Latest posts

If music be the food of love, rock on

One of the problems of having so many websites is knowing which particular wibble goes to which one.

And generating enough content to keep them fed, of course.

Confessions has been neglected of late—not because I want to, or am uninspired, but because it’s difficult to find subjects that are ‘safe’, considering the day job. Especially seeing as the HR person at work stalks me o Continue reading

Posted in cider, magirism, Me, Meta, Science-less Sunday | Comments Off on If music be the food of love, rock on

Travelling Hopefully to 2.4% GDP

David Willetts, for a number of years the Minister of State for Universities and Science, now an FRS, President of the Advisory Board for a think-tank (Resolution Foundation) and writer (most recently, A University Education), has just published a pamphlet about The Road to 2.4%.  All the three main parties (in England) are supportive of an uplift, a substantial uplift, in the amount of funding fo Continue reading

Posted in David Willetts, Dominic Cummings, Fraunhofer Institutes, Richard Jones, Science Funding | Comments Off on Travelling Hopefully to 2.4% GDP

Working Together for Equity

This week I was honoured by the THE as the winner of their ‘Lifetime Achievement’ Award during their annual awards’ ceremony, for my work around gender equality issues.

THE Lifetime Achievement Award

Photo courtesy of THE. With me are John Gill (L), their Editor and Atul Chauhan, President and Chancellor of Amity Education Group who sponsored the Prize.

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Posted in champion, complicit, Equality, Lifetime Achievement Award, UCU | Comments Off on Working Together for Equity

How Silly Are You (or Pompous or Forthright)?

What’s wrong with being called gutsy? The new book by Hillary and Chelsea Clinton use it as a term of approbation, but it didn’t find favour with Emma Brockes in the Guardian. Why?

‘It’s partly that descriptors like “gutsy” seem to protest too much, partly that they feel slightly infantilising, and mainly, I think, that they have become disembodied marketing terms used to launder self-promotion as Continue reading

Posted in adjectives, Equality, gendering, RateMyProfessor, Unconscious bias | Comments Off on How Silly Are You (or Pompous or Forthright)?

In which I defend the birds-eye view

Lovely massive tree. But what about that small boy in the corner?

Is science about obsessing over one tiny daub of paint? Or is it about standing back and appreciating the entire picture?

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Posted in academia, Research, Scientific method, Scientific thinking | Comments Off on In which I defend the birds-eye view

Doing Your Bit

When you have vulnerable people being harassed, what can you do? And I mean you. I have written a lot recently on my blog about the importance of bystanders. To learn more, I attended a recent training session regarding Bystander Interventions run under the auspices of the University of Cambridge’s Breaking the Silence Campaign. The University launched this in 2017. Amongst other things it allows Continue reading

Posted in Bystander, education, Equality, harassment, intervention, toxic | Comments Off on Doing Your Bit

Science and Government, Science in Government

Before pre-election purdah set in, two interesting reports got published, one with more fanfare than the other. The one with more publicity attached was the long-awaited report (Changes and Choices) on options for future international funding by Adrian Smith and Graeme Reid. It is of course impossible currently to predict anything regarding our future relationship with Europe. If and when Brexit h Continue reading

Posted in Adrian Smith, Areas of Research Interest, Jon Agar, Public Laboratories, Research, RSRE | Comments Off on Science and Government, Science in Government

Berlin Debate – Who owns science?

Yesterday I had the privilege of participating in the 14th Berlin Debate on Science and Science Policy, which is hosted by the Robert Bosch Foundation. This year the invited participants discussed “Who owns science? Reshaping the Scientific Value Chain in the 21st Century“. There was a lot to unpack in that topic but for my formal contribution as chair of DORA (a six-minute opening statement), I t Continue reading

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Bias in Publishing

You’ll have heard the story about women whingeing about how their proudly-submitted papers got rejected by a premier journal without being sent out to referees. Or that the comments they received from referees were unduly harsh, but a male colleague’s paper got through on the nod without multiple resubmissions Just a bunch of females having a moan wasn’t it because they can’t hack it? Well, no. Tu Continue reading

Posted in editors, pipeline, Research, Royal Society of Chemistry, success rates, UKRI, Women in science | Comments Off on Bias in Publishing

Sounding Board 2

It’s been almost two years since I introduced you to our Alumni Sounding Board, who have been helping us to keep in mind the industry perspective since the very beginning of our curriculum revision. Now that we are deep in the trenches developing the detailed project-based learning activities, we decided it was time to once again call on their expertise, in particular regarding how to priori Continue reading

Posted in education, Materials Science | Comments Off on Sounding Board 2