The biomedical research enterprise strives to be a meritocracy, but structural inequities and the reliance on nonscientific proxies such as journal impact and university prestige present roadblocks. Attempts to alleviate these problems are numerous— for example, ASAPbio, the grant-support index, the National Research Mentoring Network, and the Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity—and have met with […]
Blog
In this section the Steering Committee will invite specific contributions on important issues. for each item click on the title to read the full post.
Expanding support and implementing new teaching strategies to broaden diversity in biomedical research
An RBR Writing Program post by Sophia Kaska A sustainable biomedical research enterprise must be diverse along any number of axes, including racial, ethnic, gender and socioeconomic lines. The 2011 Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation: America’s Science and Technology Talent at the Crossroads from the National Academies laid out recommendations to improve diversity and inclusion in […]
Prestige matters in academic job placement for STEM Ph.D.s
An RBR Writing Program post by Eve Granatosky One key to improving the sustainability of the biomedical research enterprise is aligning the supply of qualified faculty applicants with the number of available positions. Scientists who choose to pursue an academic career path, whether at a research or teaching-focused institution, are faced with a limited number […]
Grant resubmission process does not appear to affect publication quantity or quality
An RBR Writing Program post by Torrey Truszkowski Stagnant National Institutes of Health budgets and increasing competition for grants have made sustaining a steady lab budget a difficult and time-consuming endeavor. Declining success rates for NIH grant applications mean that scientists are submitting more grant applications but also revising and resubmitting more reviewed grant applications. […]
New metrics for assessing researcher productivity impress in pilot study
An RBR Writing Program post by Eve Granatosky In today’s hypercompetitive environment, properly evaluating the productivity and success of researchers is critical for tenure and promotion decisions, grant funding decisions and many other aspects of research and career advancement. Some basic metrics, such as a researcher’s number of peer-reviewed publications or amount of grant funding, […]
NIH approves citation of preprints and other interim research projects in grant applications
By Brittany Aguilar Last Friday, the National Institutes of Health released a notice specifying that researchers can cite academic preprints and other interim research products in NIH grant applications. “This is a pretty big step,” said Chris Pickett, director of Rescuing Biomedical Research. “Allowing investigators to cite their preprints in grant applications will give the […]
Scientists speak out against Executive Order on immigration
By Swagata Basu On Friday, President Trump signed an executive order banning refugees and immigrants, including green card and travel visa holders, from seven countries from entering the U.S. for 90 days. Syrian refugees have been banned indefinitely from entering the country placing them further in limbo. At least 18 percent of the entire U.S. […]
Collins to remain as NIH director at beginning of Trump administration
By Sonia Hall Francis Collins will continue as director of the National Institutes of Health during part of the Trump administration. Just like all of President Obama’s nominees that cleared the U.S. Senate confirmation process, Collins tendered his resignation as NIH director effective noon on Friday, Jan. 20. However, the announcement that Donald Trump asked […]
The financial woes of postdoctoral training
By Swagata Basu A recent paper in Nature Biotechnology shows how postdoctoral training in biomedical sciences can affect early career outcomes. Despite a dearth in available academic tenure-track positions in and a drop in National Institutes of Health success rates, there has been sustained growth in the number of biomedical postdocs due to an abundance […]
GRE scores are a poor predictor of graduate student success
By Brittany Aguilar A new study published today in PLoS ONE from researchers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill demonstrates that some of the quantitative metrics used by graduate-admissions committees are poor predictors of productivity. Specifically, the authors suggest undergraduate grade-point average and Graduate Record Exam scores do not correlate with some standard metrics […]
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