Yearly Archives: 2014

The Times Higher Ed. have recently published an article detailing the results of the Research Councils UK findings on how successful women are in research bids.

The findings are particularly remarkable when looking at female success rates for large grants. In the age cohort 50 to 59 years of age, women are about half as likely as men to be successful.

Research grants by gender image
Source: Research Councils UK

Even in the lower age range the success of men bidding for grants under one million pounds exceeds women. The male gender bias is apparent across all age ranges, widening the gap as scientific careers progress, arguably.

This is, as far as we know, the first time that such research grant data has been published with gender segmentation. It is truly shocking to think that young women scientists, just at the start of their career, are doomed to an intellectual life hampered by lack of resource and opportunity.

Should this be a 21st Century state of affairs…now we know?

interneticon You can find the original Times Higher Ed. web article here.

pdfIcon4 You can find the Research Council data here.

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The Open Source, award winning data curation programme, DataUp was recently subject to a comprehensive set of updates, which were launched at 2014 International Data Curation Conference in San Francisco.

The new version of DataUp gives administrators the opportunity to select and define metadata, as well as auto-define the meta values loaded by users and can now run  a Data Quality Check, at an administrator level, to verify the data input from system users. Checking to see that entries and uploads comply with repository requirements.

This release is the fruit of much work done at the California Digital Library, and was supported by the interneticon Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.  interneticon Microsoft Research says of DataUp in its endorsement…

Presently, DataUp supports two different types of repositories, though more can be added via repository adapters: (1) a personal or organizational Microsoft OneDrive repository or (2) a repository that adheres to the ONEShare standard developed by the California Digital Library.

You can read more about DataUp on the interneticon California Digital Library web page here. New users can get started on-line by simply logging in with their existing Microsoft account details from this page. interneticon

dataUpLogoButtonIf you are interested in Open Source software, cloud applications and research data access and manipulation DataUp is a useful tool. Not the only cloud based service available to researchers, but readily accessible and easy to get started with we would argue.

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Our RSA Animate series is so good, so thought provoking and so energising that to build a new journal for regional Fellows and not include the series would, we think, be a serious mis-judgement.

“How can we get people more engaged, more productive, and happier at work? Is technology part of the problem – and could it also be part of the solution? Dave Coplin, Chief Envisioning Officer at Microsoft, imagines what might be possible if more organisations embraced the full, empowering potential of technology and encouraged a truly open, collaborative and flexible working culture”. (Text courtesy of The RSA)

Proportionality, connectivity, internationalism and cross community. It sounds so easy.

Thought provoking? Want to get involved with the RSA in the region?

interneticon See more here…

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Managing change, effecting delivery…

pdfIcon4   You can download a copy of this report here (pdf format)

Delivered as a partnership between the RSA and Suffolk County Council, the report details the potential changes in contextual and strategic aims of a county – in order to improve the educational lot of its children and young people.

Matthew Taylor of the RSA in his preamble to the report, The Suffolk Journey, states…

Achieving a step-change in performance will require effort and adaptation.  Some ideas will work well, others will need to be refined. The work of the solutions group should not end with the publication  of this report; indeed, their on-going role exemplifies the call for Raising the Bar to be seen not as a one of process but as a continuing campaign….

As Fellows we couldn’t agree more. Watch this space for a continuing dialogue on the No School an Island initiative.

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conversationsEast is the new on-line journal delivered by RSA Fellows in the East of England. It is intended to be an informative miscellany of topics, news and views.

Providing a forum for Fellows to publish information about their projects, guest articles, or just to get  a burning passion ‘out there’.

We also offer news of our regional  groups, our trips and events for Fellows as well as how to get involved with the RSA. You will also be able to see features about what is happening at John Adam Street, the London headquarters of the RSAinterneticon

If you have ideas for content, press releases or updates for your ongoing activity use our ‘contact us’ box at the top of the page or email the Editor with your copy…

emailIcon4 editor@conversationseast.org

rssIcon4  Subscribe for free to our RSS news feed here

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the individual contributing Fellows. At the RSA Regional Team we’d be delighted for you to join in the conversation.

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Image credit:

News Desk image by Markus Winkler, Creative Commons, Unsplash...

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