Kent Research Prizes Scheme Launched

To recognise exceptional achievements in research, and to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, the University is this year launching a new Research Prizes scheme. As well as recognising the most outstanding work in each Faculty, there will be specific prizes for excellent work undertaken by early career researchers and by doctoral students.

All the details are available on the Kent Research Services website here. Do give some consideration to your own work, or that of colleagues who you feel have produced exceptional work recently, and whose outstanding achievements deserve to be recognised by the University and the wider community.

If you have any questions about the scheme don't hesitate to get in touch with me.

ECR Network 2014-15

I've finally finished preparing the programme of events for Kent's Early Career Researcher (ECR) Network.

The ECR Network exists to offer mutual support to academics at the beginning of their careers. The sessions complement the Grants Factory workshops, and provide advice on establishing your career.

There will also be opportunities to meet others informally and share the highs and lows of getting started in academia.

Spring Term 

• How to Win a Postdoctoral Fellowship:   Thursday 29 January2015 
• Getting Published: Targeting the Top Journals and Writing Book Proposals:   Thursday 27 February 2015, 12noon-2pm 
• Coping with Rejection:  Wednesday 4 March 2015, 12noon-2pm 
• Using Social Media to Support your Career: Friday 27 March 2014, 2:30-5:30pm 
• How to Overcome ‘Imposter Syndrome’:  Wednesday 8 April 2015, 1-4:30pm

Summer Term 

• Alternative Funding for Research:  Wednesday 20 May 2015, 2-4pm
• Getting Recognition: Promotion & Pay at Kent:  Date TBC

Details of some events (such as the time and venue) are still to be confirmed. The events are open to all at the University of Kent. Contact me for more information, or if you would like to take part in any of these events.

Grants Factory Workshops 2014-15

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the award winning Grants Factory programme.

The Grants Factory provides academics and researchers with the inside knowledge on how funders work and what makes them tick. As a result, those who attend have a much better chance of success.

The programme speakers are colleagues from Kent and elsewhere, including those who work as reviewers, panellists, and officers for the funders. These workshops are complemented by the Early Career Research Network.

Autumn Term

• The Essential Elements of a Good Application Friday 28 November 2014, 12noon-3pm 
• BBSRC Mock Panel Thursday 4 December 2014, 2:30-4:30pm 
• Using Research Professional to Find the Best Funding Scheme for You Monday 8 December 2014, 1-2pm (talk) & 2:30-4pm (interactive session) 

Spring Term

• The Essential Elements of a Good Leverhulme Fellowship Application Wednesday 4 February 2015, 2-4pm 
• EPSRC Mock Panel Thursday 12 February 2015, 1-4pm 
• AHRC Mock Panel Wednesday 18 February 2015, 12noon-2pm 
• ESRC Mock Panel Wednesday 11 March 2015, 2-4pm 
• Engaging with Politicians & Policy Makers through Parliament Thursday 19 March 2015
• Interdisciplinary Sandpits Dates TBC

Details of some events (such as the time and venue) are still to be confirmed. The events are free and open to all University of Kent staff, and refreshments will be provided. Contact me for more information, or if you would like to take part in any of these events.

Saving Peer Review

In June an eminent group of academics, including Nobel laureates, wrote the following to The Daily Telegraph: "Peer review [of funding applications] is now virtually unavoidable and its bureaucratic, protracted procedures are repeated for every change in direction or new phase of experimentation or for whatever an applicant might subsequently propose. Consequently, support for research that might lead to major new scientific discoveries is virtually forbidden nowadays, and science is in serious danger of stagnating."

Keith Bontrager, the legendary designer of bike components, once said about bicycles: "Strong, light, cheap: pick two." You can never have all three. A similar universal law seems to be at work with systems for selecting funding proposals and academic articles, but perhaps the elements here should be: robust, equitable, easy.

It's All Gone a Bit Graphene

A graphene Fiona Bruce

There was news last month of Manchester building a second graphene hub. Now read on.

The set of the Antiques Roadshow, October 2525. Everyone is dressed in graphene, and are sitting around graphene tables under graphene parasols. A graphene Fiona Bruce presents. 

Bruce: Welcome to Antiques Roadshow. You join us this week in the beautiful surroundings of Graphene Palace, an early twenty first centre mansion in the Palladian style, but the first building in Britain to be built entirely from graphene.
Audience: gasps of disbelief
Bruce: I know, I know, it's hard to believe now, but in the early twenty first century little was known about graphene, and a huge amount of research effort and time was spent in finding out more about it. It was seen as the wonder substance.
Audience: laugh incredulously
Bruce: It was thought to be the next big thing. Little did our forebears know that it would become so ubiquitous and essentially worthless. But let's go over to our experts to find out what graphene objects have been brought to us today.
The camera pans around to a table where a graphene Eric Knowles is examining a pot.
Knowles: So tell me, how did you come by this pot?