24小时热门版块排行榜    

查看: 90  |  回复: 0
当前主题已经存档。

tgzxzqj

铜虫 (小有名气)


[资源] 诺贝尔奖得主Thomas R. Cech教你怎样管理你的实验室

诺贝尔奖得主Thomas R. Cech教你怎样管理你的实验室
Managing Your Own Lab
Universities in the United States and elsewhere hire new faculty based mainly on their
research accomplishments and potential. Once hired, however, assistant professors succeed
not only on their scientific skills but also on their ability to recruit and train lab
personnel, motivate students to do their best work, obtain funding and handle budgets,
and manage their own time. In effect, each of them runs something rather like a small
business, and they do it with little or no training in what it takes to run a business.
The postdoctoral experience is an apprenticeship designed to help young scientists acquire the skills
they will need to advance their own careers. That list should surely include basic tools of management,
but until now it rarely has. Postdoctoral fellows and new faculty interviewed
by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund (BWF) since 1996, as part of the
fund’s ongoing assessment of its support for early-career scientists,
have characterized their own management training as inadequate.
These young scientists say they need help with hiring,
budgeting, and knowing how to lead their labs. Yet BWF
has found that senior scientists don’t share the same
sense of urgency, with many holding the opinion that
postdocs and young faculty members already receive
the management mentoring they need in the lab.
That needs to change. Some groups have recognized
the dearth of management training and are
taking steps to bridge the gap. In the United States,
the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on
Science, Engineering, and Public Policy has published
several excellent guides, including Enhancing
the Postdoctoral Experience for Scientists and Engineers
(2000). In a more directly interactive approach,
the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and BWF conducted
a 5-day lab management course in July 2002, in which 128
postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty focused on issues such as
finding a faculty position, hiring and managing staff, administering budgets, getting grants, seeking
tenure, generating collaborations, and resolving conflicts. This popular course has been captured in
a book, Making the Right Moves: A Practical Guide to Scientific Management for Postdocs and New
Faculty, which is freely available (www.hhmi.org/labmanagement). It received more than 10,000
downloads during its first month of open access. The European Molecular Biology Organization is
following up with similar management training for its young investigators.
Universities and scientific societies are contributing too, with offices and meeting sessions dedicated
to improving the quality of life during and beyond postdoctoral training. They are providing
career development services that include training in personnel management, grant preparation and
review, management of data and lab records, networking in the larger scientific community, and
preparing for tenure review (see also “The Academic Scientists’Toolkit” at Science’s Next Wave).
The nation’s major funder of biomedical research has also seen the need to help. In October 2003,
the National Institutes of Health (NIH) held a meeting at its Bethesda, MD, campus to discuss training
and opportunities for postdocs in the 21st century. NIH is issuing a limited-circulation white paper
on the issues discussed, in preparation for a summit meeting of postdocs being held at NIH this week.
All of this is good news, but certainly more can be done. Mentors can handle some of the load
themselves, and they should. Many professors, however, do not have the training to train others in
lab management skills, or they may be uncomfortable taking on that role. Thus, we suggest that
preparing postdoctoral fellows for the transition to managerial career positions is the collective
responsibility of the universities, departments, professional societies, and funders of research. We
need to help the next generation of scientists prepare to be leaders, and leaders need to know how
to run their own enterprises and do it well.
Thomas R. Cech and Enriqueta Bond
Thomas R. Cech is president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, MD. Enriqueta C. Bond is
president of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund in Research Triangle Park, NC.
回复此楼

» 猜你喜欢

已阅   回复此楼   关注TA 给TA发消息 送TA红花 TA的回帖
相关版块跳转 我要订阅楼主 tgzxzqj 的主题更新
☆ 无星级 ★ 一星级 ★★★ 三星级 ★★★★★ 五星级
普通表情 高级回复 (可上传附件)
信息提示
请填处理意见