I’m live blogging from our first ever Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) workshop for our Postdoc Fellows. This event was co-sponsored by a grant I wrote to the National Postdoc Association last year. RCR training is mandatory, starting next year, for any postdoc funded by the National Science Foundation. Likely the National Institutes of Health will follow suit in the near future.
Right now Prof. Ackerman, Chair of our Institutional Review Board, is presenting on the morals of scientific research. This promoted the head of our Postdoc Office to stand up 10mins into the talk and confess that she hadn’t received informed consent from those present to record the session. You couldn’t make this up!
Ha ha! That’s brilliant!
Saw a couple of talks today where such information was given explicitly on the first slide. We asked the organizer if we could video my talk, and she was like, huh? You’re a sponsor, you can do what you damn well like.
Nice one! “It’s your sodding data innit?”
I wanted to blog more, but it was pretty busy. NOw, time to take our guest speaker to dinner at Memphis’ finest restaurant… on the company cheque. Last time the bill (incl. wine & port) was >$350
mmmmm…..dinnnnnerrrrr…..
heh.
Mine’s a vodka martini please—dry as a parrot’s cage and dirty as a Catholic schoolgirl.
I was asked recently something similar when I gave the keynote at an industry-sponsored conference. My response was “it’s your conference, you invited me and are paying my way, so of course you can videotape the lecture”. To have said anything else seems churlish to me.
Our guest speaker was a friend of mine from Wake Forrest University. She spoke at length, in an excellent presentation, on FFP – Falsification, Fabrication & Plagiarism. She opened by confessing to the second of those Deadly Sins: Fabrication.
“I have to confess that I am guilty of data fabrication…”
cue hushed intakes of breath from a rapt audience
“I was running a locomotion experiment studying the effects of alcohol on navigation and coordination. We had designed the maze, built the custom equipment, written protocols. But at the last minute my major sponsor backed out and wouldn’t purchase the rodent model we were using. I needed data, so I made it up.”
cue shrieks and mild panic amongst the younger and more febrile members of the audience
“Yes. Of course, the major sponsor was my father and this was for a fifth grade science fair…”
LOLz abounded.
RCR training is already required for all postdocs on NIH fellowships. Are you saying that it will be required for all postdocs on R01s too?
Booze on the company dime is a good time. I was recently informed that postdoc candidates can’t be treated to drinks at dinner at my university. It sucks because we can buy drinks for grad student candidates, faculty candidates, and visiting speakers.
Hi Rich! How’s Lazarro doing? I owe him an email from like years ago…
That alcohol issue is
bullshitbogus. It’s not a matter of alcohol and drinking per se it’s an equality issue. Why do we sudddenly lose our rights the minute we finish grad school? Postdocs are generally second class citizens in the US academic system and one reason I joined the National Postdoc Association was to help fight that.Do you guys have an active Postdoc Association? I see from the Cornell website you have a Postdoc Office. A decent PDA can work wonders by providing a voice for postdocs with the Administration. Half the time a lot of the “rules” and regulations are groundless and can be changed if you can get the ear of the Admin. They want their postdocs to be happy (because a happy postdoc is a productive postdoc) and you can get a lot of smaller, stupid bureaucratic nonsense dealt with rapidly. That then gives you bargaining power for larger issues like maternity/paternity leave, salary, benefits etc.
My colleagues at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have recently scored a major concession from their administration after a fair-rights campaign. I disagree strongly with Unionization* but group effort is vital to our success in the current and future world of scademic science.
(*speaking as a private citizen, not as a Member of the Board of Directors of the NPA. For the NPA stance please see our White Paper on Unionization)