Just So Science

National Science Challenges – an insider perspective Elf Eldridge May 02

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With the announcement yesterday of the national science challenges, it’s a blessing that I can now openly talk about being (partially) involved in the process. I’ve watched the process (and the large amount of cynicism that accompanied it almost every step of the way!) evolve and the response from researchers is, in a word – predictable. The Science Media Centre has some excellent comment from experts in the field here if you want a broad overview of New Zealand scientist’s responses. Yet from some of the comments I do get the distinct impression that some hadn’t read anything about what the national science challenges were attempting to achieve.

It’s worth stressing, particularly for the issue of climate change and many of the others, that to be selected for inclusion scientific research HAD to be at the core of the Challenge. Speaking personally, it was horrible to not explicitly include such a global issue as climate change, however responding to our changing climate is simply not primarily a scientific issue. Furthermore the base science behind it is well known, and has been well known for some years now. Part of the panel’s report (which can be read in full here) stresses that exclusion from a challenge does not imply that issues are not of paramount importance.

The two ‘expert’ comments I found most valuable, and interestingly two of the most negative, were from Professors Kate McGrath:

“The National Government released today the ten Challenges to revolutionize, revitalise and redress those areas that will have the most immediate impacts on societal and economic points of tension in New Zealand. Those crucial areas that right now limit our knowledge and our future potential. That essentially cost us the most; the most in immediate financial drains and ongoing future drains and boundaries to slow down or stop our growth. Why then do they feel like the same lists we have seen for years?

“The same focus and the same limited viewpoints? The same thinking that will produce the same results, where is the World After Midnight perspective? Where are the game changers? We pride ourselves on being the ingenious country, ingenuity in a closed small box won’t deliver a full and expansive tomorrow, let alone for future generations.” – Professor Kathryn McGrath

and Shaun Hendy and both from Victoria University and the MacDiarmid Institute:

“I am disappointed that the process has failed to throw up anything that is really new or innovative. The challenges chosen will look like business as usual to many, albeit with a stronger focus on health sciences that perhaps reflects the Peak Panel’s own interest in this sector. Of the 10 science challenges selected, only one really addresses one of the key economic challenges our country faces: namely the over-dependence of our economy on the primary sector.” – Professor Shaun Hendy

I have to concede they make some excellent points – especially pointing out the fact that most of the challenges aren’t particularly ‘innovative’. On this I have to agree. I personally would have given anything to see a challenge how NZ could become a country entirely independent of fossil fuels in 15 years. Or to genetically modify seaweed as a biofuel source. Or to develop New Zealand’s technologies in the space industry.

At the core of the challenges however, were the public submissions and these sent clear messages. Whilst scientists like myself might drool over cutting edge research, when asking a human being about what they want from their scientists, their responses can hardly be seen as surprising. They want their mum’s and dad’s to live healthily for as long as possible. They want their kids to grow up healthy and with the best possible start in life. They want to preserve New Zealand’s environment and species.

To pick anything that didn’t reflect these desires would be tantamount to ignoring what people said they wanted. Can we blame the NSC process or the NZ public for the lack of ‘innovation’ in the challenges? I certainly don’t think so. There is certainly a need for cutting edge science to push us forward – but expecting people to choose this over preserving the country and people they love is an exercise in naivete.

And this is precisely why I’m so excited about the “Science in Society” leadership challenge. Acknowledging that science has a core place in New Zealand’s future is a great first step – but it is my hope that it will also allow scope to develop New Zealand as a nation that embraces science. We cannot expect to attract and retain world-class researchers and students to NZ unless we’re actively involved in innovative, cutting edge science. Yet we have seen people* will not select these as topics of national importance if given the choice. This challenge will allow us space to explore this relationship, as well as to improve the quality of our science education. And as a graduate going out into the world, getting to pick which country I work in – a country that explicitly states the importance of science in its society is a much more attractive proposition than many others.

So I guess now it’s up to scientists to ensure that NZ lives up to this challenge, and it will be our fault if “Science in Society” ends up becoming just political hot air.

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* when I say ‘people’ here, I actually mean the subset that participated in the National Science Challenges submission process. Which is different to the NZ public in general.

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Predator-Free NZ: Our ‘Space Programme’? Elf Eldridge Mar 22

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Last night I attended the “Pesty Science” lecture hosted by Victoria University looking at the issues surrounding the idea of a Predator-Free New Zealand. The lecture was presented by Landcare Research’s Dr Andrea Byrom, and really dug into the nitty-gritty questions we have to ask if we (as a nation) seriously want to consider a predator-free NZ as a potential future. To her credit, Dr. Byrom began (in typical scientific fashion) by stating that although she has a personal interest in the problem she was NOT advocating a stance either for or against “Predator-Free NZ”. She discussed the need for people to appreciate the difference between ‘pest-contol’ and ‘pest-eradication’ – and noted New Zealand’s decent track record when it comes to pest eradication on small islands.

