This quarter features a guest post from the current Chair of the Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars and several posts from both Jonathan and David. As always, our guest posts are very popular (and very good!) because the writers have often thought deeply about the issue they are speaking up about – we encourage more of our readers to do the same – get in touch at [email protected].
Guest Post – Dr. Joe Sparling, Chair of CAPS/ACSP
Employment insurance for postdocs needs to be a priority
Jonathan’s posts focused on those incredibly tough first few years starting up a new laboratory group – from getting the position through to the very practical issues that need ironing out and can cost you months of productivity if not done correctly:
- Negotiating your lab and office space requirements
- What type of research assistant do you need to help with your lab startup?
- Keeping track of your lab expenses
- How we turned a $1-million start-up award to $3 million
- Finding a suitable home for your research program – part 3, verifying fit
David’s posts were more varied and focused on the broader issues of being a young scientist with two posts on peer review and another employment related post with new legislation in the U.S. that should give many postdocs a salary bump:
- The CIHR gong show – a ridiculous state of affairs
- No more overtime for low-paid postdocs in the U.S. – will Canada follow suit?
- On the CV of failures, downtime and being normal
- Peer review appears to be a poor predictor of impact
David also continued to write for Signals Blog on stem cell science with some posts on the ISSCR meeting amongst others:
- Tip of the iceberg? Scary stuff from international stem cell clinics
- ISSCR final day – Not just one hit… finding combinations in cancer
- ISSCR Day 1: Escaping the ground state of pluripotency
- Ethics for early career stem cell researchers – are we missing a trick?
Top posts for this month
- The CIHR gong show – a ridiculous state of affairs (4K views)
- Peer review appears to be a poor predictor of impact (2K views)
- On the CV of failures, downtime and being normal (1.5K views)
- No more overtime for low-paid postdocs in the U.S. – will Canada follow suit? (1K views)
- Employment insurance for postdocs needs to be a priority (1K views)
Top historic posts
- 2013 taxes for Canadian postdocs: The goal is consistency
- Fewer postdocs with higher salaries? Hold your horses!
- Could parental leave actually be good for my academic career?
- Too much Talent? SSHRC’s “solution” to the postdoc boom
- The truly bleak job prospects for young scientists in the life sciences
