Despite the considerable
challenges of a scientific career — relatively low pay, long hours, a very long training phase, and a tight job market — scientists say they enjoy the work.
Which of these — or other — problems a researcher chooses, and how those problems are defined and pursued, determines the
course of a scientific career.
It gives me a lot of satisfaction to be actively working toward positive changes in the field rather than just worrying about the
future of my scientific career and the difficulties of postdoc life.
Research scientists these days are fully aware that the «publish or perish» mantra is the dominant, and indeed almost the only, factor determining promotion in the profession — particularly in the early
years of a scientific career.
Daniele Filippetto, a Berkeley Lab scientist who is leading HiRES, has for
much of his scientific career focused on building electron sources, also called «electron guns,» that can drive advanced X-ray lasers known as «free - electron lasers.»
For a host of reasons, the challenges
of scientific career advancement can be especially daunting for women, foreign trainees, racial and ethnic minorities, and first - generation college students; mentorship can help bridge this gap.
Additionally, popular books such as Guide to Nontraditional Careers in the Sciences by Karen Young Kreeger (Taylor and Francis) and Jump Start Your Career in Bioscience by Chandra B. Louise (Peer Productions) are good resources for information on the
diversity of scientific careers.
The goal is to encourage students, from all nationalities, in their
pursuit of a scientific career and give them experience in an international laboratory.
Looking back, he now realizes that these conversations, and the articles and books they both read, shaped the
direction of his scientific career, both in terms of his interests and the courses he took.
They identified the «
interruption of a scientific career and funding gaps between research stages» as a key hurdle in the professional life of young researchers and took the view that «steps must be taken to avoid [this].»
If we make an arbitrary assumption about the average
length of a scientific career — let's assume it lasts 20 years — then we can conclude that about 24 % of all science Ph.D. recipients work in academia.
«I am a geneticist but I am also a veterinarian and having the ability to eliminate a disease as painful and debilitating as IVDD is the most satisfying
result of my scientific career,» Bannasch said.
Professional activities on committees, in scientific and professional societies, and in government have long been laudable
aspects of a scientific career.
As a
member of the Scientific Careers Research and Development Group, he is interested in issues pertaining to scientific training and careers, particularly those related to improving diversity.
Even though obtaining hard data was rather difficult, the authors of the report were in the position of concluding that the number of immigrants was relatively low at every
rank of the scientific career ladder.
Pursuing your own research ideas, getting your own funding, and running your own laboratory are the holy
grails of scientific careers in academia.
Long considered the
capstone of a scientific career in China, election to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) confers so much prestige on those anointed that organizations often try to recruit CAS members or reward their own with a guarantee of lifetime employment.
Our training programme offers researchers a wide range of workshops to enhance their scientific skills, like courses on statistics, microscopy and bioinformatics.There is also more technical training, for instance in specific experimental techniques, so they become better prepared for the varied
demands of a scientific career.
To enable researchers at an early
stage of their scientific career to carry out a clearly defined research project at a place of their choice abroad or to acquaint themselves with new scientific research methods