A response to the New Zealand Government's National Statement of Science Investment from the Rutherford Discovery Fellows

The New Zealand Government recently requested feedback on their "National Statement of Science Investment". New Zealand is a wonderful place to live and work. However, research and development in this country is chronically underfunded (e.g. What's So Special About Science (And How Much Should We Spend on It?). Consequently, our response is fairly predictable. Feel free to read it on figshare.

Opening up research proposals

I'm involved with a submission to the Knight News Challenge called "opening up research proposals". The basic idea is to make more funding applications publicly accessible. In the hope that this will increase collaboration, reduce unethical application recycling and generally make the world a happier and more productive place.

I think I have to practise what I'm preaching. Therefore I have made my Rutherford Discovery Fellowship Application available via figshare.

Ten suggestions for selecting a research topic

Paul P. Gardner¹ and Venkateswarlu Pulakanam²

1. Biomolecular Interactions Centre and School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

2. College of Business and Law, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

Selecting a research project is one of the most important decisions researchers at any stage of their career can make [1][2][3]. This is of particular importance for early-career academics. An early selection of the wrong project can have a negative impact on later career options. We believe it is very important to invest time mulling over which of the infinitude of projects we can investigate. In the following we present a number of ideas that will mitigate the risk of failure before embarking on a project. We target our suggestions for younger scientists, however, more experienced researchers may also benefit from these ideas. We hope that this will further your career goals, rather than sap your will to live.

The project management literature contains a number of useful tools for identifying good projects. Tools like SMART criteria [4] for identifying sensible objectives and SWOT analyses [5] for selecting good projects are handy additions to include in your strategic approach to research.

We have identified 10 key tools that we believe are of particular benefit to early-career scientists.

Which country is the best at converting research spending into Nobel Prizes?

The short answer is "probably Switzerland".

A PhD position is available in my group!

I have one exciting opportunity for a lucky applicant. If you're interested in RNA, Bioinformatics and living in our little village on the underside of the planet then please follow the instructions in my advertisement.

Kiwis, what will you die from?

Sometimes exciting results come from chance interactions. Twitter, The Facebook, Blogs and even the occasional Conference and ensuing IRL discussions appear to be accelerating research and certainly the discussion of research. For example, Siousxie Wiles and I have discussed the "Fighting Disease" component of The Great NZ Science Project in multiple forums.  We were both frustrated by the lack of real-data that claims have been based upon, in the associated website and Facebook groups. Then at the annual NZ Microbial Society Meeting we decided to do something about it.

Evolving an NZ home into a European one

I've been meaning to share this for ages. 

I recently bought a house in New Zealand after living in Europe for nearly a decade. This caused a slight shock to my system. European homes are warm, New Zealand homes are not. My house is a fairly typical 1950s bungalow, it had no insulation in the ceiling, walls or underfloor, no double glazing and no central heating. There is a heatpump attached to the wall but without insulation one is trying to warm the environment as well as ones house when it is on. Since I'm a miser, this makes me mad. So I've tried to do something about this.