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The purpose of the paper is to showcase the significant achievements of Egypt's scientists in the 20th century across various fields of study such as medicine, physics, chemistry, biology, math, geology, astronomy and engineering. The paper highlights the struggles and successes of these scientists, as well as the cultural, social and political factors that influenced their lives and work. The aim is to inspire young people to pursue careers in science and make their own contributions to society by presenting these scientists as role models for hard work and dedication. Ultimately, the paper seeks to promote the importance of science and its impact on society.

The purpose of this review is to present the scientific biographies of Egypt's most distinguished scientists, primarily in the field of Natural Sciences, in a balanced and comprehensive manner. The work is objective, honest and abstract, avoiding any bias or exaggeration. The author provides a clear and concise methodology, including a brief introduction to the scientist and their field of study, an explanation of their major contributions, the impact of their work on society, any challenges or obstacles faced during their career and their lasting legacy. The aim is to showcase the important achievements of these scientists, their impact on their respective fields and to inspire future generations to pursue scientific careers.

The group of outstanding scientists in 20th century Egypt were shaped by various factors, including familial upbringing, education, society, political and cultural atmosphere and state support for scientific research. These scientists made significant contributions to various academic disciplines, including medicine, physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and engineering. Their impact on their communities and cultures has received international acclaim, making them role models for future generations of scientists and researchers. The history of these scientists highlights the importance of educational investments and supporting scientific research to foster innovation and social progress. The encyclopedia serves as a useful tool for students, instructors and education professionals, preserving Egypt's scientific heritage and honouring the scientists' outstanding accomplishments.

The encyclopedia preserves Egypt's scientific heritage, which has been overlooked for political or other reasons. It is a useful tool for a variety of readers, including students, instructors and education professionals, and it offers insights into universally relevant scientific success factors as well as scientific research methodologies. The encyclopedia honours the outstanding scientific accomplishments of Egyptian researchers and their contributions to the world's scientific community.

The practical implications of this paper are several. First, it highlights the importance of education, family upbringing and societal support for scientific research in fostering innovation and social progress. Second, it underscores the need for continued funding and support for scientific research to maintain and build upon the accomplishments of past generations of scientists. Third, it encourages young people to pursue scientific careers and make their own contributions to society. Fourth, it preserves the scientific heritage of Egypt and honors the contributions of its outstanding scientists. Finally, it serves as a useful tool for students, instructors and education professionals seeking to understand the factors underlying scientific success and research methodologies.

The social implications of the paper include promoting national pride and cultural identity, raising awareness of the importance of education and scientific research in driving social progress, inspiring future generations of scientists and researchers, reducing socioeconomic disparities and emphasizing the role of society, politics and culture in shaping scientific researchers' personalities and interests.

The paper's originality/value lies in its comprehensive documentation of the scientific biographies of Egypt's most prominent scientists in the 20th century, providing unique insights into the factors that contributed to their development and their impact across various academic disciplines. It preserves Egypt's scientific heritage and inspires future generations of scientists and researchers through the promotion of educational investments and scientific research. The encyclopedia serves as a useful tool for education professionals seeking to understand scientific success factors and research methodologies, emphasizing the importance of supportive and inclusive environments for scientific development.

The purpose of this paper is to uncover similarities and differences among emphasized information literacy (IL) skills for the disciplines of political- and social sciences, economics, educational sciences, law sciences, mathematics, life sciences, history and German studies, based on an analysis of IL teaching materials.

Eight issues of the German language publication series Erfolgreich recherchieren (Succesful Research Strategies) are compared by using a structuring content analysis. The category system is based on the IL standards and performance indicators of the Association of College and Research Libraries (2000), extended with additional categories.

The results, first, suggest that the biggest similarities and differences among the disciplines are found concerning the determination of the nature and extent of the needed information, especially in the area of identifying potential sources of information. Second, some of the disciplines focus more on international sources, whereas others focus on country- and language-specific sources. Third, the criteria to define the appropriate retrieval system differ among the various disciplines. Fourth, approaches to narrow the search results differ among the various disciplines. Fifth, the critical evaluation of sources is addressed in all disciplines but relates to different contexts.

This approach only addresses one book per discipline out of a German language book series. Further research is needed.

This paper is unique in its approach and one of few papers on disciplinary differences in IL perception.

Focusing on the adoption of Total Quality Management (TQM) principles in universities, this research paper explores how the “soft” dimensions of TQM trigger its “hard” dimensions considering them at the individual (micro-) and the university (meso-), and eventually at cluster (system-), levels.

Adopting a qualitative approach, this study presents an in-depth, longitudinal case study of University of Siena, one of the oldest Italian universities, that has been at the core of the research-based cluster on vaccines, today converged in the Tuscan Life Science Cluster. In particular, data were collected between 2018 and February 2022 and consists of archival data (press articles, websites, books), nine interviews to key informants, multiyear experience of the Life Sciences sector by two of the authors and other material put at disposal by university offices, and emails. Data analysis relied on a timeline, a coding procedure that considered three levels of analysis (individual, organization and cluster). Finally, the authors looked at the “how” and “why” the emerged themes have contributed to academic excellence.

