The Black Hole
Business accelerators have become fashionable, and for good reason, says Jonathan Thon in the first of a series on this entrepreneurial trend.
It hurts to see scientists cave to the pressure of a funding organization to alter their research to fit bureaucratic goals.
Mentors, in particular, can help you to expand your contact base to the larger world around you.
A new U.S. survey sees a rise in negative attitudes towards science. Is Canada any different?
To succeed outside the narrow career trajectory of “university professor,” early career scientists must be exposed to the job market earlier.
We need to assess who gets funded based on research merit, not journal label.
The earnings of grad students and postdocs is so low that they have little to lose by engaging in business start-ups.
This quarter featured one of our most heavily commented on posts since the classic “Say NO to the second postdoc entry” in 2009, but unlike the personal angst that the postdoctoral post dredged up, this quarter’s “Sorry Rick Mercer, I’d love to agree but I think you’re wrong” post was about the level of interest […]
By signing this fiscal years’ (FY) appropriations bill in the United States, the American president has provided greater certainty about the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) 2015 budget. The forecast is not positive, and uncertainties of year-to-year appropriations cycles in the U.S. continues to make it challenging for organizations like the NIH to develop long-range […]
Changes to eligibility rules should be adopted by any agency looking to encourage women to continue in science.
“A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.” – Edna St. Vincent Millay Consider this your invitation to the show. Academia is a campaign, often mixing elation with […]
Last week, Rick Mercer went on a rant about science – about how impressive it is that scientists managed to land on a comet half a billion kilometres away, about how the current Canadian government fails to support “pure science,” and how the Canadian public is “as passionate and curious as anyone else.” While I […]
Foreword from David Kent: Dear readers, last week I spoke out about the lip service that is being paid to the value of academics that choose to be science communicators, but I did not mean to under-value the contribution that such activity has for making the scientific research environment a better place and for helping […]
As many of my colleagues know, I have spent the last number of months applying for pots of money for my research. Just as in Canada, these monies are typically supplied though government agencies or charitable organisations. Over the last two decades there has been a steady increase in the excitement for and provision of […]
It should come as no surprise that I am a strong advocate of knowledge translation. While this has customarily meant making science accessible to persons that are not experts in one’s field of study but are otherwise important supporters of one’s work, translating research across language barriers even within a field is an equally important […]
Earlier this month, I was gobsmacked when a colleague told me of their paper’s afternoon journey from submission to acceptance in a peer-reviewed journal. Not only was this a lightning fast acceptance, but it was the paper’s first submission, i.e., it had never been through peer review. It was received by the editor, read by […]
Biomedical research at academic institutions is mostly funded by federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and National Research Council (NRC) in Canada that are themselves supported entirely by taxpayer dollars. While scientists are required […]
Calling all North American funding agencies! Researcher mobility appears to be a high priority for funding agencies and universities, and it has many advantages for the science community – most importantly the sharing of new ideas and the formation of new networks. Recently, there has been a backlash against the “need to move,” with many […]
Our summer posts had a theme it seems – something we didn’t plan, but which has resulted in a small series of posts on misplaced priorities in academic research. From my post on academic bullying to Jonathan’s on the difficulties resulting from indirect costs levied by universities to our guest blogger Damien on hiring strategies […]
In last week’s blog post (“How lab managers hire for science“), Damien raised an interesting point regarding best hiring practices for new academic faculty that I felt should be highlighted here. Damien recommends that when screening research-scientist candidates for the lab, principal investigators should “identify individuals who lack skills that a new investigator can provide. […]