Voice of the Future 2013 – your chance to question MPs

This blog post was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Officer

If you are one of our members and aged 16-35, the Biochemical Society is offering you the chance to question MPs in Parliament at Voice of the Future 2013 (VOF2013).

The event was held for the very first time last year and was such a success that we’re doing it all again! VOF2013 will be held on Wednesday 20 March and is being organised by the Society of Biology and hosted by the House of Commons Select Committee on Science & Technology. The event presents young and early career representatives of a number of learned and professional societies the chance to sit in the seats usually reserved for members of the Select Committee and question the MPs as in a real evidence session.

So if you’re concerned about scientific careers, muddled about the misuse of science in and for policy, fearful about funding or stressed about short-termism, why not take your question to the top?

For your chance to attend, you just need to send us a question for the MPs by 12:00 on Monday, 25 February. Full details and instructions are available here.

You can read an article about last year’s ground breaking event here (PDF).

SET for BRITAIN – a poster competition in Parliament

This blog post was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Officer

The annual SET for BRITAIN poster competition is open for applications. SET for BRITAIN offers a brilliant opportunity for young researchers to present their work in a unique location – the Houses of Parliament. The event represents an important chance to showcase scientific research and bring it in to the corridors of power, as well as introducing some of the brightest young scientists to this exciting arena. There are also cash prizes.

Posters should be aimed at a scientific audience, but you should be prepared to explain your work to non-scientists, including MPs and other visitors.

The deadline – by which you must submit an abstract and reference letter (not the final poster) – is Christmas Eve, December 24 2012.

In related news, Voice of the Future 2013 will take place in March. Further details will be announced in the new year. You can read about last year’s event here.

On Synthetic Biology – watch the debate

This blog post was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Officer

‘Synthetic Biology: challenges and opportunities for the UK‘ took place on Wednesday, across two sites in London and Bristol. My esteemed Royal Society of Chemistry colleague James Hutchinson described our attempt to video link between two sites as a fitting level of ambition, considered in the context of the challenges we face if we are going to use synthetic biology to tackle the ‘grand challenges’ (primarily in food and fuel). You can see how it looked from my perspective here. (In the picture from left to right are: Professor Robert Edwards; Helena Paul; Daisy Ginsberg; Dr Lionel Clarke; Professor Dek Woolfson (in Bristol) and our London Chair, Dr Ehsan Masood.)

You can watch the whole debate at The Reaction here and find links to other write-ups and summaries on the Biochemical Society listing.

There is a lot of buzz around synthetic biology at the moment – there was even before senior government ministers started mentioning it in speeches at the Royal Society – but we are not anywhere near where we would need the technology to be for it to assure us of its widespread application yet. Indeed, as could be expected, we heard on Wednesday that before we can consider what we can do, we need to consider what we should do. Dr Clarke assured us that that was part of the point of setting out a Roadmap for the development of the technology so early (you can read David Willetts’ response to this from November 2 here). It is probably worth noting that the final report of the BIS Foresight project Global Food and Farming Futures (2011) did not give much reference at all to synthetic biology, except in the context of precaution around public opinion.

In this context, I recommend watching the debate back (it starts at 3:12). Apologies for a couple of sound issues around the mid-point.

Returning role models

This blog post was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Officer

I write this (referring to yesterday as I couldn’t post it then) whilst sitting in one of Bath’s many fine pubs (I recommend a spot next to the fire in the Pulteney Arms, next to Henrietta Park), reflecting on today’s inaugural Daphne Jackson Trust (DJT) Research Conference. It is often remarked that the Trust does wonderful work helping women (and, since 2003, men too) return to SET careers following careers breaks. As it celebrates its 20th anniversary, with its profile ever rising under the leadership of the charismatic Dr Katie Perry, the Trust is putting more emphasis on demonstrating the research output of its fellows. This, Katie told me, is the best way of getting buy-in from the higher echelons of university management, and also reminds the scheme’s advocates – such as myself – that the Trust’s aims are not only extremely valuable at an individual level, but also for the UK science base. I’ll not go into the issues around the benefits of operating in diverse research teams here, but needless to say the DJT schemes certainly contribute in this way, if only at a relatively low level (for now) considering the number of fellowships available. With the conference showcasing the research of fellows from more areas of SET than I am usually accustomed to seeing, I personally found the day very interesting, and it was fantastic to see such a great turn-out.