Brushtail Possum – Image by Bryce McQuillan via Wikimedia Commons

I found the most interesting parts of her talk however, was around the trade-offs we will have to make if we expect to make this idea a reality. Specifically she mentioned the use of aircraft bait dropping, deciding WHICH species warrant inclusion in the eradication scheme (usually the discussion centres on possums, rats and mice, stoats and their ilk and feral cats – despite what is being bandied around in the media currently) and the need for survey systems to detect ‘downstream effects’. For clarification this means looking at the concentration of baits in the bodies of other non-target specifies to appreciate the flow on effect through the food chain. She finished by mentioning the large social barriers that would have to be overcome, to say nothing of the large financial cost involved*.

Here I will admit that conservation biology is NOT my field, so I can’t comment on the validity of the science behind such an idea. Scibloggers far better equipped to discuss the intricacies than I have been discussing this for some time now. However there are a few inescapable facts we should acknowledge, the first being cost. Estimates of the cost vary widely but for a country with a GDP of US$166.9 Billion it’s likely minimum is 1.7-1.8% of GDP*. That’s significantly more than NZ’s total 2010 R&D spending (both government and private) which was quoted at 1.3% of 2010 GDP. Can we as a country justify spending this much on any one project? And lets not forget that this money can’t just ‘appear’ – it will have to removed from other projects. Can we say with certainty that this money isn’t better spent on roads, or education, or medical treatment or even simply reducing the amount of NZ children that still live below the poverty line?

Image by Andrew Turner via Wikimedia Commons

Secondly, sure this garners a huge amount of public support now – when it’s simply an idea, but what happens when this begins to conflict with our ability to access our environment? Anyone that has been to any of our island reserves will have experiences the extensive searching you have to go through. What happens when this comes to the mainland? It will mean decades of checkpoints and searches throughout the country, possibly even large tracks of NZ being off-limits. How will the public and government feel then?

And finally, to me it is still not clear that even after all this effort that it is possible at all. A project like this must necessarily survive changes in government and the global environment – and that’s certainly not trivial. Furthermore, even if we do eliminate the list of species above, what effect will this have on our indigenous species? From research done by sanctuaries such as Zealandia, we might expect indigenous fauna populations to bounce back – but intrinsically this will be at different rates. What happens when weka (for example) assume parts of the ecological niche left vacant by the absence of these predators? Do we then wipe them out too? And even if this is successful beyond our wildest dreams, it won’t bring back the Huia or the Moa – New Zealand can never return to pre-settlement conditions.

Apollo 11 breaks the sound barrier after launch on 16 July 1969 on it’s way to mankind’s historic moon landing – image from NASA via Wikimedia Commons

So does this mean we should bin the idea? Absolutely and unequivocally: NO.

Committing to a decades long programme of research will force us to confront and understand what it is that we, as Kiwi’s, value and what makes our nation ‘home’. It will serve as a reminder that we are a preparing for a future better than what we enjoy today. It will require innovations in science, technologies, public consultancy and co-ordination that will spill into other areas including business, tourism and medicine. It will generate knowledge that is valuable, not only to ourselves, but to every nation on earth. And all of this will happen REGARDLESS of whether it succeeds or not. If this rhetoric sounds familiar – it should:

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone…”- John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1962

And so I close by posing the question, not “Is Predator-Free NZ our version of a Space Programme?”, but:

“Is predator-free NZ the BEST big challenge New Zealand can aspire to?”

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*the exact cost is not known so I will not repeat Dr. Byron’s estimate here – however it looks to be on the order of billions of dollars.

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The Case of the Vanishing Elf Elf Eldridge Feb 05

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It really has been far too long since my last post, but thanks to some prodding from the local Sciblogs community (God bless them!) I’ll try and summarise why Just So Science has been so quiet since last year. And I wish I could say it’s because I’ve been putting my nose to the grindstone and focussing on my PhD work – but it’s really not!

In it’s simplest form, I guess you could say I’ve been testing a hypothesis of mine that emerged from the Transit of Venus forum in the middle of last year. For anyone not at the forum, one of the take home messages from Sir Peter Gluckman (echoing the words of Sir Paul Callaghan) was that

“If we want to see a change in the science environment it’s up to individuals to take action, and that one of the good things about New Zealand is that it’s one of the few places where individuals can have a significant impact on national attitudes towards science” (yes I’m paraphrasing a little)

My hypothesis is that this is wrong.*

However, as with all hypothesis, there’s no consensus without any data – so I set up generating some. Firstly, after reading the Geek Manifesto (also recommended by Sir Peter Gluckman at the ToV forum), I set the bounds for my experiment (the Wellington region) and the metrics I was going to test: public science education and evaluation, engaging with politicians, talking to industry and working with local science groups. My equivalent of a literature review was to locate and meet the existing science groups in Wellington, from well known groups like Wellington nerd nite to newcomers such as the Wellington Makerspace and the Wellington Branch of the Royal Society. (By the way there are HEAPS and you can view my current list, which is still incomplete, here)

I won’t go into detail now, but here’s the latest progress in each:

Engaging science/tech industry

This has been by far the easiest nut to crack. Working with Chiasma WGTN we brought together over 200 graduates and representatives from Wellington technology industry together at Synapse in August of 2012 and will expand on that this year. We helped place a handful of students, and have arranged site visits to GNS, Kiwistar optics, Glycosyn with several more planned for this year. We have been overwhelmed by the amount of support and encouragement from Wellington’s science companies – their openness and willingness to talk to us even in harsh economic times is amazing!

