Are we cut off?
William Burns
Sunday, 25 May 2008 23:09 UTC
Brisbane is a long way from the scientific hubs of North America, Europe and Asia – and even Sydney and Melbourne aren’t exactly on our doorstep.
Does this mean we’re cut off from the mainstream? Is it harder for Brisbane-based scientists to get into Nature or other top journals?
Do we even try to get into them, or do we resign ourselves to something less, thinking no matter how hard we try, we’re just not hip enough?
In the age of the RQF (yes, I suspect it will come back from the dead), don’t we have to strive for better things?
PS:
For the next few months I’m going to track the number of Brisbane-based groups (at least one author from Brisbane) who get into Nature or Science. Perhaps forum members could do the same for the top journal in their specialty.
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I don’t feel especially isolated through being in Brisbane, or Australia, but then I interact with a lot of people through social networks other than Nature Network. Here’s a plug for the new Life Science area at FriendFeed. Having worked in both Sydney and Brisbane, I feel that things are a lot more dynamic in QLD.
Personally, I feel that “better things” means a lot more than top journals, but then I’m a bioinformatician so I don’t even contemplate first authorship in Nature, Science or Cell! Brisbane is certainly a fine place to be doing bioinformatics, with the IMB and other centres.
I hope that web-based collaboration and networking is doing something to dispel the “arse end of the earth” mentality. Really, geographical location is increasingly meaningless.
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Neil, please feel free to plug social networks, web sites or pet theories you’re associated with.
I guess it depends on your field whether you feel isolated or not. Because I’m working on a popular science book I often want to get hold of old books during my research, only to find the copy is housed in Boston, or London – I think that makes me more aware of the isolation.
Some of my laboratory-based colleagues have complained about isolation, as if being in Europe guarantees publications (it doesn’t, as anyone who has seen the inside of a European lab can testify!). That said, I spoke to a journal editor who said Australians aren’t proactive enough in selling their science to the top journals.
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who said Australians aren’t proactive enough in selling their science to the top journals
There may be some truth in that. I’ve also heard from an Australian scientist working overseas that journal editors have been known to roll their eyes when papers arrive from Australia – apparently in some quarters it is synonymous with “rubbish science”. The person in question is something of a smug expat, so I don’t know how much was in jest.
If there is any truth to that, my theory is that sometimes, Australian science goes to such extreme lengths to achieve popular publicity (thanks to woeful funding, we can’t simply let the science speak for itself), that it can appear laughable. Witness the recent “Tassie tiger DNA resurrected” for example – all 17 bp of it. Or the “clone the Tassie tiger” project. Or the giant white kangaroo, visible from space. I don’t think these initiatives do much for our reputation.
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The other day, I found myself speaking to a science journalist from a well-known Australian newspaper (which I won’t name) who said he thought Australian science was hopeless. Nothing good ever got done in Australia, he said. I ended up trying to defend Australian science, and I’m not even Australian.
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This is an interesting topic and one close to the hearts of any Aussie scientist who has set up shop here, or any expat contemplating coming home. My experience in Brisbane is very positive – we have a fantastically supportive local government, funding is not as dire as you are lead to believe as a postdoc, we enjoy great facilities and a wonderful environment to work in. Many Brisbanites are frequent contributors to major journals, including invited opinion pieces in the Nature group.
We are undoubtedly isolated – I don’t think networking sites like this can substitute for the lunch/pub time networking or make up for the smallish pool of visiting seminar speakers that we enjoy. I think that this makes Australians very good collaborators as we actively seek those interactions across the globe.
My first reaction to your comments, William, is that we are really bad at networking at home. Is it that Aussie scientists don’t see the value in industry events that bring academics and biotech together? Do we blanch at meeting journos, pollies or other people that want us to talk in generalities? If the science writers for our local media don’t value what we do, it is obvious that they don’t know us, or we don’t know how to talk to them.
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I do agree with you Christine, that these type of sites (Nature Network) can’t make up for personal contacts.
But still I think networking sites can be useful and, if anything, Australian scientists should be more involved in them than scientists elsewhere, because of that perceived isolation.
I’m still hoping for rapid continental drift or an underground monorail that travels at a hundred times the speed of sound (and has budget airline-style fares) that will bring us all closer together…
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Since the beginning of the year, scientists in Brisbane have published 16 papers in the heavyweight journals (Science, Nature and Nature Biotechnology, Nature Cell Biology, and the others in Nature’s series).
The equivalent number for London is 202. For Boston it’s 223.
But, hold on! Let me adjust that for our respective populations, in which case, you need
116,111 Brisbanites or
36,413 Londoners or
19,978 Bostonians
to produce one heavyweight paper.
I’m not sure if this means anything, but it does seem to be saying that we’re cut off here in Brisbane.
PS: if you want to know how I worked these numbers out, it was with Web of Knowledge, adjusted with population numbers from Wikipedia (detailed methodology available on request).
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hmmm sobering statistics indeed.
how do we stack up against Berlin, Paris or Toronto?I was at a meeting last year where several of the heavy-weight journal editors had been invited – it was a useful networking opportunity, and they staged a ‘how do I get published in..nature/science/cell’ session. Perhaps this is something we should be asking our local conference organisers to include?
Cheers
Chris
(PS I’ll help you lobby can-do-cam for the trans-continental tunnel) -
Cut off – yes, I believe that we are. I’m not working on cutting edge science and I don’t plan to publish anything any time soon BUT access to published works out here in ‘regional’ Queensland (I’m on the Gold Coast) is at best severely restricted. Everything available seems to be in Sydney, Melbourne or Camberra and takes weeks to arrive (if at all!). I’ve had more success in accessing data by going to UK websites than searching here at home.
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Christine, I’ll have to work out those figures for other cities, as you suggest.
It would definitely be good to get journal editors to visit Brisbane, have you had any luck on this front?
An ex-Nature Medicine writer called Apoorva Mandavilli visited us to interview our boss Ian Frazer, and she put us in contact with an academic editor called Carina Dennis.
Unfortunately, Dennis couldn’t come to see us, but at least we had a chat with her over the phone and recorded an MP3. She said the obvious things but I think having an Australian, and what’s more a UQ graduate, saying these things helped a few people in our department.
But then again, I don’t think it’s just a question of insider knowledge, it’s also getting people fired up to actually try for these top journals.
I think a lot of people try, fail and then give up. On the way they attack the editor who rejected them (never a good move) and then say it’s the system that’s to blame. This is probably human nature, so I’m not so hard-hearted as to blame someone for behaving like this…all the same, perhaps scientists could learn something from journalists:
“Write exceptionally well, get your facts straight, get your piece in on time, and don’t be difficult.”
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