Whilst in conversation with Professor Alistair Fitt (Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University and a mathematician by research interest) and Professor Rob Eason (a Trustee of the DJT and deputy head of school in the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton), we noted that the balance of current fellows seems weighted towards biologists. We speculated that this was probably because there are more women (whilst the scheme is open to men and women, women are more likely to have a break to return from) from a bioscience background who had a research career to ‘return’ to. The percentage of female A-level physics students has lagged at around one in five for the past quarter century. Nevertheless, schemes such as the DJT fellowships are contributing to an increasing bank of role models (for more on this theme see last week’s post on Ada Lovelace Day) to help inspire the next generation of women to pursue research careers, as Daphne Jackson – herself a physicist – did. I hope that this, combined with the cultural changes which should accelerate as this issue continues to be discussed, will make a difference borne out by the numbers in years to come. One such role model on display at the conference was Dr Tzanka Kokalova, after whose presentation it was remarked that she might well end up with a Nobel Prize should her research in nuclear physics bring the ‘right’ results. Having given up physics at 16 (like many others I never had a specialist physics teacher due to the national shortage) much of the science was beyond me, but Dr Kokalova’s engaging personality made her an interesting speaker and certainly someone to look out for.

All in all, the day represented a successful divergence of the DJT’s programme of activities. I look forward to next year’s event (which will hopefully give me a chance to explore another of the UK’s lovely cities outside of London!) and to hearing more interesting research stories from engaging returners.

A Busy Week: Biology Week, an extended Ada Lovelace Day and Libel Reform

This blog post was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Officer

As the first ever Biology Week draws to a close – although not before I take part in a world record attempt this afternoon – we can reflect on what has been a very successful week all round. On Monday, our two Lunchbox roundtable series combined for a special joint event on the future of research careers. On Tuesday I was fortunate enough to attend Ada Lovelace Day Live! at the Institute of Engineering and Technology, a remarkable variety evening featuring an array of entertaining and inspiring female role models involved in science and engineering. My personal highlights were Sarah Angliss’ robot/theramin performance (oh yes) and the delightful compèring of Helen Arney, who’s science-based comedy and singing is a real treat. I also discovered ‘The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage’, a comic drawn by the extremely talented Sydney Padua.

The celebration of Ada Lovelace did not end on the ‘official’ day either, with fringe events still taking place. This afternoon sees the Royal Society host a women in science Wikipedia workshop and edit-a-thon (subsequent article about this available here) followed by a panel discussion led by Uta Frith FRS. And last night the Science Grrl calendar – which aims to showcase the ‘real face of female scientists’ – was launched at the Science Museum. You can find out more and purchase one here.

In other news, this week also saw Ed Miliband become the first leader of a major party to support the campaign to reform the libel laws of England and Wales, which is being driven by English PEN, Index on Censorship and our friends at Sense About Science, who we also met this week to discuss their work in plant science and GM. I’ve written a little about the campaign on the Society of Biology’s blog previously.

With this being such a busy time, it was unsurprising that I ended up missing out on something, and it turned out to be one of the highlights of the week: the RVC Late event at the Royal Veterinary College last night. As an anatomist by training I was very disappointed to miss the horse dissection demonstration and lecture on epilepsy, as well as the chance to explore the museum. But at least I still have the world record attempt to join in with!

On the road with BBSRC

This blog post was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Officer

BBSRC will shortly be holding a number of consultation events to review progress in delivering the current Strategic Plan and consider ‘opportunities for the future’.  This pleasingly open-ended brief means that these events could be very interesting and informative, as well as giving participants the opportunity to make their voice heard.

