Ever-increasing competition for unfairly limited funding is backfiring. Territorial allocations and research topic fixing is hurting the creativity of researchers and specially demotivating the younger generation.

The title of this post may sound too provocative, but let me quote three dialogs, which I have witnessed in the last six months, to show how real this threat is. You may have heard such conversations as well.

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1. Prof. A tells visitor B: “Your research suggestion is indeed interesting and we can do it but prof. C may want to do it as well, and he is a good friend.”
2. Young senior D replies to junior E’s proposal of trying slightly different samples: “Those kind of samples are investigated by Prof. F and this is a very competitive field.”
3. Senior G, who is planning to submit a proposal, hears about the intention of Prof. H, who works on a similar subject and wants to submit a proposal as well. He decides to make sure their proposal titles are different before submission.

Office document or (La)Tex
Creating a pdf file
Additional requirements
Bookmark generation with MS Word
Save to PDF
Show your tree
Skip numbered entries
Different numbering of the same level
Thinning your pdf file
Fast web view
Bookmarks with Latex
Example pdf files
Recap

Adobe has blessed the digital world with a document format that is really platform independent. I am referring to the pdf (“portable document format“). As a result the leading format for scientific articles is the pdf file. Scientific journal editors require from prospective authors that they submit their manuscript as a pdf document. More and more grant organizations also request proposals to be sent in as a pdf file.


Office document or (La)Tex
The pdf standard has many advantages. Its major disadvantage is its limited editing possibility. As a result authors have to keep at least two files of a manuscript in sync: the “source” manuscript and the pdf version. Additional graphic material is either embedded in the source or is kept as separate files. The most popular formatter for generating the source is Microsoft’s Word, or a comparable office document formatter. Another source approach is to use a simple ascii file, containing script language directives that are to be interpreted or compiled. Of the latter class the Tex, LaTex, AmsTex family is the most popular. For some fortunate reason the Tex-family has escaped the fate of almost any open-source project: multiple distributions, bad documentation, incompatible versions, and a Windows-hostile developers community.

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Some time ago I described my first steps in setting up a research group at a UK university. After one year it is time to evaluate some of the developments made so far. In general, I am quite happy with the progress. Certainly it has not been a very high-flying year scientifically. However, when you can forget for a moment the pressure to deliver, running your own little research group is actually very much fun. I will point out some aspects which have been particularly important this year.

Bringing in money
The first thing is to break the negative spiral resulting from insufficient research budgets. Without ’seedcorn’ money, it will be difficult to do research and therefore to attract more funding. There are some opportunities for getting this kind of funding especially for new academics. This year I have been successful in getting money from the Royal Society (£15,000, Research Grant) and from the EPSRC (£125,000, First Grant), mainly for equipment. To give an impression of the success rate, 2 out of 7 First Grant proposals were funded in this panel. So even in this special round for starting academics, 72% did not get the money needed to start up their first research project. It cannot be underestimated how crucial these small amounts of money are for taking off during the first years. Also not unimportant is the fact that bringing in money turns out to be one of your most important deliverables which will be highly evaluated by your university, most of times above publications or teaching.

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The United States is the premier example of a country where people move, and indeed move all over the country, if by doing so they get a better job. This professional mobility also applies to scientists. The country has invented a lot of mechanisms to ease these relocations.

Scientists move because they get a chance to start their own research group. Or they change affiliation because the new place offers a better scientific environment. Or offers a higher salary. For some scientists moving is very simple. A philosopher or a theoretical physicists just has to bring a few books to his new place and he is all set. For a scientist who works for a giant organization as Fermilab bringing his laboratory to the new location is impossible. But how about those scientists that have acquired movable pieces of equipment and apparatuses as a result of their successful grant applications? The scientists need this equipment to be able to pursue their research successfully in the new place. In the United States the rule is very simple: wherever the principal investigator (PI) is going – even if it is abroad – he is allowed to take with him all of his equipment. In my opinion this is the correct attitude.

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Writing grant proposals is a fact of live for every group leader. This writing can be quite time consuming. Your chance of success depends on a number of factors. The factor I want to discuss here is the originality and the detail of the proposal .

New idea
Pursuing a new idea is what makes the life of a scientist fascinating and challenging. But also demanding. Just continuing one’s research on old ideas is much easier. But a new idea is very difficult to come by.  Continuation of old stuff is much easier. Grant organizations want new ideas. Supporting continuation is in our society never appreciated. ( Unless it is Scottish whisky.)  So even when you are just going to do the same research you have to package it in the form of a new idea.

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