Public science education

Partnering with a Wellington education startup, Chalkle, we worked together to create and run a series of science workshops for the public. So far we have run Spacecamp, Astronomy, Introductory Biology, Astrophysics and more with Intro Electronics, Critical thinking and the Maths of Gambling and Risk coming up soon. Attendance is a solid 20 people per class (although we had over 100 for Spacecamp!) and we’re committed to keep the costs as low as possible ($5-$10 per person) to ensure this system is sustainable. We’re also developing resources for child-focussed outreach with Chalkle Whanau, building water rockets and running a kid’s spacecamp. I estimate that we’ve taught a class to at least a quarter of Chalkle’s 1000+ members so far – with more indicating interest every day. We’re also working with the Wellington Makerspace to allow us to more effectively work in low decile areas. Just performing these is not enough however – we must show efficacy, but that’s easier said than done. We are developing an evaluation toolkit to allow us to asses how well we’re doing – but it’s still a while away from completion.

Local science groups

Wellington is graced with both Science Express at Te Papa and Cafe Scientifique in Lower Hutt (back at Wholly Bagels for 2013!) on the first and last Thursday of every month (respectively) from February to November. They typically attract around 80 locals each per talk. These overseen by the Wellington Branch of the Royal Society and organisation which was in need of a little ‘shaking up’. As of late 2012 I assumed presidency of the Branch and have assembled a team of Wellington science ‘do-ers’ to act as a ‘Skunkworks‘ to develop and test new ideas for the region. Their job is not only to promote science and technology, but to also ‘inspire’ the public with spectacular examples of ‘citizen science’.

Engaging with politicians

I haven’t had much success with this particular channel – however there are signs this may be changing. It may be an artefact of the current political science environment, or the possibility that I’m just doing it wrong!

So where does my hypothesis sit now? In my mind it’s still very much up in the air. In New Zealand it’s remarkably easy to start something new with a hiss and a bang – the real challenges lies in making it stick and that is by no means certain. Looking at the numbers above, we’re still a long way off reaching even 1% of the population of Greater Wellington region. There’s still much much more I would like to try – specifically addressing Maori and Pacific engagement in science and technology – but I’m determined to get some concrete evidence behind us first, else we run the risk of wasting people’s time unless we can prove our efficacy.

Well done if you’ve got this far through the post! It’s long and rather narcissistic (apologies!) and likely an exercise in naivete – but that’s no reason not to try it – as always, comments, ideas and criticisms welcome!

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*Yes I fully appreciate that contradicting Sir Paul and Sir Peter is not the wisest of moves, however I trust that as scientists they would appreciate the need for this hypothesis as motivation to gather evidence.

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Cross-section of Wellington’s High-Tech Businesses Elf Eldridge Sep 05

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In keeping with our aim to connect students with industry, on the 4th August, Chiasma Wellington held our “Introduction to Wellington Industry” at Victoria University. Wait! Before you leave this page thinking this is another shameless self-promotion post that I seem to spew out with unerring regularity, there is a real reason behind me mentioning the content of this. (OK and yes there is a little self-promotion inherent in the post as well!)

We tried something a little different, having suffered through numerous long boring industry presentations in the past, we gave each speaker a mere 15 minutes to not only explain who they were and what their respective company/organization did, but also to give a high level overview of their entire industry in Wellington. We hoped that being active in their fields would give our presenters a reasonable idea of who their competitors and collaborators were and so really to point out to students the movers and shakers in their industries of interest. The jury is still out on whether we succeeded or not (although feedback from both company and student attendees has been almost uniformly positive – apart from a few irate student having to get to uni by 9am on a Saturday!), but we certainly connected the dots for the students that attended.

The most useful slide of the day however (decided by the number of times it was mentioned by attendees!) was presented by Karen Bender and Adrian Gregory from GrowWGTN. It gave a rather sumptuous chart of Wellington’s active companies, what they do and their areas of expertise, and they have been kind enough to allow me to share it with you. Remember – this is a snapshot for Wellington as of August 2012 and was specifically created to be relevant to science and engineering graduates – so it is not comprehensive, but still immensely useful.

GrowWGTN’s cross-section of Wellington’s high-tech companies grouped by science and business areas – August 2012 (click for a larger version)

So see companies you know? Great! See companies you don’t? Find out about them! They’re all carving out their own little high-tech niche in Wellington and deserve all the support we can give them. These are some of the companies that Sir Paul Callaghan believed we had to culture in order to become a prosperous, attractive nation. If you’re from those companies reading this – you have my thanks for playing a part in making his dreams (and mine!) a reality. And also for giving us science grads a possible future career path here in Wellington!

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Eureka! Symposium synopsis Elf Eldridge Jul 20

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Last Thursday I had the honour of attending the first annual Eureka! young science orator’s awards, an event born out of a collaboration between the late great Sir Paul Callaghan and Rotary. The premise is deceptively simple, get 12 young erudite people, passionate about some aspect of science, bring them to Wellington and get them to speak directly to some of the movers and shakers of science in New Zealand – and so the Eureka! awards came to fruition. Throughout the course of the day we heard challenges criticism, but most interestingly, hope about New Zealand’s future as a nation that not only appreciates, but entirely embraces science and its methodology.

