Group leaders nowadays bear a huge individual responsibility for raising money. But what if it was departments, and not group leaders, that were the unit of selection?
Continue readingThe unit of selection
Funding
Follow the money
I’m less than a year into my new scientific career in the private sector, and the biggest difference with academia is already clear: it’s the money.
But not, as you might think, in terms of salary…
Continue readingPro Bono (a riff on unpaid labour in academia)
Being unemployed is making me realise how many unpaid hours I was committing to academia.
Continue readingShort sight & Oversight (the ballad of Marc Tessier-Lavigne)
The Stanford president’s uncomfortable shortcomings in terms of research integrity will come as no surprise to those familiar with the dynamics of scientific career progression.
Continue readingThe iron law of scientific oligarchies
The scientific community has entrenched oligarchies. Science would be better served if they were broken up.
Continue readingFunding scientific ecosystem services
Shouldn’t be we funding scientists as well as researchers?
Continue readingResearch, and Development (a lament for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer)
I’ve been thinking about Ole Gunnar Solskjaer a lot in the last week… Continue reading
The invisible hand of the market
Scientists like to claim – rightly – that they’re free to do research into whatever takes their fancy, but getting funding for it is a different matter. Continue reading
Live and let die
An aversion to asking tough questions in the here and now can lead to a messier and more painful outcome in the future. Continue reading
Excluding elites
If ever there was a word that needed reclaiming from the faux culture wars stoked by right-wing media machines, lost and wounded in an online no-man’s land of internecine strife, it is “elite”. Continue reading
Total Internal Reflection 