This week’s news includes the surprising new role of the public sector in drug development, the conclusion of a misconduct case, more residual effects of Chernobyl, the new science gender gap, a second attempt at a non-peer-reviewed journal, and the remarkable re-evolution of frog’s teeth.
You sit down to write your grant proposal, and you focus on the science that you’re excited about. You write about how great it is, and you write about how it will revolutionize the field. You get the reviews back, and it is a rejection. This happens to you again, and again. The more grants you…
You’ve just gotten the rejection back, and it stings. Your reviewers wrote about all sorts of technical issues with your proposal. You scrambled to fix those issues – only to receive another rejection with a different set of “issues”. Are your reviewers insane?
Imagine you’re a hungry restaurant patron, and when you walk in the door, the waiter hands you a stack of recipes, instead of a menu, to choose your food from. The recipes don’t do anything to describe how the food will look or taste, they only tell you how the chef will make that particular…
Okay, I must admit the title is a bit melodramatic. But I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this thing that is, shall we say, concerning. It all starts back in 2009, when I received some ARRA money for a couple of projects I had going in my lab. That was great, because it has allowed…
Greek scientists accused of stealing funds A group of Greek scientists are under investigation for misuse of government funds — no less than 150-200 million euros, in fact.
Is your life like a stuck emergency brake in your car, slowing you down and generating useless heat in the process? Many of our lives are like that, because we lack awareness of something going on in our minds: friction. Friction is caused by a battle between what we want and what we expect. Unfortunately,…
Open Access literature databases! There, that’s grabbed your attention, hasn’t it? No? Strangely, talking to most researchers about publication databases and repositories has them either nodding off or suddenly remembering an urgent meeting. In this guest post, Mohammed Tasab, Engagement Officer at UK PubMed Central explains why PIs should care about UK PubMed Central, the…
Following the success (of a sort) of the Science is Vital campaign I have been co-organizing the last few weeks, I’m wondering what the response is in other countries. Specifically, are you pleased that the UK science budget has been ring-fenced, or are you (secretly, maybe) disappointed that we’re still competing with everyone else? In…
Who is your grant reviewer, and what the heck do they really want from you?
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