Speakers in the funding sphere explain the best way to find funding at the Naturejobs Career Expo, London, 2016.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaEKtx-OfaU
Tag Archives: SUPPORT
The hidden costs of a career in scientific research
Does a career in science select against those unable to afford frequent relocation, unpaid work and short-term contracts?
Nick Riddiford
That a career in science is demanding is unsurprising. But alongside long hours spent in the lab grappling with abstract concepts, the number of years of education it takes to enter the professional ranks and the increasingly unstable nature of such employment, exists a further demand: money. It’s no secret that science costs money — building the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and sequencing the human genome cost around €3 billion each — but what is less obvious is that entry to a career in science often requires considerable personal financial sacrifice.
Preparing researchers to manage traumatic research
Studying traumatic events comes with its own risks – the scientific establishment needs to be doing more to protect researchers, says Dale Dominey-Howes and Danielle Drozdzewski.
One of the authors interviews survivors a few days after the September 2009 South Pacific tsunami in the rubble of their communities in Samoa, as part of the UNESCO post-tsunami survey team reporting into the Prime Minister and King of Samoa. “It was a hard day for all of us,” says Dale Dominey-Howes.
What’s the issue and why is it important?
Earth is destabilizing rapidly. Terrorism, conflict, genocide, human displacement, socio-economic disruption, rapid global environmental change, slow emergencies and natural disasters are more common than at any point in history. Consequently, opportunities exist for researchers to investigate the causes, consequences and potential management solutions arising from this instability. For this to happen, we need a well-trained workforce equipped with the skills and capabilities to work with ‘traumatic’ research content, people and places. Continue reading
How to cope when things go wrong in academia
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Sometimes, things go wrong in academia. The experiment isn’t working; you can’t find your results; the money is running out and you haven’t got any more. What can you do about it?
At the Naturejobs Career Expo in London this September, a panel of four academics got together to discuss their wildly different careers. Jim Usherwood from the Royal Veterinary College only spends his time doing research. Anita Hall from Imperial College London only does teaching. Lorraine Kerr and Louise Horsfall from the University of Edinburgh split their time (with different percentages) between research, teaching, business and management.
In this short film, Usherwood and Horsfall give some great advice on how to deal with things when they go wrong.
Usherwood recommends building a support network around you that can serve two purposes. One will be a group of friends that will come to the pub with you and commiserate with you. The other will be someone (your partner, perhaps) who can help you see the bigger picture in life.
Horsfall has been forunate and has not had anything go wrong…. yet! Come the end of 2014/beginning of 2015, she will be coming to the end of two grants. At the moment, she’s got two “irons in the fire” but they aren’t confirmed. “Make sure that you’ve always got something,” she advises.
Read more about How to navigate an academic career and about all the other conference sessions and workshops at the Naturejobs Career Expo in London.
Other Q&A videos from the Naturejobs Career Expo, London 2014
How important is having a mentor in your academic career?
How do you achieve work/life balance in academia?
Should I apply for a fellowship or a postdoc after my PhD?
What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced as a woman in science?
US research ethics agency upholds decision on informed consent
United States regulators are standing by their decision that parents were not properly informed of the risks of a clinical trial in which premature babies received different levels of oxygen supplementation.
From 2005 to 2009, the Surfactant, Positive Pressure, and Oxygenation Randomized Trial (SUPPORT) trial randomly assigned 1,316 premature babies to receive one of two levels of oxygen supplementation in an effort to test which level was best. Even though the lower level was associated with increased risk of brain damage and possibly death, and the higher level with blindness, the study leaders said that they did not disclose these risks to parents because all ranges of oxygen used in the trial were considered to be within the medically appropriate range at the time.
The study was supported by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). On 7 March 2013, the US Office of Human Research Protections (OHRP) issued a letter determining that the trial investigators had not adequately informed parents about the risks to their babies in the SUPPORT trial. The NIH and many researchers disputed the decision, arguing that it would impede “comparative effectiveness research” studies that are designed to test the best use of approved interventions. Parents of children in the trial, however, and others supported the OHRP’s determination that parents hadn’t received adequate information. The two sides clashed at a meeting convened by the NIH and the OHRP in August 2013.
Today, 24 October 2014, the OHRP has issued guidance reiterating and clarifying its position on what types of risks must be disclosed to study subjects in comparative effectiveness research studies such as SUPPORT. The agency has determined that risks of the intervention must be disclosed to study participants even if the risks are considered acceptable according to current medical guidelines, if the study intends to evaluate these risks and if the patients’ risks will change when they enrol in the study.
The OHRP said that even though both the low and high levels of oxygen supplementation were considered within the acceptable range, “the key issue is that the treatment and possible risks infants were exposed to in the research were different from the treatment and possible risks they would have been exposed to if they had not been in the trial”.
“[F]or the great majority of infants in the trial, it is likely that their participation altered the level of oxygen they received compared to what they would have received had they not participated,” the OHRP added.
The agency said further that if a trial is designed to compare the risks of potential side effects of a treatment already in use, then the risks are “reasonably foreseeable” and that prospective study participants should be made aware of it.
“If a specific risk has been identified as significant enough that it is important for the Federal government to spend taxpayer money to better understand the extent or nature of that risk, then that risk is one that prospective subjects should be made aware of so that they can decide if they want to be exposed to it,” OHRP said.
The guidance is open to comments until 24 December.