Posts

CTV News Huawei 5G ban puts UBC partnerships in spotlight; This week’s decision stops short of restricting research agreements A ban on Huawei Technologies’ involvement in Canada’s 5G wireless network could have a ripple effect on valuable research partnerships at Canadian universities, including the University of B.C., where Huawei funded 24 research projects worth $6.3 […]

Stress is an odd thing. While conversations about work/life balance are coming to the fore, they tend to focus on workload and role conflict. They often miss other elements that contribute to that sense of overwhelm. I’ll focus on one that feels – but is not – insurmountable: the sense that what you’re doing lacks […]

Seldom do magazine cover promises of easy steps and good results live up to their claims. But sometimes, there actually is a set of short steps we can take to accomplish something worthwhile. That doesn’t mean we’ll naturally take them, mind you. Normally, if there’s something seemingly simple and time-limited that might be useful, we find endless […]

We are very pleased this week to introduce a guest post from Damien Wilpitz, an experienced laboratory research manager at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Damien is also the founder and manager of Experimental Designs Consulting, a management consulting firm specifically tailored to new academic science faculty. His article this week (hopefully the first […]

Dave published an excellent post last week where he compared the academy to the fashion industry for its general lack of innovation and conformist social exclusion. Today I thought I’d play devil’s advocate to Dave’s very well-received piece, which almost always lands me in trouble. In the interest of staving off the expected torrent of […]

Government support of research and development should focus on expanding its ability to engage in early basic research, where justification for government intervention is strongest, while incentivizing programs that will help bring these discoveries to market. To better appreciate this point we need look no further than across our largest border. Over the last three […]

Liz Koblyk looks at some popular job search advice that can be misleading for job seekers.

In 2010 the federal government of Canada established an Expert Panel on Federal Support to Research and Development to provide advice on maximizing the effectiveness of federal support for basic research. To sustain the current level of prosperity Canada enjoys among first-world nations and maintain competitiveness in an increasingly challenging global context, the report specifies […]

I was recently invited to give a keynote address at the Human Disease Mapping conference at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland  that was fully coordinated by a small group of the college’s PhD students and postdoctoral fellows. The scope was to share my experience and story of my academic career in a period […]

We are very pleased to introduce a guest post from Dr. Mark Larson, an associate professor of biology at Augustana College, South Dakota. Mark is a distinguished scientist, a gifted lecturer and a strong advocate for science education. His article this week is particularly timely in light of recent events in the South Dakota Legislature. […]

It seems that, when it comes to making choices, choosing what’s “good enough” is more useful than seeking what’s rationally the best option. According to one group of researchers (PDF), now old-fashioned theories of rational choice rely on the myth that people are rational choosers [who] go through life with all their options arrayed before […]

We are very pleased to have a series of posts from Sonja B. in the coming weeks on the experiences of an international student moving from Europe to Canada. The idea of the posts is to stimulate a discussion amongst international scholars in Canadian science labs to help each other wade through the sometimes confusing […]

It’s a new year, and with it come renewed efforts to improve the status of academic funding in Canada. While our reader feedback  has been phenomenal this last year, our government’s has been less so. Back in June 2013 I wrote a series of open letters on the status of science funding in Canada which […]

In a previous post I made the argument that one way of recovering federally funded-research costs and bringing discoveries and innovations to the marketplace is by having governments included in intellectual property agreements. My guess is that getting universities to give up their patent rights and ability to claim  indirect costs from incoming grants are […]

In my last post, I talked about beginnings, the importance of looking up at the road ahead and then taking the small steps to move forward in that direction. Implicit in that post is the sense that as we walk down a road we come to crossroads, forks, and half-visible trails through the underbrush. At […]

In light of the present circumstances, I thought I would interrupt my ongoing series on federal funding of basic research in Canada and take the opportunity this week to update you on the current status of science funding in the United States amid another looming fiscal showdown. The 2014 fiscal year in the U.S. begins […]

When good isn’t good enough: executive head of the U15 group of research universities has her say.

I’ve just finished hosting my first group coaching call and I’m feeling pretty darn good about it. That’s how I feel about my life these days in general: pretty darn good. A year ago—less, even—I was jokingly telling friends and acquaintances that I was a loser with a PhD. I was only half joking. How […]

Christian Paradis, the minister of Industry and State (Agriculture) recently announced that in response to the continuing challenges facing the global economy, the Canadian government has elected to shift the National Research Council of Canada’s research priorities toward delivering support and services driven by market and industry demand. This sentiment was echoed by Gary Goodyear, […]

I just came back from the Education at Work conference, which wrapped up with an employer panel. I like employer panels – they give me a chance to test out whether I actually know what I’m talking about, or whether I’ve developed an artificial, Disney-esque view of the way one goes about finding a job. […]