This week I attended the Animal and Plant Health Agency Annual Technical meeting to promote the Plant Health Professional Register on behalf of the Royal Society of Biology (https://www.rsb.org.uk/careers-and-cpd/registers/plant-health-register) From its first year, we now have 54 professionals on the register and hopefully many more now considering their applications. The meeting is an important annual event for the plant health …
Recognition for the Plant Health Professional Register
After only 1 year, the plant health professional register was nominated for a Civil Service Skills Award and shortlisted. http://www.civilserviceawards.com As one of three on the shortlist, 4 guests were invited to attend the award ceremony at Lancaster House on 24th November. I was honoured to be one of the team and delighted to join Prof Nicola Spence, Defra’s chief …
Early Career Researchers can mean Undergraduates too
Yesterday I attended an interesting 1 day meeting organized by SCI on New Frontiers in Crop Research http://bit.ly/2cQxOjd. During the discussion about how to engage business and academic communities, I made the point that Undergraduate Research Studentships can be useful here. Typically, these are carried out over the summer pre-final BSc year to help students see if research is for …
Gatsby Summer School 2016
Looking forward to inspiring another 80 undergraduates and some school teachers at next week’s Gatsby summer school
Plant Science in the Neighbourhood
A couple of weeks ago I held our 5th annual seedling swap at home and used the opportunity to tell friends and neighbours about the plant health professional register (http://rsb plant health register news). Today, I learned that the Animal and Plant Health Agency will be at the Gardeners World exhibition next week (https://www.bbcgardenersworldlive.com) promoting plant protection in the garden. Our …
The changing landscape of plant biology careers
Far from some previous depictions of plants being the dull part of school biology lessons, we now see Tim Peake’s space mission appealing to thousands of schoolchildren to grow rocket seeds that have travelled in space (https://www.rhs.org.uk/about-the-rhs/blogs/news-blog/January-2016/seeds-in-space). Can an interest in plant biology lead to career opportunities? Almost certainly is the answer, but the real answer is we can’t be …
Fast-tracking from the Gatsby Plant Science Summer School
Celia Knight FRSB talks to Dr Ed Mitchard, It’s been 10 years since the first summer school and one of the 2005 alumni is leading his own research in an academic position already. I asked Ed Mitchard to write about his memories of attending the summer school and what he’s doing now. I’m an academic at the University of Edinburgh …