This paper unveils how “soft” and “hard” sides of TQM are blended across multiple levels for reaching academic excellence. The grounded model emerged enlightens the importance of an individual “soft” dimension, academic passion (composed by its three subdimensions of individual research, teaching and entrepreneurial passion) and also sheds light on the organizational “soft” and “hard” sides that the university has been able to design for encouraging research, teaching and third mission quality. Academic excellence has been possible thanks to the capitalization of the individual and organizational “soft” sides into real outcomes as represented by the organizational and individual “hard” sides.

The paper suggests the importance of TQM principles applied at universities' level, providing an in-depth description of “soft” and “hard” sides dimensions of TQM and their impact on all the three pillars of academic excellence. The study findings suggest implications for managers and professionals in the higher education domain as well as for policymakers emphasizing the importance of supporting the individual and organizational soft sides of TQM. The authors provide practical implications recommending universities to consider not only the organizational dimensions but also individual ones when pursuing higher education excellence. In particular, individual passion plays a crucial role and universities need to identify ways of nurturing it. The authors also recommend policymakers to think about new ways to sustain universities as crucial actors in boosting a cluster development, as well as to consider higher education institutions, especially in more rural areas, as a privileged player not only capable of nurturing academic excellence but also able of creating an internationally renowned cluster.

TQM principles have been intensively analysed from an industrial perspective focusing on manufacturing and services, while this paper focuses on TQM in universities, presenting a grounded model that blends the individual and organizational “soft” and “hard” sides.

The interconnections between climate change and health are well studied. However, there is a perceived need for studies that examine how responses to health hazards (e.g. cardiovascular diseases, ozone layer effects, allergens, mental health and vector-borne diseases) may assist in reducing their impacts. The purpose of this paper is to review the evidence on health responses to climate hazards and list some measures to address them.

A mixed literature review, bibliometric analysis and an original online survey were undertaken on 140 participants from 55 countries spread across all geographical regions.

The bibliometric analysis identified that most climate-related health hazards are associated with extreme weather events. However, only one-third of the investigated papers specifically analysed the connections between climate change and health hazards, revealing a thematic gap. Also, although Africa is highly affected by climate change, only 5% of the assessed studies focused on this continent. Many respondents to the survey indicated “heat distress” as a significant vulnerability. The survey also identified social determinants relevant to climate-induced health vulnerabilities, such as socioeconomic and environmental factors, infrastructure and pre-existing health conditions. Most respondents agree that policies and regulations are the most effective adaptation tools to address the public health hazards triggered by climate change. This paper presents some suggestions for optimising public health responses to health hazards associated with climate change, such as the inclusion of climate-related components in public health policies, setting up monitoring systems to assess the extent to which specific climate events may pose a health threat, establishing plans to cope with the health implications of heatwaves, increased measures to protect vulnerable groups and education and awareness-raising initiatives to reduce the overall vulnerability of the population to climate-related health hazards. These measures may assist the ongoing global efforts to understand better – and cope with – the impacts of climate change on health.

The combination of a literature review, bibliometric analysis and an original world survey identified and presented a wide range of responses.

In this study, the authors want to identify current possible causes for citing and referencing errors in scholarly literature to compare if something changed from the snapshot provided by Sweetland in his 1989 paper.

The authors analysed reference elements, i.e. bibliographic references, mentions, quotations and respective in-text reference pointers, from 729 articles published in 147 journals across the 27 subject areas.

The outcomes of the analysis pointed out that bibliographic errors have been perpetuated for decades and that their possible causes have increased, despite the encouraged use of technological facilities, i.e. the reference managers.

As far as the authors know, the study is the best recent available analysis of errors in referencing and citing practices in the literature since Sweetland (1989).

Although current research has investigated how open research data (ORD) are published, researchers' behaviour of ORD sharing on academic social networks (ASNs) remains insufficiently explored. The purpose of this study is to investigate the connections between ORDs publication and social activity to uncover data literacy gaps.

This work investigates whether the ORDs publication leads to social activity around the ORDs and their linked published articles to uncover data literacy needs. The social activity was characterised as reads and citations, over the basis of a non-invasive approach supporting this preliminary study. The eventual associations between the social activity and the researchers' profile (scientific domain, gender, region, professional position, reputation) and the quality of the ORD published were investigated to complete this picture. A random sample of ORD items extracted from ResearchGate (752 ORDs) was analysed using quantitative techniques, including descriptive statistics, logistic regression and K-means cluster analysis.

The results highlight three main phenomena: (1) Globally, there is still an underdeveloped social activity around self-archived ORDs in ResearchGate, in terms of reads and citations, regardless of the published ORDs quality; (2) disentangling the moderating effects over social activity around ORD spots traditional dynamics within the “innovative” practice of engaging with data practices; (3) a somewhat similar situation of ResearchGate as ASN to other data platforms and repositories, in terms of social activity around ORD, was detected.

Although the data were collected within a narrow period, the random data collection ensures a representative picture of researchers' practices.

As per the implications, the study sheds light on data literacy requirements to promote social activity around ORD in the context of open science as a desirable frontier of practice.

Researchers data literacy across digital systems is still little understood. Although there are many policies and technological infrastructure providing support, the researchers do not make an in-depth use of them.

The peer-review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-05-2021-0255.