Internationalising your research, opportunities for life scientists, Festival of Ideas and more

3 October, 2013

Bulletins, Science stakeholder bulletins

In this bulletin:

Internationalising your research: learn from RIKEN, Sony, Nature, the mining industry and EMBL Australia at a Nature Café at Monash next Tuesday afternoon.

Meet the director of the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science at Questacon in Canberra this afternoon.

Last chance for young researchers to nominate for Centenary Creative Prize – closes tomorrow, let us know if you’re running late.

Opportunities for life science PhDs to visit EMBL courses in Germany, Italy, England.

The Art and Science of Wellbeing explored this week at the University of Melbourne’s Festival of Ideas – if you’re in town there’s some great speakers.

Last week’s Parliamentary Friendship Group for Women in Maths, Science and Engineering.

Media training courses for scientists: There are spots open in Melbourne and Sydney and possibly Perth. And we’ll run a course anywhere if you can guarantee six places.

And, some clarity in Canberra – it looks like Ian Macfarlane’s running most of the old science portfolio with Christopher Pyne taking care of the ARC. DIICCSRTE is now just plain old Industry.

Building strong links with Japan

This afternoon at Questacon in Canberra Professor Makoto Asashima, Executive Director of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), will deliver a public lecture on Science, Technology and Innovation Policy in Japan.

This lecture will examine some of the recent trends and developments in life science research, and provide a Japanese perspective on issues affecting the broader scientific community.

The lecture will be held from 4:15pm – 5:00pm in the Japan Theatre at Questacon, King Edward Terrace, Canberra.

He is visiting Australia as a guest of Monash University and EMBL Australia.

Australia’s first Nature Café: internationalising your research

Join guests from RIKEN, Nature, Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Monash, EMBL Australia and others at a forum on effective internationalisation of your research.

Tuesday 8 October 2013, from 2 to 5 pm at Monash University.

We need to better internationalise our science – building strong links and partnerships with the powerhouses of research and giving our young researchers international experience.

To make effective use of the less than 3 per cent of knowledge developed by Australia, we need timely and ready access to much of the other 97 per cent created and developed overseas. (Australian Academy of Science report 2010)

But how do you make it happen?

EMBL Australia and Monash are hosting a delegation of senior Japanese scientists from RIKEN and the Sony Computer Science Laboratories.

We thought the visit offered the perfect opportunity to partner with Nature to hold the first Australian Nature Café. It’s an informal forum for invited research leaders to explore an issue.

For this first session we’ll discuss the challenge of internationalising Australian science – learning from the achievements of our guests.

Participants include:

Professor Hiroaki Kitano: Sony Computer Science Laboratories, The Systems Biology Institute, RIKEN
A delegation from RIKEN’s Center for Integrative Medicine comprising
- Dr Osamu Ohara: RIKEN Laboratory for Immunogenetics
- Dr Hiroshi Ohno: RIKEN Laboratory for Epithelial Immunobiology
- Dr Shohei Hori: RIKEN Laboratory for Immune Homeostasis
- Dr Shuichi Onami: RIKEN Laboratory for Developmental Dynamics, Quantitative Biology Center
Mrs Rosie Hicks, CEO Australian National Fabrication Facility. Rosie has built strong links with the US defence research community.
Mr Joe Cucuzza, Managing Director, AMIRA – an independent association of minerals companies which develops, brokers and facilitates collaborative research projects around the world.
Professor Jenny Graves: genetics pioneer, Secretary (Education and Public Awareness) and past Foreign Secretary of the Australian Academy of Science.
Professor Edwina Cornish, Provost, Monash University. Over the past decade Edwina has helped Monash become Australia’s most internationalised university. She’s guided the development of initiatives such as EMBL Australia and the new Systems Biology Institute Australia.

Event details

When: 2pm to 5pm Tuesday 8 October 2013

Where: Monash Banquet Room East, First floor, Building 10, Campus Centre, Monash University, Clayton

RSVP: to Silvio Tiziani (info@emblaustralia.org)

About the RIKEN delegation

RIKEN is Japan’s largest and most comprehensive research organisation for basic and applied science in a diverse array of scientific disciplines.

RIKEN has fostered pioneering, innovative research in fields spanning the entire range of the natural sciences, from developmental biology and neuroscience to quantum physics and computer science.

The delegation have interests in genomics, systems biology and immunity are coming to Melbourne to develop collaborations with local institutes.

The delegates from RIKEN are seeking collaborators (arising from systems biology) through building stronger links with hospitals, research institutes Universities in Melbourne.

The visits are an important in fostering both research and government level collaborations between Australia and Japan.

