This is my latest occasional bulletin of useful bits and pieces for the science world.
Firstly, a bunch of opportunities for early-career researchers.
A $25,000 prize will be awarded to an early-career biomedical researcher who is contributing in a unique and creative way to their chosen field. Applications close 20 October 2014. More below.
Jobs for our future leaders are also available at the ARC Centre for Advanced Molecular Imaging which is being launched today. This partnership between five Australian universities and an impressive list of infrastructure partners will provide a new way of looking at the immune system. More below.
The jobs at the Centre are among seven new EMBL Australia Group Leader positions currently open at Monash, UNSW and SAHMRI – offering early-career researchers up to nine years funding and allowing them the security to tackle the big questions.
Also:
- Want to influence science policy? Science and Technology Australia gives you the chance
- Ripples from the dark side of the Universe – lecture tour
- Join the UN International Year of Light in 2015
- The Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science, awarded on 29 October
- Melbourne Knowledge week, 27 October to 2 November
- Media training for scientists in Melbourne and Adelaide
- Plus more jobs, grants and prizes
Finally, it’s great to hear that the Science Council has been reborn. Welcome to members, Timothy Davis, Ian Frazer, Nalini Joshi, Tanya Monro, Brian Schmidt, Ken Boal, Michael Chaney, Jackie Fairley, David Knox and Catherine Livingstone. The council will be chaired by the Prime Minister and will also include the Minister for Industry, Minister for Education, Minister for Health and the Chief Scientist.
The council was announced among the government’s new policies for science and industry yesterday, which included the Science Council, incentives for STEM education and new Industry Growth Centres. You can read more at: www.minister.industry.gov.au/ministers/macfarlane
Kind regards,
Niall
Creative young scientists – apply for the $25,000 Centenary Prize
Apply now for the $25,000 Centenary Institute Lawrence Creative Prize for early-career biomedical researchers.
The Centenary Institute is looking for early-career scientists in biomedical research with a uniquely creative way of significantly contributing to their chosen field.
Applications close 5 pm Monday 20 October 2014.
“Last year we gave one of Australia’s most creative young medical researchers a $25,000 prize to help her develop her ideas on how diet could prevent stroke deaths.
“It’s a small step towards recognising that the most creative medical research is usually done by researchers early in their career – at a time when it’s hardest for them to secure funding,” says Prof Mathew Vadas, AO, Executive Director of the Centenary Institute.
The past two winners of the prize are:
Connie Wong: Using diet to cope with the aftermath of stroke (2013)
Connie thinks we may be able to prevent early deaths following stroke with a fibre-based diet. She initially used innovative microscope techniques to determine how stroke weakens the immune system.
Now she is studying how it also induces leakiness in the gut wall, leading to infection and an upsurge in deaths. And the solution may well lie in diet.
www.centenary.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/connie-media-release.pdf
Jian Yang: Solving the paradox of the “missing heritability” (2012)
Jian solved one of the great puzzles of human genetics – why the genes typically implicated in inherited diseases like schizophrenia, obesity and diabetes only account for a small amount of their heritability.
He developed statistical software to analyse genetic data in a different way, and found that the heritability was not missing, but hiding in the data.
www.centenarynews.org.au/solving-the-puzzle-of-complex-inherited-diseases
The Centenary Institute Lawrence Creative Prizes are open to:
- biomedical researchers
- less than 8 years past their PhD
- working in Australia, for work that was performed in Australia.
Read the full criteria www.centenary.org.au/p/about/lawrencecreative/applications
Then apply here https://cilcp.wufoo.eu/forms/centenary-institute-lawrence-creative-prize-2014
Want to influence science and technology policy?
- Do you have big ideas about how to represent Australian science and technology?
- Want to support over 68,000 scientists and technologists?
- And talk about science with government, industry, and the community?
Join Science & Technology Australia’s Executive committee.
Nominations are now open and close 5 pm 14 November 2014.
Four positions are available:
- President-elect (one-year term, then two-year term as President)
- Secretary (two-year term)
- Chair of the Policy Committee (two-year term)
- Early-career researcher (one-year term)
The successful candidates will join Ross Smith (President 2014 – 2015), Emma Johnston (Vice President), Peter Adams (Treasurer) and Catriona Jackson (CEO) on the STA Executive.
A candidate must be a financial member of a member society and receive the support of two other individuals who are themselves members of a member society.
The International Year of Light in Australia: get involved
The United Nations has declared 2015 the International Year of Light.
The Year is an opportunity to celebrate light in all its forms and applications: from synchrotron light to sunlight, from photosynthesis to the stars, and from Instagram to smart-lighting.
