Introducing myIDP, the online Individual Development Plan

You Need A Game Plan

Introducing the new individual development plan, a long-term project sponsored by multiple scientific societies and universities. ‘Scientific careers are not like the board game Monopoly. In Monopoly, the rules are clear and it’s relatively easy to succeed; in fact you get $200 just for hanging in there long enough to pass “Go” on your way to the next round. But in science, it often seems there are no definite rules and there’s no guaranteed payoff for advancing to the next training round: Ph.D., postdoc, second postdoc—then what? To succeed in science, you need to have a game plan. This is especially true in the current research environment.’ To read more, please see the weblink below.

Website: http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2012_09_07/caredit.a1200100

The Postdoc Challenge

How dedicated are you to the academic research career? Are you willing to put in the time it takes to get in line and wait for the right faculty position? These tough choices await all of us and it has to be carefully weighed against family-, political- and other social considerations. Please see the link below for further insight to postdoctoral challenges awaiting academic scientists.   
       

Website: http://the-scientist.com/2012/08/01/opinion-the-postdoc-challenge/

Best Places to Work in Academia

Institutions that were rated the best places to work in academics for the year 2012:

http://the-scientist.com/2012/08/01/best-places-to-work-academia-2012/

Harvard Researcher Commits Scientific Fraud

“…Former Harvard University psychologist Marc Hauser fabricated and falsified data and made false statements about experimental methods in six federally funded studies, according to a report released yesterday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services's Office of Research Integrity (ORI). Hauser, who resigned from his Harvard faculty position in 2011 after an internal investigation found him responsible for research misconduct, wrote in a statement that although he has "fundamental differences" with some of the new report's findings, "I acknowledge that I made mistakes." He did not admit deliberate misconduct, however, and implied that his mistake was that he "tried to do too much" and "let important details get away from my control…" To read more, please see below.

Website: http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/09/harvard-psychology-researcher-co.html