About Jenny
By day: cell biologist at UCL. By night: novelist, broadcaster, science writer, sci-lit-art pundit, blogger and Editor of LabLit.com. I blog about my life in science, not the facts and figures.
Category Archives: science funding
In which I dream of escape
Sometimes everything just seems too much. As the non-existent summer rolls on – 14C mornings of rain or overcast, wool sweaters taken back out from storage – I find my stress level to be the only thing heating up. As … Continue reading
Posted in Careers, Gardening, Research, science funding, Staring into the abyss, The profession of science, Work/life balance
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In which we land
Our migration is complete: my lab now has a new home. And for me, a new office space. Numerous studies have scrutinised the effect of environment on work productivity. Anecdotally, I know that my own focus and output are greatly … Continue reading
In which life imitates art, and an epidemic leaps off the page
In mid-November, a journalist from BBC Southeast contacted me about a perplexing rise in COVID-positive cases in the nearby borough of Swale, a mainly rural part of Kent known for its fruit orchards, beer hops and vast areas of marshland … Continue reading
Posted in Epidemics, LabLit, science funding, The profession of science, Writing
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In which I run aground
It’s been a long winter, and the past academic term seemed to stretch on forever, a blur of stress and deadlines punctuated by good news and bad. My lab got another paper accepted, and my outline-stage grant was shortlisted. But … Continue reading
In which we are funded: urinary infection in people with multiple sclerosis
I wanted to thank the good folks at the Multiple Sclerosis Society for awarding me an Innovation Grant. With Government funding for research dwindling, life scientists rely increasingly on charities to help us answer the important questions that lead to … Continue reading
Posted in Research, science funding, The profession of science
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In which I embrace the literature
I think I’ve earned a five-minute break. I’ve been working hard to ready myself ahead of a big interview for a significant funding scheme. I’m being subjected to a series of mock interviews, and I’ve been reading as much as … Continue reading
Posted in Careers, science funding, Scientific thinking, Staring into the abyss, The profession of science
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In which I get angry (again): Science, as vital as ever
Hopefully most of you have heard about the upcoming campaign that we at Science is Vital are frantically working on. The background can be found in our recent Guardian piece, and the fine details are on our website. But for … Continue reading
Posted in science funding, Science is Vital
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In which we make do: live from the cash-freeze lab
The government loves to tell us scientists how good we are at doing ‘more with less’. Over at the Guardian, I’ve posted yesterday about how the UK’s core research budget is again under threat, with the possibility of up to … Continue reading
Posted in science funding, The profession of science
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In which the postdoc sell-by date continues to shrivel: The MRC comes to its senses
How do you judge the worth of a researcher? In particular, can you tell how excellent she is by how quickly she gets from point A to point B in her career? The funding bodies used to think speed was … Continue reading
In which UK science funding faces a sudden new peril
A spokesperson for Vladimir Putin recently mocked the United Kingdom for being a “small island” to which no one paid any heed. He is clearly not familiar with the UK’s impressive scientific reputation on the world stage: with just 1% … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, science funding, Science is Vital
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