Tag Archives: money

A Difficult Pill to Swallow: The Harsh Realities of a 15% Funding Rate

A country’s biomedical advancement and innovation is intimately linked to its investment in academic research (Measure for Measure: Chemical Research & Development Powers the U.S. Innovation Engine). Funding for research comes almost entirely from government and private donors (Stossel, T.P., … Continue reading

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Biomedical Research and Broken Clocks: All the Parts, but No Instructions

The day-to-day rigors of academic biomedical research are difficult to appreciate, and it is necessary that scientists share their perspective of the knowledge market with politicians and government representatives who are burdened with making difficult decisions on our behalf. Unlike … Continue reading

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CIHR Grant Reform: Speak now or forever hold your peace

Over the last months, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) have conducted an extensive review of their grant programs and have released a document to describe these changes.  In a demonstration of top tier accountability, they have opened a … Continue reading

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2012 Taxes for Postdocs: Dredging up the Past

A landmark decision was made late last month by the Ontario Labour Relations Board regarding the status of postdoctoral fellows.  Jesse Greener, President of the University of Toronto’s Postdoc Association has recently, and nicely, summarised the impacts of this ruling … Continue reading

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Who do universities want to hire – scientists or politicians?

In his article The Vanishing Voter, Harvard professor Thomas Patterson makes a statement about modern political campaigns that made me a little nauseous: Ambition, manipulation, and deception have become as prominent as issues of policy and leadership You might scoff at … Continue reading

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Quarterly Summary: A Busy Autumn + Goodbye and Good Luck to Beth!

Happy 2012 everyone. The end of 2011 was very busy, but it was worth it to gather some momentum behind the ideas and conversations from the site in the form of our session at the Canadian Science Policy Conference as … Continue reading

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Bidding You Adieu

So, a while back I mentioned that I would be applying to CIHR’s Science-to-Business (S2B) program, which provides scholarships for individuals with PhDs in a health related field to do MBAs. And the good news is that I was fortunate enough … Continue reading

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Happiness Outside of the Academy? One year later… see how this former postdoc is doing

This is a follow up on my previous blog post where I described my choice to enter an industrial position: “Academia vs. Industry: A former Postdoc’s perspective”.  I have been in my current position (a management position in a small start-up … Continue reading

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University Affairs commentary on our CSPC panel

On November 30, University Affairs posted two articles  that summarise and discuss the major issues that came up in our session at the 3rd Annual Canadian Science Policy Conference: Is Canada producing too many PhDs? Yes, no and maybe The … Continue reading

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More on Aboriginal Education in Canada

In my last blog posting, I discussed “The State of Aboriginal Learning in Canada” report and promised to talk more about potential solutions to the barriers to education faced by Aboriginal people in Canada. To that end, I have just … Continue reading

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