Sep 20, 2018 | Ideas for change, News, NIH, NSF, Policy
Policies surrounding sexual harassment in science and federal grant funding have been heavily discussed and been the subject of updates in the last few days. We have attempted to summarize updates below, and may clarify with updates (which will be noted below). NIH creates sexual harassment website On Monday National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Francis Collins issued a statement discussing how NIH is addressing sexual harassment. No policy changes were announced, a website with sexual harassment information was launched, and the notice spoke of “new initiatives” for the intramural program to be released in the Federal Register today, which appear to consist of a new Manual Chapter and policy piece on personal relationships. National Science Foundation increases oversight At the same time, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced a new term and condition of award, following a process of proposing rule changes and soliciting public comments (to which Future of Research submitted comments in May 2018). The new term and condition of award requires institutions to notify NSF when a funded investigator is placed under administrative action at an institution. Further details are summarized in their press release and fact sheet. NIH responds to NSF changes Following the announcement by NSF, NIH issued a statement acknowledging NSF’s new terms, but stating that: “Legal constraints that apply differently to NSF and NIH currently prevent NIH from immediate implementation of an identical policy. A rulemaking process would be needed to determine if NIH can require the same responses from our awardee organizations.” The process in question appears to be due to differences in the Code of Federal Regulations....
Sep 17, 2018 | FOR meetings, Ideas for change, News, Postdoc benefits
Today marks the beginning of the ninth annual celebration of National Postdoc Appreciation Week (NPAW): September 17-21, 2018. You can find out more about events taking place for NPAW at the National Postdoc Association’s website here and you can follow #NPAW2018 to find out more about postdocs online. Future of Research members are taking part in events for #NPAW2018 across the country on Monday and Tuesday – we hope to see some of you in person or online! We will be sharing our resources for postdocs, and discussing the state of the postdoc position, throughout the week: Dr. Adriana Bankston is at the University of Southern California: “Monday, September 17 Components of a Successful Postdoc with Dr. Adriana Bankston (Future of Research) 9:00 a.m. -10:20 a.m. UPC Waite Phillips Hall (WPH) room 207 (2nd floor) Baked goods and coffee will be provided. Postdoctoral researchers are critical to the future of science. Fair pay, opportunities for meaningful leadership positions, and access to positive mentoring are critical factors of a successful postdoc experience. These factors are also likely to influence the decisions of postdocs on which institutions they will choose for conducting independent research, as well as whether to remain in academe or pursue other career paths. Read more.” Dr. Gary McDowell is at Washington University in St. Louis: “Monday, September 17 Advocacy Workshop with Future of Research and the WashU Postdoc Society Executive Council 9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Medical Campus What are the issues and barriers postdocs face at WashU? How can individual postdocs fix problems? What role does the WashU Postdoc Society have in affecting change? Gary McDowell, Ph.D., executive director of The Future...
Sep 5, 2018 | Data, Grassroots movements, Ideas for change, News, Peer Review, Policy, Resources, Surveys & Forums
Reminder: our survey on attitudes and experiences in peer review is open until September 21st – please fill it in and urge your peers to do so too! https://tinyurl.com/ECRs-in-peer-review As part of our effort to increase transparency about the role of early career researchers in peer review, we are trying to collect data on the policies that journals have implemented with respect to involvement of early career researchers. Particularly we are looking at how transparent co-reviewer policies are, and whether expectations around co-reviewing are made clear. We are part of a collaborative project, TRANsparency in Scholarly Publishing for Open Scholarship Evolution or TRANSPOSE, to work on gathering this and other data about scholarly publishing. This project has been accepted as part of the Scholarly Communication Institute 2018 Meeting in Chapel Hill, NC, where the theme is “Overcoming Risk“. One of the risks identified in our project is the risk ECRs face when it comes to ensuring their scholarly contribution is recognized. What is TRANSPOSE? TRANSPOSE (TRANsparency in Scholarly Publishing for Open Scholarship Evolution) is a grassroots project to crowdsource journal policies on peer review and preprints. The project is a collaborative effort across a number of different organizations dedicated to making publishing more transparent. Future of Research is particularly interested in the component you can search below – which journals allow co-reviewers to be named! Why TRANSPOSE? Journal policies on peer review and preprints are variable and complex. Existing databases (such as SHERPA/RoMEO and Publons) contain some, but not all, of this information. How can I help? If you’d like to...
Aug 20, 2018 | Diversity in science, Grassroots movements, Ideas for change, Mentoring, News, NIH, Policy
On Thursday, August 23, at 10 AM EDT the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) will hold a hearing entitled “Prioritizing Cures: Science and Stewardship at the National Institutes of Health”. The hearing will be webcast here. Last week Senate HELP Ranking Member Patty Murray sent a letter to Dr. Francis Collins, who will be testifying at the meeting, posing a number of questions about how NIH handles sexual harassment among funded investigators. They draw attention to the NIH’s role in this problem, ask for evidence of the NIH’s actions to date, and request policy change. Francis Collins, Hannah Valentine and Michael Lauer wrote a letter to Nature in 2016 about the need for policy changes. We are asking you to join those who have a started a campaign to contact elected representatives on the HELP Committee. A graduate student at Yale, Sarah Smaga, has produced a call script for the HELP Committee Meeting including the names and telephone numbers of Senators on the committee which you can access here. The call asks for specific policies to ensure that those found guilty of sexual harassment are not able to receive NIH funding, enabling them to put more trainees and their careers at risk. Two members of the committee are particularly focused on prospects of early career researchers: Susan Collins of Maine and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin led a bipartisan effort focused on trainees that resulted in the Next Generation Researchers Initiative at NIH being mandated under the 21st Century Cures Act. It seeks to improve prospects for early career researchers, paying attention to recommendations from a study at the...
