MRC Chief Comes to Town

The CEO of the Medical Research Council, Sir Leszek Borysiewicz PhD, FRS, FRCP, FRCPath, FMedSci, will be coming to Kent tomorrow. He will be speaking to staff in the Senate Chamber at 2pm, and it will be a chance to hear how the MRC will be facing the challenging economic times ahead. What will be the MRC's strategy for dealing with them, and how is it dealing with the thorny issue of impact? There'll be a chance to ask question after Sir Leszek's talk, and the event will be followed be refreshments, and a further chance to chat informally to Sir Leszek and other colleagues. Contact Carol Moran if you'd like to come along.

Become a Research Council Member

A call's been announced for the annual round of appointments to the Research Councils. This round usually commences in October and takes place in two parts. BBSRC, EPSRC, MRC and STFC first, followed by AHRC, NERC and ESRC slightly later. This round may be supplemented by competitions for individual or groups of posts as necessary.
All appointments are initially for a period of up to four years, and members are eligible for re-appointment for a further period of up to four years. Members of Council are part-time and are expected to spend some 20 days each year on Council business. An annual honorarium of £6,740 is paid to council members and £8,970 is paid to members who chair boards.
I'd encourage all senior staff to consider applying; as I've said before, involvement with the Councils is incredibly valuable not only for raising your profile (and that of the University), but also for gaining an insight into the way the Councils work. More details of the call, specification, and forms are available here.

Nobel Prize Winner Attacks 'Directed Research'

Britain's latest Nobel prize winner has attacked government plans to divert research funding from basic science into projects that are expected to have a quick financial pay-off. Quoted in the Guardian, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, a Cambridge Chemistry professor, said that the focus on trying to get very quick pay-offs was 'a huge mistake.' He went on: 'basic science has paid off far more than any directed research. If you don't invest properly in fundamental science, then you won't have the foundations to develop the technologies and applications of tomorrow. Ten years down the line, your technology will be based on obsolete foundations.'

Happy?

The ESRC, together with the MRC and a clutch of government departments, have launched a funding initiative for an interdisciplinary research group on 'subjective wellbeing', or 'happiness or life satisfaction as reported by individuals,' and how this relates to public policy. The turnaround on this is tight: they want expressions of interest by 16 Oct. However, this need only be a one page summary. Funds of up to £4.4 million (at 100 per cent full economic costing, at current prices) are available over a five year period. More detail here