An RBR Writing Program post by Torrey Truszkowski Indirect cost payments, also known as overhead or facilities and administration costs, are a critical part of research grants and pay for the upkeep and administration of research facilities. The Trump administration’s fiscal 2018 budget proposed a 22 percent cut to the National Institutes of Health, with much of […]
Assessing the effect of philanthropic funding on biomedical research
An RBR Writing Program post by Eve Granatosky The National Institutes of Health is the largest funder of basic biomedical research; however, hypercompetition for NIH funds has led many scientists to pursue private, philanthropic sources to fund their research. While new initiatives like the Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub garner media attention, more established foundations like the American […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
New study shows the GRE is a poor predictor of graduate student success in the biomedical sciences
By Sonia Hall In a paper published today in PLoS ONE, Moneta-Koehler et al. demonstrated that scores on the Graduate Record Exam are not predictive of success in biomedical graduate school. Taking the GRE is required by nearly every biomedical graduate school, and higher GRE scores have been assumed to be indicative of success in […]