It’s Giving Tuesday, a day targeted at charitable donations, and at Future of Research we realize that this year you may have other priorities in wishing to donate to organizations (for example, for some suggestions of science organizations doing good things, listen to Science Soapbox’s quick Thanksgiving podcast here).

 

So we’re giving two options for giving this year! First of all, we’re re-opening our “RiffRaff” t-shirt campaign. Our RiffRaff t-shirts are inspired by former president of the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Steve McKnight, who in this post made an observation about the sorts of people in scientific study sections:

Biomedical research is a huge enterprise now; it attracts riff-raff who never would have survived as scientists in the 1960s and 1970s. There is no doubt that highly capable scientists currently participate in the grant-review process. Likewise, unfortunately, study sections are undoubtedly contaminated by riff-raff.

Show your next study section what you bring to the discussion with a RiffRaff shirt! Buy them here – all shirts should arrive by Dec 24th so feel free to get them as a gift for the RiffRaff in your life!

 

Secondly, we would love it if you gave us ideas; data; comments; and writing. We are very happy to take blog posts and are willing to try to help you get written pieces into other venues too, if we can! In setting up our FLSA and postdocs resource, data and writing and input from you has been so valuable not only to us, but to others, either advocating for change at their institution, or in making informed decisions about their career options. So if you would consider donating some information to us in the coming year, we would be very grateful. We recognize your time is as valuable (maybe more) than your money, and any donation of your time to us is greatly appreciated. Please contact us at info@futureofresearch.org with your thoughts, data and comments on how we’re doing!