Check out the NEW Science Careers blog

Go to the new Science Careers blog to get the latest job market news, career advice, and funding opportunities from Science Careers, and links to other stories about career success in the sciences. The new blog has a better comments capability, trackbacks, and picks up where this blog leaves off.

We look forward to seeing you there. Thanks for your readership of Science Careers.

Permalink | Tags: Weblog

This Week in Science: One Scientist's Efforts to Spark an Italian Renaissance in Cancer Research

A new biomedical research institute is soon to open its doors in Terni, about 100 kilometers north of Rome. Behind the new institute is Antonio Giordano, who left his native Naples years ago to make a name for himself in genetics and cancer research at Temple University and Thomas Jefferson University, both in Philadelphia. Since those early days, Giordano has set himself apart with his efforts securing private funds for his work and supporting young scientists. Giordano is profiled by Science Careers contributing editor Elisabeth Pain in the May 25 issue of Science (subscription required).

In the early 1990s, Giordano convinced the owner of the Italian fast-food chain Sbarro to donate $1 million to establish his own cancer and molecular medicine research institute in Philadelphia. Since then, Giordano has raised $3 million in private funding, which has supported more than 250 graduate students and postdocs in both Italy and the U.S. Now, he's secured more than 60 million euros (about $80 million) in donations from Italian financial institutions for the Terni institute.

An interim facility for the Terni institute will open its doors this fall, housing 20 to 30 early-career scientists. The main facility will be up and running by 2009, where Giordano hopes to provide research space and funds for an additional 50 biomedical students and postdocs.

Giordano sees the new institute as an opportunity to give back to his home country. "I owe this to Italy," he says. "This is where I grew up and was trained."

- Posted by Kate Travis

Permalink | Tags: biomedical, cancer, Italy

Feedback on "A Tunnel to Atlanta"

This is a comment on the article titled "A Tunnel to Atlanta", written by Beryl Lieff Benderly (4 May 2007). The author talks about the importance of networking within ones own ethnic group and how that can help people in their scientific careers. While this may be true to an extent, it also leads to some very avoidable situations in scientific environments. The biggest potential problem posed by excessive intra-ethnic networking is the formation of closed groups (popularly referred to as 'mafias') of foreigners in the work environment, often leading to a chasm between the members of this group and everyone else. In many situations, such groups result in its members lacking confidence or developing a sense suspicion when it comes to interacting with other nationalities or cultures: ghetto-isation in other words. This negates any advantage an international experience can have and can only be bad for science for two reasons. The first is that Science is and should be an international activity involving active interaction between different ethnic and cultural groups. Most high profile laboratories, irrespective of the field, are highly international in composition. Secondly, being scientists, we must endeavour to be above the boundaries of culture, language, religion and ethnicity, at least in the workplace.

I can give myself as an example of a person who had an excellent start to my scientific career without having another person from my country or culture anywhere near me. I left my native India to do my PhD in a Macromolecular Crystallography lab in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. I was the only person from my country in the whole building but never experienced any homesickness during the six and a half years of my stay there. My colleagues in the lab and my boss were fantastic and very supportive, so much that I did not feel the need for any support from people of my own cultural background. This has had an effect of making me immune to the effects cultural differences usually have on people, and I can now feel comfortable anywhere. I like to believe this is a good thing.

To sum up, I believe that active interaction with other cultures makes one a better person and a better scientist. Culture shock is a great thing to be experiencing all by oneself.

Dr Ganesh Natrajan
Post-Doctoral Associate
Macromolecular Crystallography group.
European Synchrotron Radiation Facility
Grenoble, France.

Permalink | Tags: culture, feedback, France, India

A Deluge of Proposals to the ERC

The first round of preliminary proposals for the Starting Independent Researcher Grants, which are being offered for the first time this year by the European Research Council (ERC), which is also new, has just closed.

The grants, which will pay an average of €1.5 million over 5 years, have been designed to help early-career scientists establish their own labs in Europe. The ERC intends to give out between 200 and 250 of these grants in a yearly call. According to a news article published this week in Science (an AAAS membership or Science subscription is required to access the article), as the first call came to a close the ERC counted an astonishing 9,167 proposals, beating all expectations. The ERC will invite only 10% or fewer applicants to submit a full proposal. But if you make it that far your odds are good: The success rate in the final round will be between 30 and 50%.

- Posted by Elisabeth Pain

Permalink | Tags: Europe, European Research Council, Funding

Updates to the "GrantsNet Guide to Financing Your Research Exchange in India."