I could condemn the typical lack-lustre political addresses that bookended the day (although I admit I was presently surprised with parts of Steven Joyce’s closing) , but instead I wish to focus on the contestant’s themselves. I have paraphrased some of their messages below – do take the time to watch their entire presentations (here) if you’re curious about even a little part of what they speak about!

Lisa Craw opened the day, with a simply gorgeous combination of seriousness and comedy explaining how crucial good science communication is to New Zealand’s future and calling for novel science funding models such as RocketHub. Eugene Young, imagined a future where meat was clean , green and lab grown asking us to not fall back into the human trap of “fearing what we do not understand.” Oliver ter Ellen looked into the details of some of the solar cell research being done at Victoria University, whilst noting the success of feed-in tariffs to encourage adoption of new technologies like these in overseas countries. William Guzzo asked us to “show courage” and position New Zealand as a world leader in GE research, leading by example of experimentally evaluating safety concerns rather than cowering behind archaic prejudices. Yanni Cowie prompted serious consideration of integrating second generation biofuels into New Zealand’s transport system. Emma Livingstone gave us a glimpse into her wonderful world of drug design, and discussed the difficulties of procuring a funding model for science steeped in serendipity. Scott Thomas transported us to the edge of the universe on the back of his observations using NASA’s Fermi satellite and discussed two ‘space age’ companies thriving right here in NZ: Rocketlab and Kiwistar Optics. Ben Guerin explained his vision for converting a large part of Aotearoa’s power grid to using distributed power systems that utilize a combination of wind, hydro, solar and novel storage technologies to allow communities to sell their generated power back to the national grid. Sylvia English cleared the air around reversible male contraception as a possible method to reduce some of New Zealand’s 16,000 abortions per year. Thomas Moore dispelled some common misconceptions about fracking, asking the hard questions about the public’s reaction to it. Toby Hendy rallied against New Zealand’s IQ gap between social groups and suggested a plethora of ways to address this and other issues. The final speaker, Hadleigh Frost, wowed the audience with his insight into the intersection of psychology, neuroscience and artificial intelligence.

Keep and eye out on sciblogs ‘guest work’ for short summaries of these talks.

I’ll just end on a personal note, that these young people are exactly the sort of visionaries we need to keep propelling New Zealand’s science forward. They may be young, in some cases they may be naive. We may criticise them for their ‘wide-eyed optimisim’, but we cannot fault any of these students on their passion for their chosen topics – and I believe for that reason alone, for their ability to inspire, and to encourage even the most jaded of us to reconsider what is possible here in Aotearoa, that their messages warrant listening to.

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Life as PhD student Elf Eldridge Jul 08

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As PhD students, we often don’t do a great job communicating a lot of things: our science, what supervision we want, what our dreams for our field and research are, or how we feel about our job prospects. After playing Pounamu at the Transit of Venus forum, another failure of communication came to my attention: the failure to paint ourselves as human. Several of the Pounamu comments, whilst not directly insulting, suggested that scientists can appear as cold, aloof and possibly even unethical at times – which is the absolute antithesis of the characteristics of many of the scientists I interact with on a daily basis. Indeed, if I had to guess, I would say that many choose science as a career out of a desire to help their fellow man, or out of simple curiosity. So here’s my attempt to portray a ‘human’ science PhD student in the current NZ science environment, complete with hopes, dreams, fears and aspirations. It’s my hope that this will make it clearer just how many human factors could be altered to attract myself and my peers to stay in, or return to NZ to pursue our careers.

So who am I (on average), as a NZ science and engineering PhD student?

Well, for starters I’m almost certainly a science student (32.8%), rather than engineering (8.0%), but am equally likely to be either male or female[1] and, of the sciences, I’m most likely to be studying either biological or environmental science. A PhD will take me a minimum of 3 years (most commonly between 3 and 5 years) during which I will be paid between ~NZ$19,000 – 27,000 p.a., this is after typically completing a Bachelors Degree (3 years) and a Honours (1 year) or Masters (2+years), bringing me to a total of at least 7 years at university. That’s if (unlike a certain sciblogger who shall remain nameless) I don’t swap major, fail any papers or take a break from study at any point other than over the summer during undergraduate study.

During my PhD I am be expected to work (if full time) between 35 and 45 hours per week (so ~$13 per hour at the top end of the above wage spectrum) and usually hold down a second job as a laboratory co-ordinator to top up my earnings, and gain experience in teaching. I am also expected to present my research at both national and international conferences, to design and run my own experiments, to teach new students how to use equipment and of course to publish, typically bumping the hours required to be worked up to 50-60 to finish in 3 years. (So now I earning about $10.40 per hour for a 50 hour week if I earn the maximum – to be fair, some scholarships aren’t taxed so this isn’t really that far below minimum wage). And my research MUST be of world class quality, according to speakers at the Transit of Venus forum “if it’s not world class, then it shouldn’t be done” [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7irz6s2-7nY&feature=relmfu]

But why the urgency to finish in 3 years? Why not work 40 hours per week and just take a little longer? Simple, the scholarship mentioned above lasts for 3 years, and no more. So any time longer than that I take, I will have to fund entirely myself. Previously, post-graduate students were eligible for a student allowance, with recent budget changes however, this means I am only now able to draw on a student loan which, for many students will already be in excess of $30,000.