We want organisations across Australia to use it as your Year – use it to promote how you use light in science, art, culture, the built environment and education.
The Year will become ‘a thing’ because of the breadth and depth of activities linking to the theme. The committee will support it with broad promotion and media outreach.
We’ve kicked off the Year in Australia with a series of briefing events around the country. In Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane we discovered some great plans already coming together in science, industry, the arts and education.
If you, or your organisation want to be involved in the year you can:
- sign up to the e-news
- follow along on Twitter at @LightYearAU and #IYL2015
- host an event
- attend an event
- drop us a line: info@light2015.org.au
Ripples from the dark side of the Universe
Sheila Rowan: 2014 AIP Women in Physics Lecturer
Sheila Rowan from the University of Glasgow will, over the next two months, give public and school talks around the country about experiments to detect gravitational waves.
Gravitational waves are amongst the most elusive signals from our Universe reaching the earth: “ripples in the curvature of space-time”. The information carried by these signals will give us new insight into the hearts of some of the most violent events in the Cosmos – from black holes to the beginning of the Universe.
A global network of gravitational wave detectors – including the UK-German GEO600 detector, the US LIGO detector project, the French-Italian Virgo detector project and the Japanese detector KAGRA – is now reaching the final stages of construction, with the first data expected in 2015.
As director of the Institute for Gravitational Research in the School of Physics and Astronomy in the University of Glasgow, Sheila will discuss the nature of gravitational waves, how the detectors work and what the data from the detectors can tell us about the Universe we inhabit.
The AIP International Women in Physics Lecture Series is one of our annual highlights, intended to spread to a non-specialist audience awareness of research and the possibilities offered by studying physics.
Sheila will visit Victoria, Tasmania, the ACT, Western Australia, New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland. More information and dates at: http://inspiringaustralia.net.au/event
Melbourne Knowledge Week
Melbourne Knowledge Week from 27 October to 2 November is a peek behind the scenes of Melbourne’s medical institutions, a chance to talk with our best innovators, and discover the big ideas driving our economy.
- Learn how Systems Biology research provides new insights into the mechanisms of disease.
- Explore data about Melbourne’s suburbs at AURIN’s Urban mapping workshop.
- Learn how the world’s largest supercomputer for life science research is driving advances here in Melbourne.
- Discover the Parkville Biomedical Precinct.
- Find out what actually goes on at the Port of Melbourne. Hear how Stuff Gets to Melbourne.
- Attend a women-only 3D printing workshop.
- Learn anything and everything at Laneway Learning.
The week, which is run by the City of Melbourne, will include forums, workshops, tours, hack-a-thons and more to share ideas or learn something new.
More at www.thatsmelbourne.com.au/Whatson/knowledgeweek/Pages/knowledgeweek.aspx
Celebrating Australia’s best at the Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science
Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science: Wednesday 29 October, Canberra
Later this month, the Prime Minister will announce the winners of the 2014 Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science at a formal dinner in the Great Hall of Parliament House, Canberra.
On the night we’ll be tweeting from @InspiringAus and using the #pmprize hashtag, so please join the conversation, and congratulate our winners.
There are five prizes for researchers and science teachers:
- The $300,000 Prime Minister’s Prize for Science, for an exceptional specific achievement in any area of science advancing human welfare or benefiting society
- Two $50,000 prizes for outstanding achievement in life science and physical science, awarded to early or mid-career researchers
- Two $50,000 prizes for excellence in science teaching, at primary and secondary school level.
Past winners include mathematician Terry Speed, Brian Schmidt, who went on to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, Australian of the Year Ian Frazer and inventor of the bionic ear Graeme Clark.
To find out more about the prizes and past recipients, go to: www.industry.gov.au/scienceprizes
Other science prizes and grants
$500,000 in National Science Week grants
The 2015 National Science Week grant round has a total value of $500,000, with individual grants of up to $25,000 available.
Applications are now open and close 4 pm Thursday 23 October.
The grant selection committee will be looking for innovative ideas that help engage new audiences in a wide range of locations in different facets of science, technology, maths and engineering. Partnerships are held in high regard, as is co-investment that leverages the value of the grant funds.
The school theme for 2015 is ‘Making waves-the science of light’, based on the International Year of Light. Projects in this main grant round do not have to be based on the school theme.
National Science Week will be held from 15 to 23 August in 2015.
More at www.scienceweek.net.au/national-science-week-2015-grant-round
veski fellowships and inspiring women internships
The veski innovation fellowships are open to Australian and non-Australian researchers and scientists in the fields of science and innovative technology, specifically in the areas of: biotechnology; biomedical; advanced manufacturing including food science and bioengineering; environmental and energy technologies, and the enabling sciences.
