In its Editorial this month, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology (16, 453; 2009) looks at the benefits of ‘local’ science. “How close to publication do you need to be before you present the exciting findings from your laboratory to your field at large in the forum of one of the big internationally attended meetings and symposia? …. In particularly competitive areas, people prefer to wait until close to or after publication before they will talk about recent work in the context of the global community that composes the field at large. At the opposite extreme, laboratory meetings and lecture series at specific institutions provide a more closeted environment for the discussion of new work. However, as travel plans are made for meeting others in the field face to face, it’s worth remembering the value of the ‘in between’, those meetings that bring scientists from the wider local area together to discuss a broader range of topics.”

The Editorial goes on to discuss various institutions and academies in its own patch, New York, that organize meetings to bring scientists from local research centres together for interdisciplinary discussions and to encourage a range of collaborations and projects.

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology journal home page.

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology guide to authors.

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology focuses and supplements.