A report recently published by Shift Insight, UK Reproducibility Network & Vitae, provides an overview of the types of various research culture initiatives throughout the U.K. and also sets out a framework for understanding these initiatives as collective groups of activities. There is certainly a lot going on in the name of “research culture change” with activities aimed...

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As someone who stepped into the role of a group leader half a year ago, I have just embarked on an exciting journey to set up a new laboratory at University College London, U.K. My goal, as part of my New Year’s resolution, is to share some updates about the lab’s growth and some of...

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Grant writing is a fundamental skill for academics, acting as the lifeline to pursue their research endeavours. Creating a compelling grant proposal is an intellectual challenge. It demands not just a clear articulation of your research ideas, aims and approaches but also needs to adhere to stringent technical guidelines. And don’t forget the detailed budgeting...

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In recent years, equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) have become buzzwords in the world of research, with funding agencies and institutions making efforts to promote these core values. While there has been growing awareness of the importance of EDI in research, we still have a long way to go. The current system does not work...

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We are really excited to have Sarah Ruediger join the regular Black Hole crew. Sarah is a postdoctoral fellow who is transitioning to a group leader position at University College London this coming June.  She is an outstanding neuroscientist (with first author papers in Nature, Nature Neuroscience and eLife) with a long list of fellowships and scholarships who has undertaken...

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This is a guest post from Hongyu Zhang. Mr. Zhang is a doctoral candidate in the department of geography at McGill University. He holds an MSc in geography from Western University and a BES in geomatics from the University of Waterloo. Before joining the Platial Analysis Lab, he was an engineering support specialist at Geotab. His...

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This is a guest post from Sarah Ruediger. Dr. Ruediger is currently completing her postdoctoral research at the University of California San Francisco and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She studied molecular biology at the University of Basel in Switzerland, and completed her doctoral training at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research. Her research...

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Earlier this month, I was pleased to see a paper published in PLoS Biology written by a large group of international researchers in the early stages of their careers about how we can improve research culture and practice. While I was one of the participants/authors, the real credit for driving the project goes to Brianne...

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Our long-term readers will have noticed that the frequency of column entries here on The Black Hole has dropped in recent months. We’d love to imagine that the number of issues facing early career researchers has also dropped, but it seems that it is a lack of time rather than a lack of content driving the...

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Over the last couple of months, I have been sent a steady string of emails with reference to various funding sources internal to our university, but the vast majority of them come with a substantial string attached – “funds must be spent by July 31, 2022.” On one hand, it is great that additional funds...

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