Monthly Archives: November 2011

Sustainability is a fast-growing field, says study

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The number of scientists publishing research relating to sustainability is doubling every eight years, according to research from Los Alamos National Laboratory and Indiana University in the United States.

Research into sustainability has become a field of science in its own right, say the study authors, and is growing exponentially despite the economic downturn of the late 2000s.

sustainability-kaur.jpgThe field has a wide geographic spread and is prominent in locations with political and economic power. “The world’s leading city in terms of publications in the field is Washington DC, outpacing the productivity of Boston or the Bay Area,” explains study co-author Jasleen Kaur (right), a PhD student in Indiana University Bloomington’s School of Informatics and Computing.

Bob Peoples, director of the American Chemical Society’s Green Chemistry Institute, based in Washington DC, was surprised that the city was top when it came to productivity, but said the high concentration of government bodies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) could be a factor.

In Europe, productive cities include London, Stockholm and Wageningen. Other regional centres that produce a high number of papers include Nairobi, Cape Town, Beijing, Melbourne and Tokyo. Smaller universities and laboratories are strong in the field as well as national research centres.

But is the growth of the field in itself sustainable? Peoples believes so – and says it will translate into new job opportunities. The green chemistry industry, for example, “is forecast to grow to $100 billion by 2020,” he says. “That’s a 48% annual growth rate. This will certainly correlate with jobs since it requires different skill sets and training.”

Scientists interested in moving into sustainability research should build a multidisciplinary set of knowledge, contacts and tools, he advises. For green chemistry in particular, topics that researchers need an awareness of include mechanistic toxicology and life-cycle analysis as well as chemistry.

The productivity findings, published later this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, come from an analysis of more than 20,000 academic papers published between 1974 and 2010.

Related articles:

Number of new US science PhDs falls for first time in seven years

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The number of science doctorates awarded in the United States fell by 1% in 2010, ending a seven-year run of annual increases.

The new figures from the National Science Foundation (NSF) also show that in the decade from 2000 to 2010, the number of PhDs in agricultural sciences and psychology both fell by more than 5% – whereas all other major science fields saw an increase in the number of PhDs.

Other key figures include the following:

  • Between 2005 and 2010, there was a 29% increase in the number of women receiving a science or engineering (S&E) PhD – more than double the increase seen for men (13%)

  • The share of S&E PhDs awarded to women increased from 38% in 2005 to 41% in 2010

  • The share of S&E PhDs awarded to US citizens and permanent residents who identify themselves as members of a minority group rose from 22% in 2005 to 24% in 2010

Improving work-life balance: US National Science Foundation wants your ideas

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Do you have a creative suggestion for how to address issues with career-life balance in mathematics and physical sciences in the United States? If so the National Science Foundation (NSF) wants to hear from you. In an open letter published yesterday, NSF’s Edward Seidel called for the mathematics and physical sciences community to contribute to NSF’s recently launched Career-Life Balance Initiative.

Ideas specific to mathematics and physical sciences can be sent to MPSplans@nsf.gov.

General ideas for any scientific discipline can be sent to career-life-balance@nsf.gov.

Practices to improve work-life balance that NSF encourages include:

  • No-cost extensions or temporary suspensions of NSF awards due to family leave

  • Flexible start dates for NSF awards

  • Supplements for additional personnel to sustain research when principal investigators are on family leave

  • Options for remote panel participation

  • Local childcare recommendations for panellists

  • Flexible postdoctoral fellowships to accommodate dual-career placements

Engineering a path from science to business

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Cross posted from the Trade Secrets blog

James Taylor

The folks at Nature Biotechnology asked us authors for a description of how we’ve navigated our careers from bench to business. My story is still a work in progress, but as a recent Ph.D. I do have some lessons for how you can prepare yourself for a career beyond research. First here’s a brief bio to give insight into my perspectives and biases.