Martin Reddington, Director of Scientific Affairs and Communications at the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP), pointed out a couple of errors in our discussion of HFSP's research funds involving India in our article "GrantsNet Guide to Financing Your Research Exchange in India." This article is part of our feature on research opportunities in India.

Here's an excerpt from Reddington's message explaining the organization's policies ...

We updated the article page accordingly.

- Posted by Alan Kotok

Permalink | Tags: feedback, Human Frontier Science Program, India

Feedback on "Moving Out of the Shadows"

Dear Science Editor,

The discussion in Elisabeth Pain`s "Moving Out of the Shadows: Publishing From the Rest of the World" points to the typical publishing scenario in Brazil, where the mother tongue is Portuguese.

Indeed, Brazilian researchers can be an exemplar of those from most of Latin America, when it comes to getting published in English in international journals. The difficulties range from limited English skills to lack of funding to afford language-editing services. Brazilian scientists have contributed to approximately 1.6% of what is published in ISI-indexed journals, and this small percentage notwithstanding, it is the result of a steady growth in academic productivity in the last decades. However, as in most South American countries, attempts to understand research output is mostly focused on traditional indicators of research performance, which does not include English proficiency.

If sound science and readable English are markers of a manuscript's quality, why is the role of English in non-native English-speaking (NNES) countries undermined? A number of editorials and full articles have devoted attention to language constraints involved in publication by NNES scientists, and this problem appears to affect novice and experienced writers alike in South America. However, concerning Brazil, lack of awareness of the extent to which it could affect their authors' publication output reveals a blind spot in policy making.

According to Pain, "While researching the issues faced by scholars in Hungary, Slovakia, Spain, and Portugal, Curry and colleagues found that 'scholars sometimes don't have high-level English proficiency but publish in high journals.' Their success, Curry says, is 'because they can draw [on] a network of people that help out.' " Such a network can certainly be the difference between having a manuscript accepted or rejected in high-impact journals. But in the case of South American authors, the fraction of "off-network" scientists is considerable, and being off network in this English-only research world is even more disadvantageous. Reducing the language gap among scientists would thus be well worth the effort.

It is thus about time South American scientists paid more attention to English proficiency in their countries. It is true that compared to other research priorities, this issue can be regarded as minor, but it may be huge for NNES authors who produce sound science and take an enormous time to gain visibility because manuscripts have to be re-re-rewritten because of poor English. In Brazil, research in the Science Education Program of the Medical Biochemistry Institute of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro has investigated the correlation between the English proficiency of more than 35,000 Brazilian scientists registered in the National Research Council (CNPq) and their publication in international journals in English. The preliminary data have pointed to higher output for those whose writing skills are better developed.* Is this a trend that may turn out to be similar for other South American countries?

Sonia Vasconcelos
PhD Student
Science Education Program
The Medical Biochemistry Institute
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ)

Supervisors: Profs Dra. Jacqueline Leta and Dra. Martha Sorenson

* Vasconcelos, S.M.R., Sorenson, M., Leta, Jacqueline. "Scientist-Friendly Policies for Non-Native English Speaking Authors: Timely and Welcome." Concepts and Comments. Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research, 2007, in press.

Permalink | Tags: Feedback, Language, Publishing

What's the Alternative?

Leaving the bench doesn't mean leaving science. That was the general consensus among the panelists at Friday's alternative careers symposium for life-science postdocs in Cambridge, United Kingdom, sponsored by ScienceCareers.org and the University of Cambridge Careers Service.

"I read journals and talk to scientists every day--I'm still very much in science," said Stella M. Hurtley, senior editor at Science. All panelists said their education and/or the skills they gained while getting their Ph.D.s are called upon daily in their jobs.

The six panelists--all with Ph.D.s and most with postdoc experience--left the lab for careers in editing, tech transfer, regulatory affairs, corporate communications, consulting, or patents. Iain Thomas, manager of life science and technology for Cambridge Enterprise, a company that commercializes technology from the University of Cambridge, encouraged the audience to consider alternative careers at the first sign of not being happy in the lab so that if they have to make a change, it's from a position of knowledge and understanding. "I think that being scared of change is one reason people end up in their postdocs as long as they do," he said.

Patent attorney Zoe Clyde-Watson conceded that a Ph.D. and postdoc experience may not be required to become a patent attorney, but she noted that, more and more, firms are looking for very specialized scientific experience that can best be gained by getting a Ph.D. in a specific area.

