Competitive research grants aren’t getting any easier. The last time I looked, 10% of applicants had their grant funded. And generally, they are not even fully funded. Ask for $1, get $0.80.
I cannot find specific data on how long academics stay at the same university. But, for the general population the average time at the same employer (not the same job) is 4.2 years. Reflecting on my time working with and for academics, I feel like few leave their current employer to work as an […]
This post is inspired by episode 695 of This American Life (everyone's a critic).
Previously I wrote about measuring your success. And the next obvious step after measuring is to report (or at the very least note down or record). Hopefully, you have spent a little bit of time – not heaps, but not none – investigating what success means to you, and how you can measure it.
There are lots of ways to measure academic success: Publications Presentations Supervision Grants Patents
One of the things about grant, proposal and thesis writing is the need to be creative. Not to make stuff up, but to be creative in order to make the writing interesting. And, even if you're not interested in being creative in those pursuits, surely you see the need to be creative on social media. […]
Just like everything looks like a nail if you are a hammer, your PhD appears academic when all of your skills are presented in that context. Similarly, people in other sectors will have the same problem. They’ll see how their skills are specific to their sector.
Universities and research are going through a tough time at the moment. Researchers/scientists are seen as less and less relevant – think climate change, vaccines, genetically modified crops, medicinal marijuana. Employment as an academic researcher has lost its shine. Degreesare being devalued. […]
I guess the first question to ask and answer is what is an academic researcher? To me an academic researcher – or just an academic – is someone employed at a university who uses specific investigative techniques in order to improve their (and therefore humanity’s) understanding of the world.
In Australia, Christmas is a time for seeing family, having fun, eating heaps and doing it all outdoors – fun in the sun.