Going on the road to Cambridge (4 Oct), Bristol (12 Oct), Manchester(30 Oct), Glasgow (20 Nov) and London (28 Nov although unfortunately fully booked) will be:

• Douglas Kell (Chief Executive)
• Melanie Welham (Director of Science as of 1 October) and
• Celia Caulcott (Director of Innovation and Skills).

Further details, including how to register, are available at BBSRC’s website. If you’re coming to Manchester, do say hello. I’ll also be reporting back afterwards, and the slides from the presentations will be made available online.

Impact

BBSRC have also just made an announcement regarding a set of competitions on ‘Fostering Innovation’. Whilst ‘Innovator of the year‘ and ‘Excellence with impact‘ are not new, ‘Activating impact‘ is, and will make awards to Knowledge Exchange/Commercialisation/Transfer teams. The rationale behind this is explained in this FAQ document (PDF). It will be interesting to see how well-received it is, but represents an interesting foray into this area.

Impact fans may be interested to know that the press release contains the word ‘impact’ 18 times!

ESOF – European parallels, career tips, and a new peer review guide

This blog post was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Officer

I attended ESOF (the Euroscience Open Forum) on Friday, in the fair city of Dublin. I took a lot away from it (not least that riding a Vespa to Gatwick isn’t a very good idea). As I’m shortly to take the best part of three weeks off for the Olympics, I will have plenty of food for thought, particularly on careers, on which I attended a number of sessions.

ESOF is a huge, biennial behemoth (the next one will be held in Copenhagen) but in a good way – I was very impressed. On Friday, the sessions ran from 8:00 to 18:30, with around ten parallel sessions at a time and no designated breaks (I took the opportunity of a Bob Geldof keynote to duck out and get a sandwich). The UK is perhaps not as engaged in the European science ideal as other countries, but on first reflection, I noted that many of the discussions were similar to those going on in the UK. Here are my scribbles from Máire Geoghegan-Quinn’s keynote speech, the current European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science (excuse the roughness):

• Politicians should deploy the scientific method whenever possible, need to remind of that
• Science vital for future – and intellectual inquiry will always explore most profound ideas
• Higgs – excitement across all ages, groups and countries
• Challenge-driven research important, but curiosity-driven research leads to great discoveries – silicon chips (Bohr), WWW
• Challenge-driven research also brings fundamental benefits – e.g. aero wings and fluid dynamics
• Horizon 2020 – not everyone happy with large settlement, so keep making the case
• ERA – single market for ideas in Europe – increased competition and cooperation between member states (existing example of CERN). Goes live soon. Another important strand is Open Access. Need everyone to line up behind ERA – will deliver science excellence for Europe. Will rely on political will and trust
• March of progress will rely on centrality of science and public trust – must communicate well e.g. on synthetic biology (the same day, ‘A synthetic biology roadmap for the UK‘ was published)
• Thriving intersectoral ecosystem is necessary for solving problems
• Already examples of successful collaborations and things going on in background – Grand Challenges a good and relatively cheap way of stimulating it
• DARPA – $1m for driverless car. Led to many partnerships
• Human Genome Project – for each $ spent, $140 generated
• Open access will help collaboration. People cannot always be co-located, but could be huge enabling factor – individuals, poorer countries, SMEs – which then pump money back into local community – more tax – more research funding…
• Should we be aiming to get tangible outputs back from publicly funded research?
• We must support both forms of research. This is where ideal spin-off situation arises
• Can’t aim to capitalise on specific things before know what outcomes will be.

Elsewhere, I heard some interesting tips from Dr Silvia Giordani from Trinity College Dublin on careers:

1. “Change is good… Being crazy is rewarded in the end.”
2. “Learn as much as you can early, and you can put it together later.”
3. “Network, network, network!”

Peer review guide launched

The previous day, Sense About Science launched their ‘Peer Review: The nuts and bolts’ guide at the conference. Despite the quickening evolution of the publishing landscape, peer review – as I heard at a recent(ish) meeting of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee – remains the gold standard for determining the soundness of scientific papers, and misconceptions (particularly about open access journals) can be damaging.

