Category Archives: Phd student training

Sausage Machines in the Academic Lab

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

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Which Skills for a PhD Student?

Training of PhD students. It’s a big topic and large sums of money are involved. As I wrote in the autumn, there are concerns about the decisions that are being made. With the recent announcement of 75 new Centres for … Continue reading

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Drinking Habits of the Academic

Do we, poor misguided academics drink too much? I am sure many of us could do with drinking less but I was surprised to see the Guardian’s Academics Anonymous complaining that Russell group universities ply everyone with too much alcohol. … Continue reading

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It’s All about Science Policy this Week: the Good and the Bad

There has been much activity on what could loosely be termed ‘Science Policy’ this week, including both the long-awaited/significantly delayed BIS Science and Innovation (S+I) Strategy document (entitled, optimistically ‘Our plan for growth’) and the outcome of the REF2014. I … Continue reading

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