Australian academics most unhappy in the world

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February 8, 2010

The response of Australian academics to the Changing Academic Profession survey indicates that they are among the least satisfied academics in the world. This dissatisfaction has been expressed after two decades of rapid growth in the student body and structural changes in the academic workforce, particularly an expansion in the amount of teaching provided by casual staff. Growth in casual staff numbers is a factor that has simultaneously created a precariously employed but cheaper and more flexible workforce along with higher levels of stress among the full-time teachers responsible for managing and supervising casual teachers.

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Spotlight: Professor Peter Koopman and the molecular genetics of mammalian development

“We all are interested in where we came from and how our life began. It’s amazing that each of us – with our physical complexity, our emotional complexity and all the complexity that makes us human beings – all started off as a single cell. I find it fascinating to study how that cell divided and turned into a complex organism with so many dimensions.It excites me because it’s studying life itself.”



Read more about Prof Koopman’s research program at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland.

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ARC grant success: part 2 – being an excellent scientist

To win grants, it’s wise to follow three simple rules: be excellent, create new opportunities to be excellent, and be seen to be excellent.Simple, right?


Following last month’s interview with Professor Koopman on tips for great grant writing, we continue our conversation on winning ARC success, with a focus on improving as a scientist, and improving your investigator score.

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Dr Stuart Barber: pitching to your audience

Dr Stuart Barber is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Veterinary Science in the University of Melbourne. He teaches first and second year students and runs a research program into sheep mastitis. He is actively involved in his family’s Poll-Dorset stud farm, and writes monthly for the Herald and Weekly Times newspaper. He talks to Science Hub about writing science for the public.

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Bright young things in Washington, part 3: Life D.C.

When ScienceHub last spoke to Drs Erich Fitzgerald and Karen Roberts, the two young scientists had been in Washington D.C. for nearly one year. Now they are returning home, they reflect on what they learnt and what they are most proud of.

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Professor Peter Doherty: not by words alone

“In science there are collectors, classifiers, compulsory tidiers-up and permanent contestors, detectives, some artists and many artisans, there are poet-scientists and philosophers and even a few mystics… To the chagrin of my family, I am very Swiss and a true collector… Peter is a Celt and a true Australian and to the chagrin of his wife and of mine, he is a mystic.” - Rolf Zinkernagel, Nobel Prize in 1996 for Physiology or Medicine.




In the third of our four-part series, Science Hub talks to Professor Doherty about writing books, experimental mythology and intuition.

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Dr Beth Fulton: on being a female scientist of international renown

Dr Beth Fulton is a senior research fellow at CSIRO and the developer of Atlantis, an ecosystem-modelling program evaluated as world’s best by the FAO. Her excellence has encouraged invitations to high-level scientific meetings and has exposed to her different administrative facets of her male-dominated discipline. It is experience which has taught her to learn manage differences in communication style between men and women.

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AuScience this month: Jan 2010

What is Australia’s best science story this month? VOTE! Cause for Tassie devil disease found [01 Jan] … Quantum computer prototype tested [12 Jan] … Wasp genome mapped [15 Jan] … New blood-stage vaccine candidates for malaria [19 Jan] … Dinosaurs grounded ancient birds [21 Jan] … Entropy greater than we think [25 Jan] …

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The price of free thinking

Academic freedom is essential to the work of Australian universities. Their role in educating students and advancing human knowledge depends upon academics and students working and learning in an environment in which they can freely exchange ideas, challenge conventional wisdom and debate controversial issues.


George Williams says it’s time to fight for academic freedom by agitating for a national charter of human rights.

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After the Nobel Prize

If the cause is worthwhile, Professor Barry Marshall seems to enjoy upsetting the establishment. His 2005 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine was awarded for his role in the discovery of Helicobacter pylori bacteria as the cause of stomach ulcers, research that upset the medical establishment for over a decade. Three years after his Nobel award, Professor Marshall is continuing to challenge science’s dominant thinking.

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Palaeontology: a study of life in the geological past

“Dinosaurs and fossils are 98% of the time, a child’s introduction to science,” says Dr Erich Fitzgerald, a young palaeontologist trained in Melbourne.“Most kids between 4 and 8 have a case of what you’d call dinosauritis. They go to a museum and want to see dinosaurs. While most kids grow out of it, there are those who have terminal cases. And those cases grow up to be palaeontologists.”

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Keeping young people in agricultural science

National trends show the number of students studying science and agriculture at school and university is declining. To turn this trend around the Cotton CRC and CRDC have joined forces with the University of Tasmania which hosts the Primary Industry Centre for Science Education (PICSE). Together, they work to promote science, science careers and research to students and teachers in regions where cotton is grown.

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Safety shoes and the Barefoot Investor #2

Planning ahead for your mortarboard and bricks-and-mortar


What gives you the chance to have life on your terms? To call your own shots? What lets you sleep at night? According to Scott Pape, Barefoot Investor, the answer is savings. For PhD students with limited money, the first part of good financial management is saving your money and staying out of debt.

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