DDA Winter School 2019 CHALLENGE - Next generation diabetes scientists shaping global research culture
This year, the DDA Winter School Challenge is to tackle the tough questions people around the world are asking about research culture and to develop creative solutions in an effort to strengthen the research community and advance the scientific understanding and future treatment of diabetes.
When researchers are driving ambitious research projects, they need the best working culture to succeed. But are there aspects of the research culture that hold themselves or their colleagues back? Maybe challenges in funding, access to data and research results, infrastructure, career path options, how researchers are assessed, the value of the team versus the value of the individual, or diversity in the working culture. Taken together these areas are “research culture,” a global term that represents the norms, values, expectations, attitudes, and behaviors of the scientific community (watch more here from the Royal Society UK: https://youtu.be/mZ3bdTmjPKg ).
At the DDA Winter School Challenge 50 postdocs will be divided into teams, each focusing on a specific challenge topic. During the Winter School week they will meet with their team to research and discuss the topic as well as the pros and cons for possible solutions to improve research culture.
As part of their preparation, they have one important task to do in advance of the Winter School; they should interview three people from their working environment about their experiences and opinions on the particular challenge topic and from the from different rungs of the scientific ladder, i.e., a PI, a postdoc and a PhD student. Please select people.
The end product will be a presentation on the final day of the DDA Winter School. The presentation should be 10 minutes long and include the following:
The ultimate end product will be a written perspective piece in Acta Physiologica with the goal to represent the collective voice on the challenges facing postdoctoral researchers and how this community of the next generation of diabetes research leaders is shaping global research culture.