Scientific advances plus funding availability equals job opportunities. Of course, several variables conspire to lend that formula its real-life complexity. Naturejobs, in its newly redesigned and expanded format, will strive better to understand and explore these variables and untangle some of the complexities. The section will do this through a number of new and expanded features. This weekly column will look at job prospects in various disciplines, sectors and countries, based on recent news items, conferences, reports or conversations.

Naturejobs Careers and Recruitment features will run monthly, rather than six times a year. These features will continue to examine the dynamics of employment in different fields and give a realistic assessment of employment opportunities.

Our monthly Special Reports will continue to provide a more focused look at specific projects, programmes or problems. In this issue, we report on the Alliance for Cell Signaling based at the University of Texas Southwestern. This is a notable programme because it represents a direction in which life sciences has been heading since the advent of the Human Genome Project — 'big biology' with multiple centres and millions of dollars.

Another new feature will provide a glimpse of the movement within and between disciplines and sectors. This Movers section can by no means capture every recent job appointment. Instead, we aim to take a snapshot of changes that we think represent how scientific employment is changing — and staying the same. Although the individual impressions given in this column, the reporting in the longer features and anecdotes in the Movers section may not, in themselves, summarize the entire picture of employment in science, we hope the parts add up to a larger whole.