In the days following Willetts’ big science policy speech, there had been a piece in Nature by Daniel Sarewitz and letters from disgruntled physical scientists to the EPSRC that in different ways highlighted the role of scientists in directing research funding. I was therefore asked by the Guardian higher education network to offer some further thoughts on who should decide how science is supported by public money.
Regular readers will know that molecules are my thing, that my scientific endeavours are devoted to revealing the intricate architecture of proteins — the molecular machines that sustain life. They will also know that I have at times struggled with the problem of how to write about molecules in a way that might grab the attention of those who rarely think about them.
Earlier this week I had an interesting email from Jesse Shore, President of Australian Science Communicators, about a blog post I wrote back in 2010. Jesse has kindly agreed to let me post our brief correspondence so I’ll let him take up the story. To which I replied: To which Jesse came back: I very much agree with him: something to build on for sure.
If you are a scientist and you want some money to spend on research, as part of the grant application you have to write a case for support. It has to be good.
It has been a quiet week in lab woebegone*. Though we have been working to pack up everything for a move across campus in mid-January, Christmas has intervened to scatter us to our homes, where traditionally we have the time to reflect on the year just past and galvanise ourselves for the one to come. Except that this year I haven’t had the time.
On a grey day back in October I made my way along Albemarle Street to the Royal Institution for the filming of DemoJam, a lively and light-hearted program of science produced by Jonathan Sanderson and the rest of the gang at StoryCog for the new RI channel.
A year ago today Occam’s Typewriter made its debut on the blogosphere and I published my first post at the new home of Reciprocal Space . It’s been a good twelve months. OT has established itself as a home thoughtful and lively writing with a great range of different voices.
Last week I went to Germany to talk to a pharmaceutical company about my work on the blood protein, human serum albumin. It set me thinking. But first I need to tell you about albumin. Albumin is a surprisingly abundant protein in the human body;
I gave a talk a couple of weeks ago at a Biochemical Society meeting on the subject of the Research Excellence Framework, the process that will assess UK academic research quality for the purpose of determining how a large tranche of public funding will be distributed between universities. I dealt in particular with the impact component, which will count for 20% of the assessment and has caused a degree of consternation.
As Jenny mentioned this morning, I have a post on the Science is Vital campaign on science careers on the Times Eureka blog today. For those of you without a subscription, the text is reproduced here: The business of science is essentially one of creative problem solving.