So why we put ourselves through this? Many would say or the money of course! Graduates with a PhD can expect to earn $50k p.a. after graduation and join the ranks of the <1% of people, aged 15 and over, who have a doctoral degree in New Zealand.[2] And from what I have recently observed this is what the vast majority of people believe motivates a NZ PhD student.

So does it really all come down to money?

But this interpretation is to COMPLETELY miss the point of a PhD. During the course of their PhD studies, my peers and I will experience the full gamete of emotions: the thrill of discovery, the despair of repeated failure, the joy of making friendships and relationships that last for a lifetime, and the opportunity to meet and listen to some of the world’s foremost thinkers and researchers. By the end of it I will likely be one of the world experts in my particular science niche (even more so than my supervisor!) and will have added my own little ‘chunk’ to the global repository of science knowledge. I WILL HAVE MADE A CONTRIBUTION – no matter how small that may seem.

However, whilst doing this research, life for my non-science peers will have gone on. Whilst I have spent evenings in the lab, or pouring over ancient, indecipherable manuscripts, my peers will be travelling, earning, living, having families. Sometimes it will feel like my chosen career path will have somehow excised 3 or more years of my life, and nowhere is this feeling more apparent than the mad scramble to find employment upon the completion of your PhD. This forces my peers and I to confront the fact that, to many New Zealand employers, they appear to have few marketable skills and no industry experience sheltered, as we have been beneath the academic umbrella for much of our working lives.

Try and really immerse yourself in that feeling for a moment – the sinking pit in the bottom of your stomach when you sit down to an interview with a prospective employer and they ask the simple question “So tell me about what experience you have that may be relevant to this job?”. Imagine knowing that when you open your mouth to answer that question, despite 7+ years of trials and tribulations, all that will come out is inevitably: “Well I have published in some academic journals…”.*

Is it any wonder then that many of our graduates head overseas? When their options are the intense competition for the tiny number of academic jobs in NZ or a career in industrial science in a country with lowest amongst R&D spending per capita in the OECD. Of course another option is to abandon science entirely, but if I am to swap to an entirely new field (essentially starting my career from scratch) given that I’m (at least) 4 years of experience and earning behind my peers, why would I start this in New Zealand, when I can recieve a higher salary in a stronger currency overseas? I still have a student loan to address, I may now have a family to support as well, to say nothing of the fact that I’m probably a little sick now of earning a little over minimum wage!

What then is the solution?

If we’re to believe our current political and scientific leaders, the answer is a simple one: simply that students need to engage more with industry during their studies and to focus their skills on the commercialization of science. PhD students are told repeatedly now that we are intended to become the science communicators, inventors and entrepreneurs of tomorrow, as well as the scientists. The only small factors missing are WHEN and HOW this amazing transformation is meant to occur. Student organisations like Chiasma and Kaiarahi are doing their best to address these concerns, but 3 years is simply not enough time to publish cutting edge science AND become “New Zealand next top Entrepreneur”. We don’t expect our politicians to be literate in science, nor our business-people, so why are the expectations of our scientists so much higher?

We also hear a lot about New Zealand retaining graduates by paying comparable wages to other countries. If this is the case, then why is there ANY world class science done in New Zealand at all? Many of our top scientists could find employment at their pick of overseas institutions and universities – so why do THEY stay?

The answer, I believe, is simpler than we have been lead to believe: most of them didn’t stay. They RETURNED.

Science has become a global community. There is a culture in NZ science, that if you haven’t spent at least some of your career at a foreign institution, then you lack connection to that global community. The relationships built on these visitation to foreign institution are what allow us to continue to produce world-class research from a country with such limited science resources. And as a PhD students, these opportunities comprise a large part of the incentives to continue on in science. Science students will ALWAYS travel, many upon completion of their PhDs, the catch is bringing them back to our shores once their travels are over.

What do PhD students really want? What motivates us?

So, finally to the crux of the argument. New Zealand bemoans its ‘brain drain’, without understanding its roots. Whilst it’s true that some graduates move overseas to gain larger salaries, many of us travel at the end of our studies for the experience, just like any other Kiwi.* Many of us pursue careers overseas, not because we see anything wrong with the NZ opportunities, but because we’re simply unaware of them. For people to attempt to entice us to stay in or return to NZ, they must understand that we are NOT people primarily driven by money.

We are curious. We are inquisitive. We like to feel that we can make a difference or a contribution. We are innovators. We yearn to be part of the global science community.

And for all of these, I believe that NZ has few equals worldwide. NZ is a country where someone motivated CAN start a business, find and chat to a CEO or politician on the street, or research something that has never been attempted before.

Yet we don’t seem to value these qualities. We seem curiously unaware of how rare they are, and how precious they are once lost. I believe it would not take much to entice scientists and other high skilled people back to New Zealand (or to move here for the first time), but you must understand their motivations first. It is ALL of our responsibilities to ‘sell’ NZ on it’s strengths, rather than perpetually focusing in what we lack. And perhaps the easiest way to start is to create a ‘haven’ for geek culture here in Aotearoa. There are already the stirring of this out in the community, but to nourish this it will need support from both scientists and politicians – but that’s a subject for another post!

