Last friday was the Research Futures conference for PhD students and Postdocs run by our local team up here in St Andrews. Interesting stuff, especially for a hapless scientist such as myself who is feeling… somewhat less enthusiastic than once he did about the prospect of a career in pure research. There were plenty of talks and stalls and interesting people to talk to, all gathered in the Physics and Mathematics buildings down where the real science happens. There were a number of different sessions all running concurrently on various different things; how to get postdoctoral funding from the EU, how to get a cushy job in industry, how to work for the pharmaceutical industry, how to be an academic and have a family to name but a few. The full programme, should you be interested in knowing what you missed, is available here . What follows is a general summary of the sessions I attended and interesting facts I picked up.

After a general welcome from Vice Principle Alan Miller, the day was kicked off by plenary talks by Dr Ian Lyne of the BBSRC and Prof. Philip Esler of the AHRC who filled us with enthusiasm, inevitably, for our transferable skills. Giant flow diagrams were unfurled before our eyes by Dr Lyne as he explained exactly how money moved from the government treasury through RCUK to the various research councils and Prof Esler introduced me to my first buzzword of the day : “knowledge transfer” which appears to be the aim of many of the research councils at the moment. Knowledge transfer, as I understand it, is a step above mere dissemination of scientific discovery; it is the act of equipping people with life-altering skills and knowledge through communication of your work. The general rallying cry for all the funding councils at the moment seems to be ‘knowledge is pointless if it is secret’ so they’re all desperate to know how individual projects are going to impact on British society at large and on Britain’s ability to compete in a global market. We all know that the days of ‘knowledge for knowledge’s sake’ are passed I think, but it’s intriguing and I think encouraging to know that the funding councils have their eyes on a worldwide scale. Useful to know if you’re writing grant proposals anyway.

After that I wandered gamely to the Working in Industry session, where a Danish man from Nokia (Dr Karsten Vandrup) explained how keen his company was to employ scientists, but not scientists with no life. Apparently it is not enough to merely be an expert in your field, you have to be charming and socially proactive as well. Some of the chemists looked a bit disheartened by this news. He also explained the difference between a multinational company (which most American based companies are, I gather) and a metanational one (like Nokia) but I’m afraid it lost me completely. Apparently it had something to do with the fact that it is not necessary to worry about your market share in America when you control the market in India. He finished by saying that, as scientists, we knew that proper inspiration came from investigation rather than “going in to the woods, being naked and doing a dance that describes your name”, thus upsetting the arts students in the room. He was followed by Dr Seema Sharma from ScienceCareers.org who made us feel great about our transferable skills (again) and told us about her website and the resources on offer. I’ve had a look around the website and it looks like a handy resource. All sorts of advice and careers on offer, not just in industry.

Lunch was followed by a plenary by Scotland’s Innovator of the Year, Ian Underwood, proud inventor of the MED Microdisplay . Following that, I attended a session on communicating science to the public, in which I was particularly interested, what with that being the latest direction in which I am trying to push my life. Robin Andrews from the Researcher’s In Residence scheme told us about the point and purpose of RinR. I actually got as far as applying to RinR last year and attending a briefing session but then had to pull out due to lack of time. It sounds like a fun and useful concept; spending some time in a local school enthusing the kids about science and explaining what you do in the name of bigging up higher education and science in general. If you’re interested, click the link above for more info. It’s a great way to get experience in schools without having to be a proper teacher. You have to be funded by one of the science councils though. After Robin came Rosalind Mist of ecsite-uk , the body that oversees and connects all the science museums and centres in the UK. This was a very interesting talk and at once got me very excited about being a science communicator whilst making me face some realities about the situation. It’s a very competitive market, apparently, and trying to break in to it without experience is very hard. Experience like the RinR scheme is useful, as is volunteering at a local museum or science fair. Something that made me sit up and take note was the revelation that science communication bodies are moving towards employing researchers who communicate as well as researching, so viewing communication as an alternative to pure research may not be feasible. Curses.

Last session of the day that I attended was called ‘Making a difference’, and featured Simon Pepper and Prof. Rob Gray. General theme; the world has been broken by preceding generations and we must fix it. Maxims: ‘you don’t know where change will come from’ and ‘swim against the tide’. It was time for the scientists in the audience to look a bit uncomfortable as we were encouraged to release information before knowledge was complete and to try to change the world using the performing arts and writing science fiction novels about utopias. One for the artists, really, but still a call to arms. I will agree with the central concept: we’re facing change to an extraordinary level in pretty much every area of human life and we really need to get to grips with it. Right now.

Anyway, then there was free wine, so everyone was happy. After that I staggered home armed with lots of new contacts and booklets of inspiration, sat in my flat and tried to reconcile my enthusiasm for future employment with the fact that I still have to write a thesis. Instead of thinking about that any more I looked up metanational on Wikipedia and found this .Didn’t really clear much up. And now I’m a little scared of Nokia.