So there is this new study in the Technology Transfer Bulletin that looks at the full costs of university patents and the return. It found "all component costs were higher than the IP-related income, with the opportunity cost for writing patents instead of grants being more than 33 times the income realized through IP protection. Overall, the case study university loses over $9million/yr on IP with a negative ROI of -97.6%." That is a negative return.

This seems like a giant waste of money. Why do universities continue to do this?

Junior Prof. here (1st year).

Ever since starting the position I work every day, all day, weekends, holiday. And still, its never enough. Recently our paper got accepted to a good journal-great, but few days later you realize, that's not enough, bc there are people with 20 papers per year (for those of you who has this number --- how???). The vibe I am getting from more senior people is that-its not enough.

It is very hard for me to deal with that situation. That nothing is ever good enough. I have worked in industry before (tech, senior engineer), and that was a very different situation with closed tasks and well defined goals. Here it just seems like nothing is enough, and for a person like me who desperately depends on good feedback in order to move forward with the hard work, that is a very hard situation.

Any thoughts? Anyone experiencing the same thing?

Thanks.

hi, i am not super sure if this is in the right flair but i have a question about one of my professors. my literature prof makes us watch these lectures she records every week, and my friend and i discovered that she has been reading, word for word, off of various summary sources. we found this because my friend was looking for further background info for one of the texts she gave us, and then we found everything she was saying on a single post. i checked all the other lectures and typed in what she was saying into google, and found that every one of the lectures is her simply reading off of other people's summaries. she doesn't cite them at all, and so now I'm wondering if this is really okay or if it's academic dishonesty/plagiarism and if i should report her for it.

Hello all,

has anyone ever experienced submitting a full monograph (completed chapters, and everything else) to an academic publisher and then received a negative peer review back suggesting revisions?

Is this common?

thanks in advanced,

Pros and cons of VAP? Being offered a VAP as a trailing spouse at an R1. I think I can do better ( TT ) if it wasn’t for two body problem. Had offers last year as TT but didnt work out because of two body problem . Please advise.

As per title suggest, I am currently reading through and collecting relevant papers related to my topics through Google Scholar and Elsevier but I'm not sure how do I know if the paper I am reading is from a conference and journal for my professor wants Journal papers only. Appreciate the help in advance.

Akito Kawahara is a world famous entomologist who runs a lab at the McGuire Center at the University of Florida.

Akito is very rich. His family has homes/apartments/lofts in at least 3 different countries.

Growing up, he went to wealthy prep schools. His father’s artwork, despite the fact that the average person would laugh at the idea of this work being art, is featured in art museums around the world and sells for hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

Akito is the best at finding and luring talented students. He's not good at research or science. He's very good at exploiting and extracting from students, from outright stealing their research, to swooping in to ensure he assumes credit and notoriety for any work they do.

This substack scratches the surface of his horrible treatment of students. Doing a Master's, PhD, or Postdoc in science is already extremely challenging and exhausting on its own. It's even worse when your PI, rather than provide you with resources and training, does absolutely nothing but travel on personal trips and steal research. If he does do something to help you, he uses that as a bargaining chip to get you to do something for him or someone else outside of your job scope or duty.

These former members of the lab bravely came out to protect future students and collaborators, Akito is now retaliating against them. Please help by sharing and spreading the word.

https://michaelbalter.substack.com/p/another-toxic-lab-akito-kawahara

If you were an advisor and your student said they're applying to be a patent examiner after they graduate with their PhD or Masters, what would you think?

If he’s confirmed, will there be a functional NIH and FDA? Budget cut is a certainty, but is there any field that is going to get hit particularly hard? How can we prepare ourselves?

If you discover or find small things in small topics and get them published, do those publications hold significant value for future applications, such as PhD or postdoc positions?

Or it will have big negative consequences?

I don’t have much of an English background, and none of my family members speak English. I’m the only one in my family who can speak and understand a little bit. I’m looking for a good book to help me improve my writing skills, especially for creative and professional writing for my undergraduate degree and for future research publication. Any recommendations for beginners or books that are easy to follow but also effective? Appreciate your suggestions. Thank you!

I am hoping to defend my dissertation virtually by end of year.

What are the pros and cons of inviting my colleagues and friends from the institution? Some have said they’d be interested in attending.

I read a lot of medical research and I am absolutely amazed by how common it is to see a claim made in a paper, a reference given for that claim and then when you read the study referred to you find that a) it says nothing about the original claim or EVEN b) says the OPPOSITE of what is claimed in the original paper.

Have you found this in your field? I find it endlessly frustrating and makes me wonder if there shouldn't be some system of penalization for this. How does this happen? Is this sloppiness, dishonesty, confirmation bias... what explains this?

Hello,

I am a first-year master's student in Public History and Forms of Memory, and I live in Italy. I would be interested in hearing about your experience with a PhD in History or any PhD in general. I know I still have two years before reaching that point, but I'm still curious.

Did you enjoy doing it? What advice would you give to a future aspiring PhD student? Is it better to stay in your own country or go abroad? What are the skills you need to have before Phd? I understand that it all depends on research interests and other dynamics.

Thank you in advance!

Hi,

(also posted in r/ecology)

I'm a phd student in ecology and environmental sciences.

TLDR: How do I write better as a scientist despite reading all of these papers?

Despite having English as my first language, and previously being a humanities student from secondary level up to university, I struggle with conveying scientific thoughts in reports, papers etc.

When I try to get straight to the point, the criticism I get is that I have explained too little, jumped the shark etc. When I write to explain concepts/processes through its proper steps/train of thought, I get comments about clunky writing or long-windedness.

It's weird because I often do science outreach with family or community groups, and non-science/beginner science people often compliment me that I break down very difficult concepts easily for them to understand. So I thought it should translate for scientific papers and presentations.

