

🇺🇸 The U.S. leads gov-to-gov refs by a wide margin. 🇬🇧, 🇩🇪, 🇨🇦, 🇦🇺 follow. Also, 30 countries—mostly Least Developed—were never cited.

📚 Same for academic refs: 17 of top 20 gov-cited countries also top in academia.

🤯 43% of scholarly works include a U.S.-based author.

Multipanel figure providing an overview of the distribution of reference metrics across the government-to-government citation matrix and to scholarly works.

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Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 12

Foreign v. domestic:

🌍 Global South govs rely mainly on foreign policy sources; Global North mostly on domestic.

🇺🇸 60% of scholarly refs in the U.S. docs cite papers with only U.S.-based academics as authors 🤯

🌐 Elsewhere, foreign or mixed international author make-ups dominate.

Figure illustrating composition of the 'provenance' of policy-based and scholarly references across regions

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Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 12

Using this rich data setup, we set to explore 3 key questions:

1️⃣ How much do govs rely on domestic vs. foreign evidence? 🌍🏠

2️⃣ Which countries' policy & academic outputs are most cited? 📊🌐

3️⃣ How do citation patterns vary across policy domains with unique knowledge needs? 📚⚖️

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Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 12

We classify cited sources into two types:

📑 Policy-based (govs, IGOs, think tanks)
📚 Scholarly (journal articles, working papers, preprints)

*And collected additional metadata relevant to them

Figure illustrating the data collection setting

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Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 12

We built a unique relational database using data from Overton & OpenAlex, including:

🧾 1.2M+ government docs
🔗 3.5M+ citations to academic research
🏛️ 740K+ citations to policy sources

This gives us a unique look at what evidence governments around the globe actually reference.

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Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 12

Why should we all care?

Because evidence is central to decision-making—and what counts as credible knowledge shapes which voices are heard, which problems are prioritized, and which solutions get attention.

But access to and use of evidence is not neutral.

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Sebastian Ramirez-Ruiz @seramirezruiz.bsky.social · Jun 12

Why do we study this?

Gov agencies, academics, IGOs, & think tanks all create knowledge, but how much it actually transpires to policymaking is still unclear.

Understanding which sources do, matters.

Info is key in most major policy process theories and shapes real-world outcomes. 📊

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