Watch more from the Naturejobs career expo here.
Watch more from the Naturejobs career expo here.
Watch more from the Naturejobs career expo here.
Watch more from the Naturejobs career expo here.
Watch more from the Naturejobs career expo here.
Guest contributor Mark Lorch
You’ve just made the breakthrough you’ve been dreaming of. The days-weeks-months-years in the lab or field have all paid off, and everything has dropped into place. It’s the sort of moment that we scientists live for – the buzz of discovery. So now it’s time to publish.
Tell your peers about your work and hope it leads to new and even greater things for you, your fellow scientists, and society. But is that really enough? Maybe there’s a wider audience for your science, outside of the narrow confines of your academic circle. Maybe it has applications in other fields, or perhaps the public would like to (or even should) know about it. Plus of course if you get your paper noticed it’s much more likely to have the citations and impact that you, your department and all the metric measurers have been hoping for.
In the open access era there’s nothing stopping anyone from downloading your paper. But there are still hurdles to overcome before getting the wide readership your paper deserves. Based on my experience, here’s five tips for helping your paper reach the widest possible audience. Continue reading
Guest contributor Michelle Ma
In contemporary science, collaborative research is the norm. The majority of my work as a PhD student, a postdoc and most recently as a research fellow has involved collaboration with physicists, engineers, pharmacists, biologists and clinicians, from the fields of cancer diagnosis to dye-sensitised solar cells. Whilst I occasionally endure nostalgia on a bygone era where a single scientist or a solitary duo authored papers, today research happens in teams. This is perhaps a result of the current climate: innovative science that will provide public benefit needs a range of different skills.
Michelle in her lab
I’m a research chemist and aim to develop new pharmaceuticals for diagnostic imaging. To show that these chemicals work, I need to undertake preclinical studies. And the best way to accomplish this is to collaborate. I synthesise new molecules, and then work with others to test them. If they have clinical utility, I need commercial collaborators to develop them so they meet pharmaceutical requirements, and I need clinical collaborators to take the compounds all the way into a clinic where they can help people. In short, if I want to make a difference, I can’t be a one-man-band. Continue reading