The guide was produced by Sense About Science’s Voice of Young Science network, and provides a quick reference how peer-review works and how to do it. Helpfully, it features guidance from both sides of the fence – both editors and scientists at different stages of their careers, as well as other observers such as James Randerson from the Guardian. It is definitely recommended reading, although it acknowledges that formal training in the art of reviewing is variable in amount and availability.

If you were at ESOF too, let me know!

Peer Review: The nuts and bolts (PDF): http://www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/resources/99/Peer-review_The-nuts-and-bolts.pdf
Further reading (Science Careers blog): Become a Reviewer: Advancing and Contributing in the Scientific Establishment

Campaigning for libel reform

This post first appeared at the Society of Biology’s blog and was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Officer

Is has been a very busy couple of weeks for openness. First there was the Government-commissioned Finch Group report on open access to research publications. Then there was the Royal Society report ‘Science as an open enterprise’. And on Wednesday, the libel reform campaign for the freedom of individuals to conduct open and robust debate was stepped up a notch at an event in Parliament.

A stellar line-up – amongst them Professor Brian Cox, Dara Ó Briain and MPs from the three main parties – gathered in Committee Room 11 to speak about what is missing from the defamation bill which is currently being drafted. Chief amongst the concerns of the community is the lack of a public interest defence, which would protect individuals and NGOs from being sued for making statements in the public interest.

There have been a number of high profile cases of libel involving scientists. A number of these individuals – Ben Goldacre, Simon Singh, Stuart Jones and Peter Wilmshurst were in attendance (click the names for details of the cases brought against them). All were sued for trying to expose bogus claims which could pose public health risks.

At the event on Wednesday, Dave Gorman – one of the high-profile backers of the campaign – said that the current laws provide rich people with a way to put poor people “all in”. Rob Flello MP and Wilmshurst agreed that in its current form, the new bill will would make “no difference”, and David Davis MP called for more pressure to be put on backbench MPs, as this would influence the coalition. Jones, who is being sued for trying to expose dangerous medical advice, said that the threat of libel is “paralysing” and that he would be afraid to speak out again until the a public interest defence is in place. What is clear then, is that the campaign must go on.

The Libel Reform Campaign was founded by Index on Censorship, English PEN and Sense About Science in December 2009. You can read more about all the changes being campaigned for in this briefing, sign the petition for libel reform here and join the debate on Twitter using the hashtag #libelreform.

Further reading in the Guardian:
‘Libel reform comes around less often than Halley’s comet. Let’s get it right’
‘Libel reform campaigners demand better public interest defence’

Improving diversity and tackling inequality in science

This is an edited version of a post which first appeared at the British Ecological Society’s blog

Equality and diversity in science was the focus of last week’s Policy Lunchbox, run at Charles Darwin House by the Biochemical Society and British Ecological Society.

Sarah Hawkes, Head of Scientific Engagement at the Royal Society (RS), gave a presentation about her work on the Society’s new four-year programme (scroll down), which focuses on removing the barriers to increasing diversity in the scientific workforce.

The science sector in the UK – and the RS itself – have been the subject of criticism for the notable lack of women amongst their ranks, particularly in more senior positions. In the UK, men are six times more likely than women to work in science, technology, engineering or maths (STEM) subjects, and of the 46 Fellows appointed at the RS in 2012, only two were women.

The RS’s new programme, funded by the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, aims to address this gender imbalance – as well as tackling other issues of diversity incorporating ethnicity, disability and socio-economic status – across both academia and industry. The idea is to learn from and build upon the number of equality initiatives which already exist to work towards three objectives:

1. Defining and understanding the scientific workforce;
2. Identifying barriers to entry and progression within the scientific work force, which a view to removing them, and;
3. In the long-term, increasing the diversity of the scientific workforce.

The programme will involve data gathering and a large scale policy study, significant work to engage with the scientific community, organising diversity events and activities, and engaging with the Athena SWAN initiative (which the Biochemical Society co-funds) and actors within education.

The scheme has strong backing from Sir Paul Nurse, PRS, who made a statement recently saying that “we must have an environment in which all scientists, including those from previously underrepresented groups, have an equal chance to excel”.

