Career Column |
Featured
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Career Feature |
If you want something done right, do it yourself: the scientists who build their own tools
Three researchers who went out on a limb to bridge a gap in their field talk to Nature about how and why they went about designing their own, unique devices — and the challenges involved.
- Rachael Pells
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Spotlight |
How high-impact papers from Indian researchers are shaping science
Studies to tackle air quality in Delhi and solve the mystery of an emerging pathogen are among those helping to raise the profile of Indian science.
- Michael Eisenstein
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World View |
How to make data open? Stop overlooking librarians
Digital archivists are already experts at tackling the complex challenges of making research data open and accessible. We can help to smooth the transition.
- Jessica Farrell
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Career Column |
How to slay zombie research projects and move on
Find time to kill tasks that aren’t progressing, and beware taking on ones with unrealistic deadlines or deliverables.
- A. R. Siders
- , Nicola Ulibarri
- & Rebecca L. Nelson
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News |
Massive shake-up of French science system is biggest in decades
Billion-euro plan includes greater oversight for national research institutes and the creation of a top-level council to advise the president on science.
- Barbara Casassus
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Nature Index |
Women who travel boost research networks at home — but only in countries with high gender equity
Researchers moving between institutions in low- and middle-income countries can confer wide-reaching benefits on their colleagues.
- Natasha Gilbert
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Nature Index |
US agency launches experiments to find innovative ways to fund research
Caleb Watney explains how the National Science Foundation’s ‘science of science’ programme will find efficiencies and support ‘high-risk, high-reward’ studies.
- Dalmeet Singh Chawla
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Article |
Remote collaboration fuses fewer breakthrough ideas
Analysis of research articles and patent applications shows that members of teams that collaborate remotely are less likely to make breakthrough discoveries than members of on-site teams.
- Yiling Lin
- , Carl Benedikt Frey
- & Lingfei Wu
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Nature Index |
City-based scientists get creative to tackle rural-research needs
Californian projects show how community engagement can break down urban–rural barriers in the United States.
- Virginia Gewin
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Nature Index |
United States and India are becoming science partners of choice
But collaborations are still hampered by bureaucracy and underfunding.
- Natasha Gilbert
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Technology Feature |
Five ways in which rookie lab leaders can get up to speed
An array of spreadsheets, courses and online resources are available to support principal investigators leading their first research groups.
- Jyoti Madhusoodanan
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Career Q&A |
My path to heading a biotech company
Shadi Farhangrazi describes how she accidentally became a chief executive.
- Raveena Bhambra
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News Feature |
Open-access reformers launch next bold publishing plan
The group behind Plan S has already accelerated the open-access movement. Now it is proposing a more radical revolution for science publishing.
- Layal Liverpool
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Career Column |
Why I use Notion to organize my PhD research
Maya Gosztyla describes the database tool as a ‘second brain’, helping her to coordinate her work.
- Maya Gosztyla
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Nature Index |
AI could be an opportunity for research managers
The head of Europe’s main body for research-management professionals talks about the impact of artificial intelligence and the continued battle for recognition for those supporting scientists’ work.
- Simon Baker
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Editorial |
Carl Sagan’s audacious search for life on Earth has lessons for science today
The test 30 years ago of what remote sensing could tell us about our own planet shows the value of looking with unbiased eyes at what we think we already know.
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Spotlight |
How paediatrician researchers are advancing child health
Five clinicians describe how their research is contributing to the United Nations goal to boost good health and well-being in children, and the challenges ahead.
- Nikki Forrester
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Nature Careers Podcast |
Could new ‘narrative’ CVs transform research culture?
Funders are turning to a format that probes societal impact and acknowledges contributions from non-academic colleagues.
- Dom Byrne
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Career Q&A |
Facing racism in science, ‘I decided to prove them wrong’
Immunologist Dequina Nicholas shares why mentorship is crucial for first-generation scientists.
- Lesley Evans Ogden
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Nature Careers Podcast |
How to craft a research project with non-academic collaborators
If you’re working with indigeneous researchers, citizen scientists or local communities, find out about their expectations, including ones around payment and authorship.
- Dom Byrne
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Career Column |
How ‘retro’ meetings can enhance collaboration
Allowing team members time to reflect, celebrate successes and learn from mistakes is a tried-and-tested way to foster continuous improvement.
- Akshay Swaminathan
- & Lathan Liou
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Nature Careers Podcast |
“Couldn’t cut it as a scientist.” How lab managers and technicians are smashing outdated stereotypes
Support staff should speak up more about how their skills drive scientific discovery, says glassblower Terri Adams.