Applications are now open and close Friday 14 November
Veski have also recently announced an inspiring women program – to support women in science – through partnerships with government, industry, community and academia.
The program’s inspiring women industry internships are now open for applications.
www.veski.org.au/inspiring-women-internships
The Victorian Postdoctoral Research Fellowships strengthen Victoria’s innovation capability by funding Victorian companies, research institutes and universities to employ postdoctoral research fellows for three years.
Applications are now open and close 2 pm on 30 October
A new way of looking at the immune system; ARC Imaging Centre launch
The $39 million ARC Centre of Excellence in Advanced Molecular Imaging launches today with the mission of changing the way we see the immune system.
Understanding our immune system is central to fighting cancer and infectious diseases. And understanding why our immune system sometimes over-reacts is critical to tackling auto-immune diseases.
Yet many of the workings of our immune systems are a mystery, especially at a molecular level.
The Centre’s researchers are based at La Trobe University, the University of Melbourne, Monash University, the University of New South Wales and The University of Queensland.
They’re supported by partners from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, The Australian Synchrotron, Carl Zeiss Pty Ltd, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (Germany), Leica Microsystems Pty Ltd, University of Warwick (UK).
They’ll use almost every imaging technology possible to unravel immune secrets and open up new pathways for disease treatments: ranging from existing microscopes as well as new ones they develop; through to the $200 million synchrotron and Europe’s new 3.4 km long X-ray free electron laser.
More at www.scienceinpublic.com.au/arc-imaging/centre-launch
Jobs with EMBL Australia
Seven new EMBL Australia Group Leader positions are now available at: the University of New South Wales, Sydney; Monash University, Melbourne; and the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI), Adelaide.
Modelled on the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) objective to support independent, interdisciplinary, quality research, these positions are designed for high-potential, early-career scientists who are dedicated to research excellence. The positions will enable them to form and lead their own independent research groups.
- The UNSW Centre for Single Molecule Science is recruiting two EMBL Australia Group Leaders with experience in trans-disciplinary research such as cancer, immunology, neuroscience, and cardiovascular biology. They’ll define and drive a new research field that seeks to understand complex systems starting from the single molecule level, and derive practical medical applications.
Applications close 19 October 2014. More details - Monash University is looking for two EMBL Australia Group Leaders to establish laboratories within the new Biomedical Discovery Institute, part of the Faculty of Biomedical and Psychological Sciences, in Electron Microscopy and in Protein Crystallography. They’ll also be working closely with the new ARC Centre of Excellence in Advanced Molecular Imaging.
Applications close 2 November 2014. More details - The Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI) at Monash University is recruiting two EMBL Australia Group Leaders with an interest in regenerative medicine, developmental biology or systems biology to join its two existing EMBL Australia Group Leaders. Applications close 2 November 2014. More details
- SAHMRI is seeking a third EMBL Australia Group Leader to investigate cell biological mechanisms of autophagy regulation and biogenesis of the endosome lysosome network, to find out how these processes contributes to the onset and progression of conditions such as dementia, stroke and cancer.
Applications close 24 November 2014. More details
Each position will provide the successful applicant with an initial five years of funding for a research team and a generous annual research budget, extendable to a maximum of nine years, subject to external review.
Sharing your science: media training in Melbourne and Adelaide
Conveying the complexity of your research into a 30-second grab for the media can be hard, and sometimes daunting.
The solution is to shape the essence of your science into a story. Our media training courses for scientists and communication staff will help you develop and target your news stories for specific audiences and media.
In this one-day course, you’ll meet three working journalists from print, TV and radio who will give you practice in being interviewing and teach you about life in the newsroom.
Melbourne: Tuesday 21 October (this course is full)
Adelaide: Friday 14 November
Melbourne: Tuesday 2 December
We can also hold courses in other locations or on other dates if there’s sufficient demand, and we welcome expressions of interest for possible future courses. If you have at least four participants, we can probably find others in your area to make a course viable.
More details about the course can be found online at www.scienceinpublic.com/training
Science in Public – planning, mentoring, communicating
Communication audits, mentoring and training:
We can review your stakeholders, messages and tools and help you and your communication team refine your plans. We offer this service for individual announcements or for a whole program or institute
Media releases, launches, and campaigns:
We can help you develop an outreach program, from a simple media release through to a launch, a summit, a conference, or a film.
Publications and copy-writing:
From a tweet to a newsletter; from a brochure to a Nature supplement, we can write compelling and accurate science-driven copy which captures the essence of your story and purpose.