Serious Brain Power
I can’t resist doing a bit of advertising on behalf of Cardiff University’s new recruitment campaign which has the slogan Serious Brain Power. A major initiative is under way to attract high quality researchers to Cardff (either at Chair level for established academics or at the level of a Fellowship for those earlier in their careers) across a range of academic disciplines, including STEM subjects.
In the School of Physics & Astronomy we’ve already appointed four new lecturers in Physics over the last year, and will also be joined by a new Professor of Experimental Physics next year, all independently of this scheme, but it would be great if we could attract even more excellent new people into the School via the new initiative; for an advert see here.
At fellowship level the positions provide a greater degree of independence than a normal postdoctoral research assistantship, including the possibility to direct one’s own research programme. The number of similar positions funded by research councils is dwindling owing to cutbacks in the research council budgets, making such a post a particularly valuable and attractive proposition.
Although this is a personal blog, and therefore not officially part of the recruitment campaign, it occurred to me that readers of this blog might well be interested in these opportunities, hence the reason for posting this message. Applicants for astronomy and cosmology would be welcomed, by me at any rate! It’s a rare opportunity to join a Physics department that’s actually growing in size…
To find out more about the Fellowships and Chairs, see here. Feel free to contact me informally if you have any questions, and please also feel free to pass this on to anyone you think might be interested!
Follow @telescoper
In the Dark 
October 28, 2011 at 10:19 am
Shurely “Serious Brains Power” in Cardiff?
October 28, 2011 at 10:24 am
That refers to the sort of establishment in which we might fail to arrange a piss up.
October 30, 2011 at 4:33 pm
University schemes to recruit new staff are very welcome. Fellowships where individuals are free to pursue their own research programmes and take their own initiatives are very few in number in British science. A fellowship system without restrictions on who can apply is particularly welcome.
A significant problem with most fellowship schemes in science is that funders place restrictions on who can apply. For example, the Science and Technology Facilities Council requires applicants to be nominated by university departments, which introduces strong elements of patronage and political support from established academics as prerequisites for candidature. Many other fellowship schemes have restriction on age, usually through proxies such as the number of years that have elapsed since being awarded a PhD. For example, the Royal Society University Research Fellowships are available only to people who have between 3 and 8 years of research experience since their PhD.
Unrestricted fellowship schemes are very welcome indeed. Cardiff University should be congratulated on this (if I’ve understood the mechanism correctly).