Category Archives: Science Culture

Thinking about Your Workload

Posted on January 10, 2020 by Athene Donald

The first time I was asked to serve on a research council (standing) committee, when a young(ish) researcher, I did not seek my head of department’s position. I informed him, since it happened we worked closely together, but it did … Continue reading →

Posted in Communicating Science, Science Culture | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

What Do We Know about the Research Ecosystem?

Posted on October 1, 2019 by Athene Donald

While funders make decisions about where their money goes, and PhD students decide what to study, with whom and where before they go on to wander along the career maze; while publishers decide who to publish and universities around the … Continue reading →

Posted in Equality, Research, Science Culture | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Red Lines Don’t Need to be Political

Posted on September 8, 2019 by Athene Donald

Despite the introductory couple of paragraphs, this is not meant as a political diatribe….it’s just hard to avoid parliamentary affairs currently. I did foreswear following Brexit news for several months after the last deadline in the spring for the sake … Continue reading →

Posted in Science Culture | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

How Groupthink Contributes to Harassment

Posted on August 7, 2019 by Athene Donald

I was recently challenged by a colleague after a meeting as to whether we had all been guilty more of ‘groupthink’ than was apparent at the time or that any of us would have wished. I’m not sure that I … Continue reading →

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Sausage Machines in the Academic Lab

Posted on July 22, 2019 by Athene Donald

There was a bit of a spat over Twitter last week regarding how many hours students (and postdocs) should be expected to do at the bench. This originated in a tweet from a professor of chemistry but I don’t think … Continue reading →

Posted in Science Culture, Science Funding | Tagged , , | 1 Comment