Want to find investors for your research idea? Change the way you pitch
Many scientists hope to translate their discoveries into something useful and financially profitable. A biologist, for example, might hope to create a new line of health care products. Many use special grants or family resources to establish small companies. However, given the enormous challenges in the healthcare market, virtually every nascent enterprise needs outside funding; whether from wealthy “angel investors,” venture capital, or investment from large pharmaceutical and device developers. Read more
The million-dollar question every scientist should be asking
I recently had a phone call with a frustrated colleague looking for some advice. She had two key pressure points, both common in the field of science communication. Read more
How to mentor undergraduates as a postgraduate, and why it’s important
There’s a difference between mentoring and doling out to-do lists. This is something I’ve learned over the past year, my first as a mentor. Mentoring undergrads became part of my job only recently – in the past, research came first. Most advisors value research outcomes over mentoring, and departments certainly place more value on publications. Before this past year, I was used to just a single undergrad working in my lab, and I thought of them as worker bees, not as future colleagues. Read more
Resubmitting your study to a new journal could become easier
The National Information Standards Organization (NISO), a Baltimore, Maryland-based non-profit that promotes standardization in publishing, has embraced a plan to make it easier for journals to share rejected manuscripts and manuscript reviews without forcing authors to go through another arduous submission process. Read more
How product management could be a route out of academia for PhDs and postdocs
Let’s face it. Job prospects for PhD candidates and postdoctoral scientists are dismal. In 2012, a study on the biomedical research workforce, conducted by the National Institutes of Health and pictorialized by the American Society for Cell Biology, showed that there is a significant number of biology PhDs in the US who have resorted to doing non-science jobs. Those who stay in science face financial penalties: one 2017 Nature Biotechnology study demonstrated postdocs, on average, forfeit 20% of their earning potential within the first 15 years of completing their PhD program. Read more
How do you draw the line between volunteer work and unpaid labour?
But questions remain about the plan’s actual intent and its potential impact on US universities’ current and future policies around existing faculty members. Read more
Reshaping the research landscape
The proposal from the advisory body in Washington DC calls for more career counselling at the graduate and postdoctoral levels, better data on career outcomes at those levels, three-year caps on postdocs under principal investigators and new non-tenure track academic research positions, among other changes. To implement all the proposals would require a US$2 billion increase to the US National Institutes of Health (NIH)’s budget, as well as subsequent budget raises to prevent future funding bottlenecks. Read more