This quarter has been a very busy one for both Jonathan and me. Unfortunately from my end, this meant that the scienceadvocacy.org resource site is not yet live. Things are starting to take shape and it should be launched this autumn. We hope this will be an easier-to-navigate resource page that can direct early career researchers and policymakers to the items they need without having to dig around too much or re-invent the wheel. We’ll certainly keep readers posted on its progress.
For now, here’s the quarterly recap for those readers that have been busy too!
Articles written
Jonathan:
Playing the devil’s advocate on low salaries
A framework for changing the current research economy
Academic burnout should be a major cause for concern
Supply and demand in the knowledge market
The truly bleak job prospects for young scientists in the life sciences
A response from the health minister on the lack of opportunity for early-career scientists
Dave:
The state of science in Canada: Not bad, but the devil’s in the details
A new way to help you choose your science-related career
UBC tops in Canada? Rimouski 7th in sciences? New metrics for measuring research
Come on NSERC, really – you’ve completely missed the point…
Grumpy old men (and women) – feedback on proposed CIHR reforms
Novel ideas for the biomedical research workforce, anyone in Canada listening?
Our other activities
Dave published a feature article in BlueSci, Cambridge’s science magazine on the training of scientists, entitled Whose Training is it Anyway?
Discussion highlights
In response to my comments on the NIH and NAS reports, S_C pitched a question to readers that sadly went untouched. I think we’ll have to follow up on it. It’s an interesting suggestion to create research-focused assistant professors for 5-10 years and evaluate their performance – good ones stay, bad ones go (I see Cambridge doing similar things, Boston too).
One of the most heavily commented and read articles on our site, the discussion that ensued from the article on NSERC restricting postdocs to one fellowship application per lifetime, was very heated. This is one of the poorest decisions that NSERC has ever made and I really think they’ve failed to see the hugely negative impact that it will have on the system – see the CAPS letter in response to this.
Popular posts this quarter
Come on NSERC, really – you’ve completely missed the point… (5,214)
The truly bleak job prospects for young scientists in the life sciences (1,914)
UBC tops in Canada? Rimouski 7th in sciences? New metrics for measuring research (1,397)
A new way to help you choose your science-related career (1,217)