Human resources are the most pressing problem in Spain

Posted on by

“The Panel of experts thanks the Minister and State Secretary for the privilege of being invited to review the Spanish research and innovation system. During our review we have received excellent cooperation from a wide range of senior stakeholders and valuable support from the secretariat and from the European Commission. This summary sets out our key findings and recommendations. These are elaborated in the full report.

We recognise the levels of excellence that exist in the Spanish system. However, if we take the system as a whole rather than the islands of excellence that are present, we found that its functioning has been inhibited by fragmentation in governance, both vertical and horizontal. The system has been subject to institutional rigidities preventing effective flow of people and knowledge. There is also a lack of an effective system of evaluation at policy, institutional or research quality levels and only a partial existence of a policy intelligence system.“
Read the full report here

Help to stop gender discrimination

Posted on by

A letter by Anna Krylov, Emily Carter and Laura Gagliardi:

Dear Colleague:

It happened again —  another major theoretical chemistry conference features an all-male program. One of us began boycotting such conferences 14 years ago and can’t believe that 14 years later we are still seeing such overt discrimination. This time it is the 15th International Congress of Quantum Chemistry (ICQC, http://www.icqc2015.org)  conducted under the auspices of International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science  (http://www.iaqms.org), which will be held in Beijing, China. As of 02/15/204, the program features 24 invited speakers and 5 chairs and honorary chairs and does not include a single woman.

Are there no women in theoretical chemistry? Hardly. The Women in Theoretical Chemistry web-directory (http://iopenshell.usc.edu/wtc) lists more than 300 female scientists holding tenured and tenure track academic positions or equivalent positions in industry and other research establishments pursuing research in theoretical and computational chemistry, biochemistry, material science, as well as theoretical molecular/atomic physics and biophysics. Many of these women are far more distinguished than many of the men being invited to speak at these conferences.

Feeling as fed up and frustrated as we do? Add your voice to ours by signing this open letter (http://chn.ge/NQGKUc) denouncing this biased practice, which we had hoped would be obsolete long ago (it will take less than a minute).

Thank you for your for your support.

Prof. Emily Carter, Princeton University
Prof. Laura Gagliardi, University of Minnesota
Prof. Anna Krylov, University of Southern California

An additional comment by Chris Cramer can be read here

Randy Schekman declares boycott to Nature, Science and Cell

Posted on by

Leading academic journals are distorting the scientific process and represent a “tyranny” that must be broken […]

Schekman said pressure to publish in “luxury” journals encouraged researchers to cut corners and pursue trendy fields of science instead of doing more important work. […]

A journal’s impact factor is a measure of how often its papers are cited, and is used as a proxy for quality. But Schekman said it was “toxic influence” on science that “introduced a distortion”. He writes: “A paper can become highly cited because it is good science – or because it is eye-catching, provocative, or wrong.”

Read more here