The scientific community keeps on finding new ways to facilitate to judge scientists. The old-fashioned way of reading her papers, listening to her talks,  interviewing her for more than an hour, reading recommendation letters, and consulting colleagues personally takes way too much time.

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In science the dilemma of either cooperating or competing is everywhere. The situation is never black or white and depends on the discipline. In this post I will limit myself to the typical small-science group model: one group leader, one or two postdocs and a number – typically between 4 and 6, of PhD students.

Pressure
All the group member are under pressure. PhD students have to finish their thesis in time, with preferably a couple of first-author articles in glossy magazines.

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Established scientists receive numerous email messages from people applying for a PhD position in their group. I get a few per week and I am sure some of my colleagues get many more. At first sight this looks a burden, but it is not. More than 95% can be put aside after reading the first few lines. In the following I will give a few tips and I am sure that if you bring them into practice you will get a positive response of the scientist you have sent the application.

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Introduction

Science in the 20th century has been divided into a distinct number of more or less separate disciplines ranging from Mathematics and Physics to Biology and Medicine. This distinction was naturally based on the different aspects of our material and living environment under study. In all disciplines one can clearly define ‘core’ subjects which fall in the traditional categories without any overlap with other fields. However, there is an increasing amount of research taking place at the interface or overlapping between disciplines. For a person trained in one of the traditional sciences, it can be hard to look beyond the boundaries and spot opportunities for cross-disciplinary research. This post presents some aspects of multidisciplinary research encountered when starting up a new research line.

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