- Dom Byrne
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News |
Flying Mars rocks to Earth could cost an astronomical $11 billion
NASA’s Perseverance rover has collected valuable samples, but a new report says the plan to fetch them is unworkable.
- Alexandra Witze
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Comment |
Replication games: how to make reproducibility research more systematic
In some areas of social science, around half of studies can’t be replicated. A new test-fast, fail-fast initiative aims to show what research is hot — and what’s not.
- Abel Brodeur
- , Anna Dreber
- & Edward Miguel
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World View |
How tackling real-world problems transformed my teaching and research
Designing courses on the basis of what really matters to people is a win–win for students and society.
- Franco Montalto
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News |
A new era for Arecibo: legendary observatory begins next phase
The US National Science Foundation announces plan to use the historic site for biology and computer science education.
- Anil Oza
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Nature Careers Podcast |
Culture clashes: unpicking the power dynamics between research managers and academics
Some researchers thank admin colleagues with chocolates or wine. But deadline pressures, and the need to generate research income, can sometimes result in bullying.
- Dom Byrne
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Where I Work |
‘We’re losing our glaciers’: scientist caches ice from the Antarctic climate record
As coordinator and caretaker at an ice-core facility, Rebecca Pyne preserves these precious records of past climate.
- James Mitchell Crow
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Career Feature |
Promotion pathways: how scientists can chart their industry career trajectory
Confused about promotion opportunities after moving to industry? Here are some pointers.
- Sandeep Ravindran
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News |
NIH upholds controversial plan to step up oversight of foreign collaborators
The US biomedical agency tweaked its new policy after an outcry from researchers, but will forge ahead.
- Max Kozlov
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Nature Careers Podcast |
This alternative way to measure research impact made judges cry with joy
Research managers, citizen scientists, librarians and technicians rarely make it onto author lists. But an initiative to assess their hidden contributions to team science moved some judging panel members to tears.
- Dom Byrne
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Career Feature |
US postdocs on strike: how will demands for higher wages be met?
Cost-of-living pressures, a dismal job market and stagnant US federal budgets are leaving lab leaders scrambling to balance the books.
- Amanda Heidt
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Career Column |
How early-career researchers can learn to trust negative data: five simple steps
It took PhD student Jelle van der Hilst some time to realize that getting data is easy; working out whether they’re useful is harder.
- Jelle van der Hilst
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Nature Careers Podcast |
“Just get the admin to do it.” Why research managers are feeling misunderstood
Science benefits when there is mutual respect between academics and research managers. Team Science, a six-part series, begins by examining a key workplace relationship.
- Dom Byrne
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News |
Medical-evidence giant Cochrane battles funding cuts and closures
The group that helped to revolutionize medical practice has lost key funding and is reorganizing — moves that concern some researchers.
- Helen Pearson
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Career Feature |
Waiting on tables, mending puppets: the first jobs that shaped researchers’ careers
Many scientists credit teenage jobs and university or summer side roles for imparting important transferable skills and valuable life experiences.
- Jop de Vrieze
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Career Feature |
‘Gagged and blindsided’: how an allegation of research misconduct affected our lab
Bioengineer Ram Sasisekharan describes the impact of a four-year investigation by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which ultimately cleared him.
- Anne Gulland
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News |
Science’s carbon footprint: how health research can cut emissions
Wellcome report identifies more than 140 initiatives to make health research more environmentally sustainable
- Lilly Tozer
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Comment |
Want to speed up scientific progress? First understand how science policy works
Researchers and policymakers often exist in different worlds and speak different languages. Here are three ways to bridge the divide.
- Matt Clancy
- , Dan Correa
- & Heidi Williams
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World View |
Predatory journals entrap unsuspecting scientists. Here’s how universities can support researchers
Training from institutions on publishing norms could help to thwart predatory publishers.
- Chérifa Boukacem-Zeghmouri
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Nature Index |
Mapping China’s shifting research collaboration
Changing patterns are emerging among the country’s international partnerships.
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Nature Index |
Will China stay centre-stage for international research collaboration?
As global research emerges from the fog of the pandemic, new influential networks are being formed.
- Xin Xu
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Technology Feature |
Artificial-intelligence search engines wrangle academic literature
Developers want to free scientists to focus on discovery and innovation by helping them to draw connections from a massive body of literature.
- Amanda Heidt