Much more has been said about the failure of current grant system than that has actually changed. My favorite opinion piece is this one by Peter A. Lawrence. The single-sentence abstract says it all: “The granting system turns young scientists into bureaucrats and then betrays them.” There are a couple of suggestions for improving the funding distribution in that article but the title of a comment by Markus Noll says enough about why nothing is changing: “Scientists in power will never change their system unless forced.”

Read more... (434 words, 1 image, estimated 1:44 minutes reading time)

Summary
In this post the ever increasing socializing with journal editors at conferences is critically discussed. Suggestions are put forward to make the social role of junior scientists more prominent at conferences  and preventing the successful scientists from taking it all.

Social dimension