I completed an Engineering Physics undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia, with a focus on wireless and photonics. During this time, I worked at my first startups as an engineer, which ultimately sewed the entrepreneurial seeds. Following, I decided to pivot and apply my engineering skills to health and completed a Ph.D. in Genetics at the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB). My decision to conduct a Ph.D. was driven by my interest in the commercialization of advanced technologies and the ISB was a fantastically entrepreneurial organization to pursue this goal. Concurrent with my Ph.D., I was fortunate to work as a venture capital fellow at the ISB-affiliated venture capital firm, the Accelerator Corp. This was a tremendously valuable experience and during my three-year tenure, the Accelerator team started 7 biotech companies. After my Ph.D., I started looking for my next startup opportunity and met my co-founding team while working at an innovative technology transfer group, the Centre for Drug Research and Development. About 1.5 years ago I jumped ship to be a co-founder and CEO of Precision NanoSystems, where we are developing technology at the convergence of drug delivery, nanotechnology and genomics.

During my tenure as a Ph.D. student I often contemplated how to best use the degree to achieve my business goals, and as some of you are likely realizing, the path from bench to business is not always clear. Here are some lessons I learned during my degree that may be helpful for those wanting to pursue an entrepreneurial or business career:

Experience more than your Ph.D. offers

Graduate or postgraduate studies are designed as a scientific training ground for a career as a scientist or professor. The knowledge gained is narrow and the skills learned are specific. For anyone serious about transitioning off the bench, you will need to actively pursue additional experiences and skills outside of your research work.

Continue reading on the Trade Secrets blog

Ten tips on getting recruited abroad

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At the recent Naturejobs Career Expo in London, Michael Schneider from Imperial College London spoke about how to maximise your chances of getting recruited overseas. Schneider, currently director of Imperial’s British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence, studied at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and Duke, followed by research training at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). In our final follow-up to the Expo we present a summary of his advice – if you have any tips to share, please add them below.

  1. If you’re at an early stage of your science career, be aware that a strong academic record is not enough to secure a position abroad. “Posts go to those with something more [than excellent qualifications],” says Schneider.
  2. Early research experience is the key discriminator – and it should be sustained or unusually intensive.
  3. If you’re still studying, find high-impact summer and winter research opportunities – examples that Schneider highlighted include the Erasmus student exchange programme in Europe and the Cold Spring Harbor Undergraduate Research Program (URP) in the United States.
  4. You’ll need to make personal contacts with overseas scientists – and email is generally the best way to make initial speculative enquiries with overseas labs.
  5. Don’t focus exclusively on the usual suspects – in the United States for example, Schneider says there are at least a dozen universities where mentors are as good as at prestigious institutes such as Harvard, MIT, University of California and Stanford – but there is less competition because they are less well-known.
  6. Try to have complete research ‘stories’ – and be aware that for this reason completing a three-year PhD can put you at a disadvantage against those whose PhDs typically last longer, such as in the United States.
  7. Fund yourself if possible.
  8. Carefully check the eligibility criteria of funding opportunities – for example the US NIH only offers postdoc fellowships to US citizens, with one exception, says Schneider – the Pathway to Independence Award (K99-R00) is open to overseas applicants.
  9. When considering a career move, vertical promotion – where you move up within the same institution – can be counter-productive, says Schneider: “Research funders typically prefer to see relocation as proof of independence.”
  10. When considering who to apply to, make sure you check where your potential superior publishes, and also where their trainees have gone afterwards.

New podcasts on networking and moving to the United States

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During the recent Naturejobs Career Expo in London we recorded interviews with two of our speakers, which are now available as podcasts on naturejobs.com.

Lisa Kozlowski from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia spoke about moving to the United States at the Expo. Listen to the podcast for tips including what to expect from the working culture, how to adapt to the social culture, and some pointers on funding and visas.

In our second podcast, Madeline Paterson from Symmetry Coaching talks about networking – an important aspect of your job search or career development. The podcast includes tips on networking for introverts and online networking.

You can listen to more Naturejobs podcasts on the podcasts section of naturejobs.com.