which reads…Happy Birthday Nature Network!
Although Science in the Bel Paese is a much younger brother of NNetwork, he (assuming this blog is male, but it may switch sexes with time) is much grateful to the visibility that the Nature Network portal has provided.
Over the past few weeks, Science in the Bel Paese was featured on the Radio, will come up in an Italian Science Communication podcast, is about to come up as part of a journal article (next week or two in Nature) and more contacts are being generated as I write. Though it may not land me a grant, blogging on this platform is enriching me as a communicator, and is generating some constructive discussions with the readers.
For the readers of this blog, here is a plan for next month. As soon as I will be done with my grant proposal (March 3), and with the encouraging help of NN Editors, I will be launching a group on Italian Science, arguably a natural evolution of this blog. Italian readers will be contacted via email (surely it will go in your spambox!) and invited to join. They will be asked to spread the word.
A discussion in English on Italian Science and the transparency that it can bring has a potential of doing us well. In the respect of pluralism, many voices will do better than the single voice that you are hearing from this trail-blazer blog (uuuh, that was an ambitious adjective).
Happy Birthday Nature Network, and Happy Valentine’s day.
Massimo
Thanks Massimo. We’re all very fond of your blog, and look forward to seeing the group take shape soon.
Thank you Mark! Were you virtually sitting on the internet wire as the blog page took shape? 8-}
Hi Massimo, I am very happy to see that your blog is blooming so nicely. I really hope that somebody in the upper spheres will read your posts and the comments and realize that there is so much to do and we are still so backward in the academia.
Cheers
Piero
Ciao Piero,
surely it will take more than a blog to get at least something straight. Launching a NNetwork group may give the opportunity to hear more voices and pave the way to constructive criticism of the Italian scientific scenario.
Did you read the Nature article by Virginia Gewin on social networking in science? She also talked about this Belpaese blog in it.
Ciao Massimo,
I find very good your idea of translating to English open postions published in Italian. Can you kindly explain how you do this, and where you publish them? This info would be valuable both for groups looking for new people, and also for foreign scientists willing to spend some time in the BelPaese.
Thanx, ciao
Hi Monica,
more than open positions, it’s funding opportunities that I advertise in this blog. In most cases, these funding opportunities provide money to fund, other than materials and equipment, new positions which are, de facto, based on soft money, i.e. they are linked to the duration of the project. They are not permanent positions.
These funding opportunities are advertised in this blog as individual posts. Please see, for example, Espresso Grant info #1 and Espresso Grant Info #2.
More to come.
In the next week or two, an Italian Science group will be created on this portal, and we may certainly consider expanding the funding adverts to cover open positions that are linked to existing projects, or permanent positions. Will you please join in and participate in the discussions on the new group. I will give you a shout when it’s up and running.
Thank you for your note.
Massimo
I look forward to read and join your group on italian science!!!
good luck