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*this is the perception, not the reality of the situation. The skills learned during a PhD find applications in a huge array of fields, both scientific and not.

** N.B. Many PhD student are also international student who intend to return home at the end of the PhDs, skewing PhD graduate stats quite markedly. The same argument applies to these however, that if we want them to stay in NZ, we must do a better job of selling it to them whilst they are here.

——

References

[1] OECD 2006 data

[2] These data are taken from 2006 census data on higher education.

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Transit of Venus forum in review Elf Eldridge Jun 08

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Having just returned from three days away at the Transit of Venus conference in beautiful Gisborne, I’ll just share my thoughts as a wrap up. Again I stress that these views are my own and I was unable to attend many of the sessions so they may be a little premature.

In three days of talks, discussions, presentation and networking the thing that struck me most, and that will stick with me for years to come, was the extra-ordinary hospitality and commitment of the Tolaga Bay community. Not only did the entire community open their hearts and school to us, but they shared something far greater: they reminded us what even a small group of people can achieve if they share a combined vision for their future. I think perhaps, this was part of what Sir Paul Callaghan wanted the science community to see as part of the conference, to force us to confront the fact that to create a New Zealand with science at its heart, we can and must start from the ground up. Simply: it all depends on people.

We now have a clear challenge, for every scientist that wishes to see Sir Paul’s vision come to fruition. Each and every one of us must make an effort to talk to communities large and small. We cannot simply assert that science is the way forward, and expect people to nod their heads in agreement. We must invest the time necessary to grow relationships with our communities – we need their help to succeed in this endeavour. Many of us are already doing this, but not enough I fear.

The forum finished with the organisers challenging all attendees to respond by listing their gains from the forum, suggested objectives for the committee, and objectives for each person to follow up on. I’ll close by sharing mine.

Gained from the forum:

A renewed appreciation of what science (and scientists) can learn from communities and alternate value systems
Perhaps GDP is not the be all and end all of ways to compare countries!
That even the leaders of NZ science are not aware of what sorts of initiatives are bubbling away right under their noses
That online games like Pounamu can actively involve the public (or a small subset thereof!) AND become highly addictive!

Suggestions for committee:

Try and ensure that everyone is aware (and appreciates the value of finding out!) what is going on around them in the science community. This way we can learn from each other’s mistakes and progress more rapidly.
Why not encourage the local Royal Society branches to meet monthly with scientists (maybe even over dinner!) and feedback with how things are progressing?
Set a date each 6 months, where we can reconvene and report on our progress towards this future.

Actions for myself:

I’ll be visiting my local MPs (much to my initial distaste)
I’ll continue to visit local schools and communities to chat with them about their view on this whole ‘future science’ thing (oh yes and to keep myself, kids and teachers excited about science)
I’ll blog about exactly what we’re trying to accomplish with initiatives like Chiasma, Kaiarahi, MESA , Tell Us a Story, FutureinTech, Te Ropu Awhina and more…
and I’ll keep myself open to requests and discussions with the public about science.

And somewhere (maybe!) I’ll try and find the time to complete my PhD!

The Transit forum has brought us to the start line of this new future for New Zealand, but no further. It is up to us to run this race and, as fellow sciblogger Siouxsie Wiles noted today, to see a prosperous NZ, “We have no choice but to run it!”

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Mysterious crosses Elf Eldridge May 16

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Continuing from my last post, where I mentioned a few of the crosses in our southern skies, I’m going to take a closer look at some of the weird and wonderful objects located near them, namely the Carina and Keyhole nebulae, the ‘Southern Pleiades’, one of the few naked eye Wolf-Rayet stars and NGC2516.

Keyhole Nebula

Keyhole Nebula

I’ve mentioned the glorious Carina nebula before (it’s visible as the pink cloud above the diamond cross in the last image of my previous post), sitting halfway between the southern and false cross. However, buried within the bigger and brighter Carina nebula, lies the Keyhole nebula — a cool, dim cloud of dust and gas only visible as it blocks the light from the bright nebula behind.

Southern Pleiades

IC2602

This wondrous open cluster (actually it’s what appears to be the ‘top’ star of the diamond cross to the naked eye). Like many open clusters, these stars are young and hot, but are a lot dimmer than the actual Pleiades that lie within Taurus. Regardless — they’re quite stunning even with a pair of binoculars.

NGC2516*

NGC2516

Below tip of false cross, lies this open cluster that contains 2 bright ‘red giant’ stars (large cool stars nearing the end of their lives) and several ‘binary’ stars (systems of 2 stars that orbit each other). Unfortunately you need a small telescope to resolve the individual stars of the binaries, but the varied colour of these close by stars make this cluster well worth a look!

