We hope that you will find the forum a good opportunity to post questions to the scientific panel which includes a patent attorney, biomedical scientist and science recruitment manager amongst others. If you have ever wondered what do you look for in a candidate fresh from academia? / what extra skills would help NGO scientist volunteers? / what are typical career trajectories for scientists in your field? of any industry speakers but never had the opportunity to ask, you can now post such questions in the forum… and we will do our best to ensure your question receives helpful relevant answers from our panel of scientific experts!

The paper is organized into four areas:

1. Self promotion. What can I do prior to and during the job hunt?
2. Personal considerations. How will both my professional and personal lives affect which jobs I should apply for?
3. The application process. What should I expect when applying?
4. Keeping it all in perspective. What if my application is rejected?

Read more here, or the full article is here

See also Part I: Taking the plunge.

Only a few weeks left before subscriptions close

For the past 10 years, L’Oréal and UNESCO have been actively supporting the scientific and academic communities.

Fellowships of $20 000 and $40 000 are still available to allow female researchers to develop and pursue their research projects in the field of Life Sciences.

Apply now. The deadline for subscriptions is June 15th 2008. The admission criteria are available on the website, at www.loreal.ca/fwis/en

«The World needs Science. Science needs Women.»

Why don’t we try and reclaim the word “researcher” to describe our job roles? Lecturers aren’t “professor students” or “post-postdocs” so why should our labels be attached solely to something we’ve already done (sometimes many years ago)? By extension why not call undergrads post-a-levellers? [An A-level being the UK qualification typically preceding a university degree]

Does anyone agree? And if so, is there a more appropriate term for such researchers?

The term “sustainable development” includes such goals as environmental protection, biodiversity conservation, population stabilization, education, resolving the cycle of poverty and hunger, promoting gender equality, preventing violence and wars, closing the rich-poor gap, etc, etc, etc. I wonder if there is anything that is unrelated to sustainable development.

There seems to be increasing consensus that analysis of the traditional three pillars (social, economic, and environmental) are not enough to plan and manage sustainable development work. Most research groups are trying to develop methods to deal with sustainable development as a fuzzy and multi-dimensional process.

I have tried two approaches. Last year, I dealt with the eight UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), one at a time but analyzing each one in the context of all the others. My conclusion was that MDG3 (promotion of gender equality) is the pivotal MDG and the gateway to all the others.

This year, I am analyzing the various dimensions of sustainable development. I have a list of 40+ dimensions that are clearly relevant, so it will take a long time to analyze each one (in context with all the others) in order to elucidate which ones should be given highest priority. And this should be done by a multi-disciplinary research team, which I don’t have.

Is there anyone here who is working in this area and would like to compare notes and see if there are opportunities for collaboration?

Sincerely,
Luis

Luis T. Gutierrez, PhD
Independent Researcher and Editor,
“Solidarity, Sustainability, and Nonviolence”
luisgutierrez@peoplepc.com

Tired of explaining your research, only to get this reply?

Scientists are increasingly being asked to communicate the social and ethical aspects of their research. However, there are few opportunities for early-career researchers to develop their skills in discussing these issues.

perspectives, a poster session with a difference, gives you valuable experience in discussing your research with a non-specialist audience. The scheme also provides training in producing and presenting a poster. Finalists will present their posters at the BA Festival of Science in Liverpool, where prizes will be awarded by a panel of expert judges.

For more information, and to apply online, visit
http://www.the-ba.net/perspectives

perspectives is open to postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers funded by the UK research councils.

Application deadline: 21 May 2008
Sponsored by Research Councils UK

I’ll go first. I have two friends who have left the “Ivory Tower” for different pursuits the first went to the U.S. Patent Office and has enjoyed the work. Now after only 6 months he has been promoted. Another friend recently joined a contract organization where he is learning about IND and FDA fillings. So far he is enjoying the 9-5 lifestyle with the prospects of working from home in the near future.

If you are a PhD student or a postdoc in any biological science discipline, you could participate in an evaluation task. The task is to identify how much text information is necessary for understanding figure images that appear in biomedical journal articles. The evaluation task will be conducted online. You can do the task anywhere you like as long as you have an internet connection.

You will be shown 25 figures with different associated text (e.g., caption). Your task is to score to what extend you understand the image content on the basis of information provided, and to write up text to describe the figure content.

We anticipate that for each figure you’ll spend 2-10 minutes and total evaluation time to be about 2.5 hours. We will pay each participant $40 for their contribution.

This study has been approved by the IRB at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and supported by Prof. Hong Yu, Dept. Health Sciences’ grant. To participate contact me (Shashank) on agarwal (at) uwm.edu.

Thanks.