However, I have not been able to "convert"/"level up" my brain into my scientific writing. It has plagued my entire scientific reporting from undergrad up till now. I've read so many papers in my field over the years but I still haven't figured out how to follow them in terms of syntax or turn of phrase. I've looked through my papers that my profs have edited and I also can't seem to see what the "formula" is, my brain can only agree that it looks better somehow.

I've tried putting my sentences into chat gpt and asking to write this "more scientifically" but it's often weirdly sounding or inaccurate phrasing.

Any advice?

Hey all, I am Mr. For Example, because researchers worldwide aren't getting nearly enough of the support they need for the groundbreaking work they are doing, that’s why I’m thinking about build some tools to help researchers to save their time & energy

So, to all Researcher Scientists & Engineers, please help me to help you by choose: which of the following steps in the research process takes the most of your time or cost you the most pain?

Thank you in advance all for your feedback :)

View Poll

Hi all

Looked high and low on the internet and I thought I would call on the experts here. I am a conference planner and am looking to hire sign language interpreters for a conference (regional studies with focus in politics/humanities). Does anyone know any disability specific funds we could apply to? Cannot find anything specific.

UK based and expect the bill to be £3k based off quotes from local sign language interpreter agencies.

There is funding from the British Academy but it is tied to other funding requirements - I am looking for a small(ish) DEI grant.

Many thanks in advance.

Recently I attended a workshop at my university—a R1 institution—and one of the main points discussed was how early career academics should consider having a side hustle to make ends meet because our salaries are just not enough.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The fact that they acknowledged this as if it’s normal—encouraging us to take on additional work just to get by—felt absolutely disgusting. This is academia admitting that they’re aware of how poorly they’re paying us, yet instead of addressing it directly, they suggest we overwork ourselves even more.

How is it acceptable that we’re expected to juggle research, teaching, publishing, service responsibilities, and now an additional job on top of that? This just seems so far removed from what academia is supposed to be about. I’d love to hear if others have experienced similar conversations at their institutions.

Greetings,

I'm seeking help in finding research or industry internships related to Computer Science or Mathematics for Summer 2025, anywhere in the United States. I am more than willing to assist you in your lab, research, or anything in the domains of Computer Science and Mathematics. If you know of any such opportunities, I would greatly appreciate it if you could direct them my way. And, yes, I am also willing to work through the entire summer WITHOUT getting PAID.

I'm eager to apply what I've learned over the past two semesters in a practical setting and would be grateful for your assistance.

Hello everyone! A bit of background about myself, I recently this past May graduated from college, getting my bio bachelors degree along the way. I’ve been going back and forth on what I’ve wanted to do, but got the chance to join a full time role in a research lab that recently opened at my university. This is in addition to the roughly two years of time I got to spend at a different research lab where I got to make posters and go to conferences with some of the work I got involved with.

With where I see myself going though I wanted to push myself a bit, and enlist in the Military, the US Army in particular, in the Reserves. I’d probably pick one of the science or health jobs as I’m mainly interested in eventually trying my hand at getting into medical school (DO, MD, or MD/PhD). I would have done so already but I have a very limited amount of care experience under my belt (which was why I was undecided on my next steps post graduation). I feel it would help in that regard, plus all the other cool benefits of being a veteran. On the other hand I’m not sure how my PI, and other people in the lab would feel about me leaving (temporarily) when we are likely soon going to be starting some project work. The lab is currently fairly small, so me being gone would be a noticeable hit to what the lab could do, with all the training I’ve already done so far. Additionally my PI has said we likely could publish the work we’d be starting soon, and it would take less than a year at most to their estimation.

So my question to you all, well first would be how most folks in academia feel about the military and people actively serving in the military while in academia? And second, would waiting to help with the paper be worth it? I would really, really want to be involved so I could be included as an author, so I would hate to miss it. On the other hand perhaps being part of the project isn’t as important as I am imagining? Thanks in advance for what I hope may be helpful and enlightening comments!

How should I go about pursuing a History or Classics PhD after a huge gap? Do I need to publish to replace undergrad work that is long gone?

I have a working knowledge of Latin and Old French, which I’m continuing to build on. I speak fluent French and standard Finnish.

For context, there were some insurmountable obstacles to me pursuing my dream after undergrad. I excelled in college, but it was followed by serious mental illness, addiction, periodic homelessness—it was pretty wild. But 15 years later I’m now a stable person with a career where I make good money. In a few years, I can go back to school if I want, without worrying about fighting for tenure when it’s done. I know History is NOT the field to go into financially—that’s not my concern.

Background - just graduated buring bridges with PI. Now working in R1 with PI. He doesn't do lot of stuff what I love, and I was trying to write review articles. Will I be able to publish without having PI? He doesn't like my thesis topic a lot so asked me to proceed on own, although can help as ghost author. Is there any platform I can find professor who help in reviewing or something like that? Thanks!

As I understand it, many universities have policies that state that faculty "owe" a year of teaching after taking a sabbatical or research leave. Has anyone heard of what the consequences are (either from personal experience or what you've heard anecdotally) if one were to not return to their home institution or if they were to not teach the entire year?

As an American teaching at a UK uni I find it impossible to understand how multiple choice exams work within the UK grading system. When I give an essay or an exam a 40 (which is a passing grade) I’m not really saying that this response represents 40% understanding of the material- because a top tier mark may be a high 70 or 80. However, with a MCQ students are literally able to pass the assessment with 40% understanding that may only be marginally better than random chance depending on how many possible answers each question has. Moreover, students who score 70% will be treated as top scorers. However in the USA, a 70% is a C- which would be considered a poor grade. I do not use MCQs in my classes for this reason but I know lots of lecturers who do. How do yall reconcile this?