Gamma Velorum

Artist's impression of a Wolf-Rayet star

Gamma Velorum, a group of bright stars in a direct line between the two middle stars on the false cross, is included here because of the rarity and strage-ness of a star it contains. The brightest star in the cluster is an example of a ‘Wolf-Rayet’ star, a type of massive star that shines with a very strange light. Typically, stars are hottest in their centre where fusion reactions are occurring, but are cloaked in a shell of cooler gas (which, incidentally) is what we actually see when we look at our sun — a shell of material at about 6000 degrees whereas the inside is several million degrees). Wolf-Rayet stars, are stars whose inner fusion reactions are so violent, that they have blown off this outer shell and so we are able to ‘see’ in inner heart of the star itself. This only happens when a star is reaching the end of its life as they hurtle inexorably toward their deaths as spectacularly violent supernovae. The Wolf-Rayet in Gamma Velorum is one of the few visible to the naked eye, and whilst at first glimpse it may not appear too different to other stars, is undoubtedly one of the most mysterious stellar forms we know of!

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Jeweled Crosses Elf Eldridge May 13

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Reflecting on my previous posts, Just So Science has become a little complaining and angsty as of late, so without further ado here’s a return to something we can all agree on – our night skies are a treasure during winter!

Most people are familiar with the Southern Cross, or Crux, or ‘Te Punga’ (the anchor) to several Maori tribes, which hangs high in our southern skies at this time of the year, accompanied by the two bright pointer stars, Alpha and Beta Centauri that help you find it. (They’re often called the pointers because drawing a line between the points you to the real Southern cross). And if you ever forget the shape, you can always see it on our flag:

NZ Flag showing the four brightest Southern Cross stars

Just between Crux and the pointers lies a beautiful little open cluster of stars in the shape of a letter ‘A’ known as the Jewel Box or Jewel casket. These stars have all formed from the same original cloud of gas, but are all different sizes and temperatures so they all burn with quite notable different colours. There are about 100 stars in this cluster, each with its own unique hue, all appearing to be encapsulated within one dim star next to the Crux to the naked eye.

Locating the Jewel Box cluster adjacent to the Southern cross.

However, many people aren’t aware that our skies are actually graced by at two other ‘crosses’ that lie just next to the Southern cross in the Milky Way. Rather than true constellations, these two are ‘asterisms’ – patterns of stars that the eye readily picks out, that are unusually within larger constellations. The Diamond cross sits to the right of Crux (at early evening at this time of the year), and is defined by four bright points of light in the constellation on Carina. The False cross (which appears almost identical to the Crux, just dimmer and without the pointers) is outlined by 4 bright stars in the Vela constellation. Together the constellations of Vela, Puppis and Carina (all just to the right of the cross) make up a vast boat from greek legend that soars throughout the milky way — the Argo, with the false and diamond crosses forming its two sails (it’s upside down relative to us in NZ as it was created in the northern hemisphere).

Pointers (Left), Southern Cross (middle) and the Diamond Cross (right). The False cross is just off of the right of this image

Why mention these now? These asterisms, when found allow you to find your way through one of the sparsely populated regions of the Milky way – yet this is also home to many of the treasures of our southern skies, the like of Eta Carina, the Carina and Keyhole nebula, one of the few naked eye Wolf-Rayet stars and NGC2516. I’ll show you how to find those in the next astronomy post – as their best viewing is coming up during the midst of winter.

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NZAS Conference follow-up Elf Eldridge May 12

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So, one month on from the NZAS emerging scientist’s conference, what has come from a conference that aimed to discuss whether emerging scientists have a future in New Zealand? The answer, in this author’s opinion at least, has been a resounding ‘Maybe’.

One publications that highlighted the themes debated at the conference is ‘Callaghan vision stumbles on realities’ published in NBR. I decided to blog (okay rant) a little about this, as it contains rampant examples of the type of short-sightedness that makes the above question all the more relevant.

Starting with the NBR article:

‘The Ministry of Science and Innovation (MSI)…is the holder and supporter of the concept [Paul Callaghan’s vision for NZ]…But despite the best efforts of society, the science community and MSI, the battle for Sir Paul’s vision appears to be losing ground.’

Rubbish. There is not a single part of the above that’s correct in my experience. Paul’s vision for NZ is being held and supported by scientists, businesses and individuals — in fact it’s NZ’s government that only spends <60% of the OECD average on R&D each year. And I can assure you that what we currently experience is far from the ‘best efforts’ of the science community and society. In Wellington alone, I’m aware of now less than 6 groups trying to achieve Paul’s vision in ways that have yet to reach their full potential. And I’m not sure what the author’s definition of ‘losing ground’ is, but with the Transit of Venus conference, the Eureka! Symposium and the future of science being discussed in mainstream, media like Campbell Live — we apparently have very different evaluation techniques.