Although her Ph.D. gave her essential expertise for her job in regulatory affairs, Davina Stevenson, senior regulatory officer at Mundipharma Research Ltd., said it was really the soft skills she learned during her Ph.D. that landed her interviews outside of the lab and aided her transition to a new career. The six panelists listed the soft skills that they rely on: meeting deadlines, solving problems, being an independent thinker, understanding how research works and the speed at which science happens, being proactive, having good writing and communication skills, and having good organizational, interpersonal, and analytical skills.

Each of the careers represented by the panelists calls for a specific skill set, and in the afternoon, Anne Forde, careers adviser for life science at Cambridge (and a former Science Careers editor), highlighted and explored the skills are best suited to a variety of alternative careers, including management consultancy, editing, science writing, tech transfer, and regulatory affairs. The 140 attendees contributed ideas on the abilities required for specific roles. These were then compared to the aptitudes that employers in those fields generally say are necessary and that they look for during the recruitment process.

In a second workshop, Seema Sharma, European program director for ScienceCareers.org, discussed the differences between a conventional CV and a skills-based CV. A skills-based CV should include:

• Your name in large letters
• Contact details
• Education (most recent degree first)
• A brief employment outline (most recent position first)
• Relevant skills drawn from employment, work experience, additional skills and activities
• References

This CV format is particularly suited to people in a career transition, as its focus is on skills that match the employers’ requirements rather than on past education and training whose relevance may not be obvious at first. Many of these skills are hidden in a conventional CV.

Watch this post for a link to a podcast of the event, which should be available later this week.

- Posted by Kate Travis and Seema Sharma

Permalink | Tags: Alternative careers, CVs, outreach

'A.S.' on Collaborations

'AS' has posted a message on the ScienceCareers.org discussion forum on the subject of collaborations and the skills required to be effective in collaborative work. The forum is frequently very valuable and always worth reading, but occasionally a post has special merit and deserves wider attention. This is one of them.

Read the whole post or the whole thread.

- Posted by Jim Austin

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A Note from a Grateful Reader in France

Dear Editor,

It was a great day when I read the article Running in Place (“You're running as fast as you can. Why aren't you getting anywhere? Our newest columnists provide some traction.”)

It was an afternoon. I was worried because I was working as hard as I could, but I didn’t reach one of the main objectives given by my supervisor.

The advice about the way to improve our time [management] was very helpful this precise moment--and the next 3 months.

I also bought the book, [and] kept in mind and applied some precious comments!

I hope to master my structural biology Ph.D.

Moreover, it was an exciting week at Paris “For women in science, 2007 –UNESCO& L’Oreal”

So thanks a lot!!

Cathelène

Permalink | Tags: feedback, France

"Opportunities" and Making an Impact

I recently interviewed Dennis Gillings, the founder of Quintiles Transnational, a contract pharmaceutical-services firm that now employs 16,000 people in 50-plus countries on six continents. Gillings just pledged $50 million to the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina (UNC), where he was a faculty member before starting Quintiles. The idea behind his gift was to increase “innovation” at the school of public health and in public-health research generally. Gillings wants to stimulate research that doesn't stop at clever inventions. Gillings aims to help the school create comprehensive solutions to public-health problems, including the necessary inventions but also methods for their implementation.

Gillings's comments struck a lot of familiar chords. For one thing, they resonated with a recent study from Forrester Research (access to the study costs $400, but here's an InformationWeek article about it) concluding that the big chunk of GDP countries invest in research and development each year is wasted (in an economic sense) because they lack a comprehensive innovation strategy.

Second, his comments resonated with the theme of this month's (indeed, most months') Opportunities column by Peter Fiske, on developing the skills you need to maximize the impact of your work. I discussed my Gillings interview with Fiske as he was writing the piece, and he cites it in his column.

Finally, he reminded me of the comments of Google co-founder Larry Page at the recent AAAS meeting in San Francisco:

Here's an article on Page's presentation, also from InformationWeek.

Here's a partial transcript of my interview with Gillings:

Gillings comments, I think, apply not just to entrepreneurship in the narrow sense, or even just to leveraging business and economic principles to maximize the impact of your work. I think they can be generalized. Don't stop at publishing a paper and don't think the science is the only thing that matters. Choose important problems--problems with what the National Science Foundation dubs "broader impacts"--and use the science (and other essential skills) to make a difference, whatever that might mean to you.

- Posted by Jim Austin

Permalink | Tags: accounting, management, R&D