Much of the work so far has been to establish the programme and begin to embed it within the RS’s work. An initial scoping study has been carried out to identify existing data on the diversity of the scientific workforce and knowledge gaps that need to be filled. As part of this work, the programme is exploring the possibility of joining up existing datasets to reveal long-term trends, which may indicate whether the suggestion of some commentators – that it is ‘just a matter of time’ before equality will come about in science anyway – is true (I would propose that it certainly won’t any time soon, without more significant intervention).

A consultation and engagement conference held at the end of March also provided vital feedback from the scientific community, identifying the barriers and issues people working in the field experience. Areas including careers guidance, career trajectories, improving awareness of STEM careers, the importance of role models and widening Athena SWAN were suggested and will be used to shape the RS programme’s work. Further consultation and a large scale policy study this summer will also investigate whether the diversity issues in science are replicated in other sectors and help identify evidence to make a ‘business case’ for improving diversity. This is an increasing focus in Europe too, as the recent Gendera conference brought to light.

Consideration will also be given to different measures of ‘excellence’ within science, as women are particularly affected by the challenge of maintaining a reputation through publications. This is due to factors including maternity leave and the potential loss of association with a publication record if names are changed in marriage.

The programme will focus initially on the academic sector but, building on Sarah’s previous experience working on the Athena SWAN Charter, it is hoped the RS programme will collaborate with the Charter to broaden its scope beyond universities to pilot work in research institutes and, perhaps in the future, industry. This will also help any best practices from industry be absorbed more widely. Unilever, for example, drew praise at the 2011 European Gender Summit for its active approach to diversity.

Of course, in addition to reaching out to pursue diversity externally, the RS must address the significant gender imbalance within its own Fellowship which, in the last 10 years, has elected only 43 women as Fellows out of a total of 438 (at the Biochemical Society, we acknowledge a similar problem with our awards, which we are working to address). Although low, this is an improvement compared to previous decades and now with the significant support of Sir Paul, Sarah feels progress will be made faster. A major barrier to overcome is the fact that Fellows are elected based on nominations by existing Fellows, which means the demographic is likely to perpetuate without interventions.

Sarah suggested that Learned Societies can help the RS programme, and more broadly make progress with addressing diversity issues, by participating in satellite expert groups which the programme is hoping to establish and informing Sarah of their own diversity initiatives, or providing examples of role models and case studies. There may also be the opportunity to work collaboratively, to run joint mentoring schemes for example, and the RS may provide some funding for this. This is definitely worth keeping an eye out for.

More details of the RS’s work on equality and diversity are available on their website. Our thanks again to Sarah for giving such an interesting presentation, which is available here, and for dealing with all of our questions, especially the toughies from me!

Listen again to Voice of the Future and Science Question Time (along with 100,000 others)

This blog post was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Officer

I was in Stuttgart on Tuesday (discussing gender equality in science) when I had an email from Imran Khan, Director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering and a collaborator on Science Question Time. Apparantly our recording of last Thursday’s SciQT Nuclear Debate had gone viral, with over 30,000 listens at SoundCloud.  We knew it had been an interesting and provocative policy debate, but the evident public appetite was surprising, to me at least. It was not entirely unaided though, and we must thank the good people of Boing Boing for promoting our debate to their audience, and helping us to reach 117,000 (as of now…)

Last week also saw Voice of the Future take place in the House of Commons, with many young scientists – including some sixth form students – having the opportunity to ask difficult questions of David Willetts MP, Chi Onwurah MP and members of the House of Commons Select Committee on Science & Technology (with several of them making their debut appearances). The recording of this event (with full video)  is available here. In all, it was a good week for biology in the House, as Monday saw student Nicholas Love (University of Manchester) take home first prize from SET for Britain, held in the Commons Terrace Marquee, having won the Biological and Biomedical Science category and then taking the gong ahead of the winners of Physical Sciences (Chemistry and Physics), and Engineering. Both of these events were primarily organised by the Scoiety of Biology, with support from various Member Organisations including the Biochemical Society.

Excuse the brevity of this post, but there’s lots of info in the embedded links above!