About Hiroaki Kitano

Hiroaki Kitano is the Director and President of Japan’s Systems Biology Institute, which now has an Australian node based at Monash University. SBI Australia is an initiative of EMBL Australia, and therefore brings together Japanese, European and Australian research.

Catch him at Maths of Planet Earth public lectures

RMIT in Melbourne on Monday 7 October
UNSW in Sydney on Friday 10 October

In his role as a Maths of Planet Earth Ambassador, Hiroaki is presenting two public lectures on the topic Act Beyond Borders. He’ll talk about his experience with RoboCup and how maths can help us understand economic systems, climate change, medicine and design intelligent systems which respond to unpredictable environments.

For more information and to register go to: http://mathsofplanetearth.org.au/public-lecture-kitano/

Applications open for PhD travel grants to EMBL in 2014

Do your students need support to set up collaboration in Europe?

EMBL Australia’s program of student grants for 2014 have been announced. Applications for the first round of European travel grants are now open and close Friday 8 November 2013. You can find out more and submit your application now at www.emblaustralia.org/students/grants/travelgrants1

With an EMBL Australia PhD travel grant you could take a short course, attend a conference or work alongside some of the young researchers at EMBL’s five facilities: Heidelberg and Hamburg in Germany; Grenoble in France; Hinxton in England; or Monterotondo in Italy.

Up to $3,500 is available for short trips, less than six weeks. Or you can apply for up to $7,500 for a longer visit, up to 6 months.

For more information on all our student grant programs visit www.emblaustralia.org/students.aspx or like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/EMBLaustralia

Festival of Ideas

In Melbourne this week over 80 speakers are exploring the Art and Science of Wellbeing at the University of Melbourne’s Festival of Ideas.

They’ve got some interesting people in town, including:

French genetics expert Agnès Ricroch who says, “the debate on GMOs from a health point of view is closed”
Simran Sethi, Emmy winning journalist, named ‘the environmental messenger’ by Vanity Fair, and a regular Oprah contributor
David Burney who is defining New York City’s future as its Commissioner of the Department of Design and Construction
Global health lawyer Lawrence O. Gostin who drafted the USA’s Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, attempting to define what governments can do in response to health emergencies
Chinese economic reformist Luo Xiaopeng
Puberty Blues author Kathy Lette on Asperger’s syndrome

In all there are 80 speakers. Australians include Mark Scott, Julian Burnside, Stephanie Alexander, Ray Moynihan, Kate Auty, Norman Swan, and a host of University of Melbourne speakers.

Under the guidance of conference director Fiona Stanley they’ll explore the social, cultural, political and environmental challenges that will determine the future health and wellbeing of our children and grandchildren.
The Festival is free and finishes Sunday – more at: http://ideas.unimelb.edu.au

Creative young scientists – apply for the $25,000 Centenary Prize

Applications close tomorrow 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.

The prize is open to researchers:

from any country whose research was substantially carried out in Australia
from any institute, university or educational institution
who received their PhD on or after 1 January 2006 (with special criteria for medical graduates)

Applications close this Friday 4 October at 5pm.

Full details of the eligibility criteria and how to nominate on the Centenary Institute’s website.

Let us know if you are running late. We’ll keep the form open until Sunday night.

Parliamentary Friendship Group for Women in Maths, Science and Engineering

Last week, MPs Kelly O’Dwyer and Amanda Rishworth held the second gathering of the Parliamentary Friendship Group for Women in Maths, Science and Engineering.

The group was launched in 2012 to encourage more women to consider careers in science by promoting the achievements of women scientists and looking at the barriers which block women from building strong careers in research.

The event featured three women – from medical research, engineering and maths:

Prof Nadia Rosenthal, director of the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute and head of EMBL Australia
Prof Ana Deletic, Director of Monash Water for Liveability and first woman to win the Victoria Prize for Science and Innovation
Dr Rosemary Mardling, an astronomer who splits her time between Monash University and the University of Geneva

Kelly O’Dwyer, the member for Higgins in Melbourne, says she decided to form the Friendship Group after hearing from a constituent about the struggle she faced in her scientific career.

“She explained to me that she could not apply for a NHMRC grant part time, as many women would prefer, but could only apply full time and then switch to part time,” she says.

“This seemed like a peculiar anomaly to me and acted as a barrier to women who could only work on a part time basis.”

The group will hold future meetings around the country bringing together women in science to share their concerns and success stories.

Sharing your science: media training in Melbourne and Sydney

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 15 October

Sydney: Monday 11 November

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 people to participate, 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.