Dr. Prue Williams from MSI, quoted directly from her Campbell Live interview, states:

‘We need to have great science in New Zealand. Our environment is unique, so is our economy. For economic development to occur we have to understand and work within our unique environment…’

I had the…..fortune….of hearing Dr. Williams speak at the NZAS conference where she gave me the impression of someone stuck doing a job she really doesn’t want to be doing. After a lacklustre performance by both political leaders that addressed the conference, she had a golden opportunity to remind us of what MSI has achieved as we approach their second birthday. An opportunity she passed up. There are a number of causal links missing in the above quote — one linking the first and second sentences would be nice. There’s also the fact that we ALREADY HAVE great science in NZ — and have done for a number of years now. MacDiarmid Institute researchers frequently publish in the highest impact factor journals worldwide, on topics from using proteins to build things from scratch to regularly moving around individual atoms. And this is only one institute! We have hundreds of worldclass researchers nationwide, and it bothers me greatly that Dr. Williams seem either unaware of then or unwilling to acknowledge their prowess (a strange position given that MSI funds much of their research)

The article also states, after mentioning that PhD graduates can expect $65,000+ p.a., the best reaching around $100,000p.a. 4 years after graduation:

‘It doesn’t take much to work out why top students with research potential might not stay on at university — industry sees their potential as well. But worse than the lack of salary is the lack of clear career pathway [sic] in the face of shrinking (at least in real terms) funding.’

The implication that research is only done in universities completely discredits that done by our applied researchers, industry researchers and CRI scientists. The reality is that there are few academic jobs worldwide, not just in NZ, and PhD training is not about generating replacements for existing professors. PhD trained people perform research and contribute from a wide array of fields and disciplines. And I’m not certain about my peers, but $65k possibly growing to $100k in 4 years sounds like a pretty good salary to me! To say nothing of what organisations like Chiasma are doing to make these pathways clearer.

‘Over 30% [doctorally qualified graduates] are now overseas. Although there are theories about the value to New Zealand of the experience they gain, many don’t come back because there are insufficient jobs here.’

I haven’t seen the word ‘theories’ mis-used this badly since reading anti-evolutionary propaganda. Almost every researcher sees the need for graduates to expand their networks and experience offshore at some point in their career. The scientific community is a global one — and not being part of that leads to poor science. To say nothing of graduate’s personal desires to travel as many Kiwis do. Earlier, the author has asserted that industry is competing with academia for high-skilled people. So which is it? Are graduates sought after or are they unemployed? (in my experience it’s almost certainly the former) I have yet to see any evidence answering why many Kiwis don’t return to New Zealand. Granted, it could be the low salaries relative to other countries, but it could also be because graduates are not aware of the current opportunities in NZ, and uninformed articles like this are doing little to change the negative stereotype of the NZ employment environment. This also mentions nothing about graduates starting their own businesses, which many will have the skills to do, and NZ is one of the top countries in the world for that! I would want to see evidence of the real problem before we begin discussing specific solutions here.

MSI has pledged to use their merger into MoBIE as an:

‘..opportunity to consider the wider issues as they involve other departments.’

One large part of this is ‘labour force planning’ — trying to push students into science and engineering. It’s great to see that MSI is discussing this, however many organisations (FutureinTech, Te Ropu Awhina and MacDiarmid to name 3) have been doing this for years now — so perhaps a good place to start would be to dialogue with them to learn from their mistakes and successes before talking to other politicians about it. On that note, MSI has repeatedly stated that they intend to collaborate with other departments to solve NZ’s problems. That’s great, but if that’s only beginning to happen, WHAT HAVE THEY BEEN DOING TILL NOW?

In summary, there are challenges in making New Zealand a place where scientists can find a future career, but I contend that the challenges may not be those currently being addressed by MSI. In my view, the most important are:

We need strong, vocal leadership with a long-term view of science in the NZ economy. My hunch is that this will have to come from scientists themselves.
We need to educate the current graduates worldwide about the opportunities for careers in NZ — rather than only focussing on preparing our labour force for the future (not that this isn’t important)
Whilst the post-doc expenses question is important, we cannot allow it to eclipse the more pressing issues facing NZ science. Post-Docs are crucial, however NZ already publishes above the OECD average in science with our current system and we already have great science in NZ, so there’s little incentive for governments to solve this problem. The low commercialization rate in NZ (well below OECD average) is a much more pressing issue that requires our attention, to ensure NZ is prosperous enough to support R&D in the future.

And finally, our leadership, from government business or science, must appreciate that worldclass R&D is contingent on two things: people and our attitude to failure. People, not ideas or specific research, are at the heart of innovation, as anyone from the startup or venture capital community will tell you. Most will support a good team over a brilliant idea any day. If we are to attract and retain talent to New Zealand, it’s not enough to have salaries and great science. We must also have an innovative and engaging community. I am proud to say that, in Wellington at least, the science and tech communities have taken this to heart organising talks, collaboration evenings, makerspaces and more ensuring our capital is a vibrant innovative community in both the arts and sciences. Once we begin to try and attract and appreciate innovative people, rather than ‘just scientists’ or ‘just entrepreneurs’ etc, talent will come to be part of our community. (I ranted about this at Pecha Kucha last year if you want to hear more).

Professor Kate McGrath, director of the MacDiarmid Institute asked in her blog several weeks ago whether we expect too much of our scientists now; expecting them to be world-leading researchers, teachers, communicators, event managers, mentors, political commentators, leaders and visionaries just to earn the right to apply for a job in academic science in NZ. Yes we should set our sights high, compete on the world stage and inspire future students and generations, but perhaps it should be enough for all of us to do some of these rather than all of us trying to master all of them. But for this to happen, both funding and support will be required from government, and unless they up their game — they stand as the main obstacle between myself and my peer emerging scientists creating our own future here in NZ.

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