Our readers might be interested to know that the Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars initiated and completed its 2013 survey of Canadian postdocs and had an incredible 1,800 responses. The survey data is currently being analyzed and compiled and we’ll be very excited to read and write about the results when they become available. From the Black Hole newsroom, we are still preparing our resource site (apologies to those who have been waiting!) and hope to have it ready this autumn and we are always looking to have guest posts on topics that our readers are passionate about. Just email us at contact@scienceadvocacy.org if you are keen to contribute.
For now, here’s a recap of this quarter’s posts:
Jonathan
- National Research Council funding priorities miss the point
- What happens when you insufficiently fund basic research
- Federal research institutes should host crowdfunding initiatives
- Re-inventing crowdfunding for academic research
- Democratizing academic research through crowd funding
Dave
- To close the gender gap, make other jobs sexy
- Tri-Councils should learn from EMBO fellowships
- Postdoctoral mentors and a regular reality check
- Calling for a unified paper submission style
Other activity
Dave continued to write for the Signals blog with three entries:
- Dear student: Read the supplementary material
- Political furor drives government funding for clinical trial – who should fund stem cell therapy trials?
- The importance of unequal division in stem cells
Commentary
Many of our readers supported the idea of a unified journal submission style and we’ll explore the idea of pushing this concept at some higher levels. SB made some excellent points regarding the article on closing the gender gap by encouraging men to leave science – suggesting rather that we build a culture that supports women. Jonathan’s entries on crowdfunding science generated some buzz with concerns about the peer-review process of grant funding.
We hope that everyone is enjoying their summer and look forward to excellent continued discussion in the autumn.
