All posts by Aarathi Prasad

Aarathi is an ex-research scientist with a cancer genetics background. After leaving the lab bench she did television research, pharmaceutical marketing, parliamentary research, and defended science with the charity Sense About Science. She is now a freelance science journalist, author and broadcaster who lives between London and Bangalore.
Policy

Facilitating researcher mobility

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One of the recurrent themes at the Vitae Researcher Development Conference 2010 was how to better facilitate the movement of researchers throughout the European Union. Representing the British Council, Dr Claire McNulty’s conference workshop, Research as an International Career, broadened the discussion to how to encourage and make easier the transition for scientists moving between continents, as well as between countries that are geographically, but not politically European nations. Read more [...]
Funding

Sustaining research through the economic downturn – in the UK and Europe

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On the 6th and 7th of September 2010, the historic Midland hotel in central Manchester, UK was filled with nearly 400 participants attending the Vitae Researcher Development Conference. The discussion of ideas on professional development and support for researchers at this year’s annual gathering is of particular importance, as it comes cheek by jowl with the UK spending review outcomes to be announced this Autumn – and with an expectation of hard times to come. The conference participants were set to discuss the new political context, to gather evidence of the contribution of researchers to the academic base and to economic and cultural prosperity, and to address future skill sets of researchers and the UK’s place in the global research environment. Read more [...]