Category: Education

Scholarships for young researchers (degree in the last 5 yrs) to work in France

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Make our planet great again is a research stay grant program for young researchers from any nationality, except French citizens, who obtained their degree less than 5 years ago in the following fields:

  • Earth system sciences.
  • Climate change and sustainability sciences.
  • Energy transition.
  • Societal challenges of environmental issues.
  • Human, animal and environmental health.

The scholarship (application deadline: 10 January 2022) will be awarded from September 2022, for a period of 12 months. The concepts for which the aid will be received are as follows:

  • A monthly allowance of €2,500.
  • 500 euros moving allowance.
  • Aid for social security coverage.
  • Aid for medical insurance.

On the occasion of the “OneOceanSummit” to be organized in France in February 2022, special attention will be given to ocean-related applications.

Open Scholarship Knowledge Base (OSKB), a free repository of open practice education and training resources

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As the adoption of open and reproducible practices grows, so too does the need for high-quality, up-to-date instruction. That’s why OSF (Open Science Framework) partnered with open advocates from the global research community to create the OSKB (Open Scholarship Knowledge Base). 

Now research educators and stakeholders can quickly point to the OSKB as a tool to support the learning, application, and training in open practices for their communities. Plus, the OSKB integrates effortlessly with virtual learning environments as more institutions shift toward remote collaboration and coursework.

Open Scholarship Knowledge Base (OSKB): A sustainable model inclusive to all disciplines

Learn more about the OSKB (a community-led initiative, which means the power to build robust collections of materials is in the hands of those closest to the work) here. Any individual or group can easily submit open scholarship learning materials to the OSKB to support their discipline or community of practice. You can contribute or author a resource, when you see any gap, or join a discipline-based OSKB subcommittee to help review, edit, and curate submissions.

Springer Nature makes key textbooks free

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Only until July!

Springer Nature, one of the greatest scientific publishers, allows downloading for free more than 400 books (approx. 8 GB) from all fields of knowledge. You can find all of them in this Excel sheet:

https://resource-cms.springernature.com/springer-cms/rest/v1/content/17858272/data/v5

These are complete books, written in English, some of them quite technical. They are in PDF (or ePub) and have no digital rights management (DRM), just a watermark outside the reading area. Thus, the books can be converted to any reading device, such as a tablet or e-book reader, using a software such as Calibre, which can convert PDF or ePub files to Amazon’s Kindle format.

How to download a book?

1: Find the book you are interested in in the excel sheet above. TIP: Use the drop down menu of the column “English Package Name” to filter by subject e.g. Behavioral Science, Biomedical and Life Sciences or Computer Science.

2: Once you found a book, follow the link in the column “OpenURL” of the excel sheet. Then click the download button.

Keep safe keep learning!

Alexgand made a python script to download them all: https://github.com/alexgand/springer_free_books

Source: https://group.springernature.com/gp/group/media/press-releases/freely-accessible-textbook-initiative-for-educators-and-students/17858180?utm_medium=social&utm_content=organic&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=SpringerNature_&sf232256230=1

VIII International Symposium SRUK/CERU – interested talks relevant to the day-to-day life of any researcher

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On 12th of March, the Organizing Committee, being its primary concern the health and wellbeing of everyone, has decided to postpone the International Symposium until the WHO declares that the risk related to COVID-19 has disappeared. As soon as we know the new date, we will publish it, in order for you to have greater certainty about your travel schedule and plans.

Date to be confirmed!!! The VIII International Symposium SRUK/CERU (new date different from 10-12 of July) to be hold in Oxford! With its theme “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” (A. C. Clark), we will look into how science has evolved in a way that was very difficult to imagine in a not so distant past. More details to follow, here and on SRUK social media.

Speakers on Leadership, Science Policy, Science Divulgación (youtuber, )
Grant proposals, Resilience for researchers wellbeing, Time Management… Be ready to develop soft and hard skills and meet other colleagues to share goals and maximise opportunities and benefits.

We want you!

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We are looking for a student that wants to do a short research stay in The University of Sheffield, UK

The student should be highly motivated to do research and experimental, lab work.

This is a multidisciplinary project, that fits students from last years of bachelors to PhD degree, from degrees on environmental sciences, geotechnical engineering, chemistry, hydrology or geology .

Research Areas: Environmental Sciences, Geology, Hydrology, Geotechnical engineering, Chemistry.

….

Project Description

Title: Evaluation of recycled landfill barriers against pollution: from centrifuge scale to reality
Research topic of the short-stay period:
The dumping of waste produces a toxic liquid (namely leachate) that percolates downwards, polluting the surrounding areas and groundwater. To stop the migration of the leachate pollutants, barriers are required. The objective is to predict the performance of recycled and reactive barriers in the long term to build sustainable landfills. For this, we will use one of the biggest (2-m diameter) and most advanced geotechnical centrifuge (www.sheffield.ac.uk/ceigr/about). There are only 30 centrifuge of this type in the world and no one in Spain. To mimic the landfill barriers, clays blended with recycled materials will be compacted until 3-10 cm height at their optimum moisture in a cylinder of 10 cm diameter. The compacted cylinders will be permeated with Manchester landfill leachate and gas (50% CO2) while spinning in the centrifuge, to ensure conditions similar to reality. The speed (gravities) and time of spinning (days) set in the centrifuge will provide equivalences to barriers of 2.5 m thickness max. and time of 30-100 years. After centrifugation, each cylinder will be sliced into 6-10 samples, representing different depths of the barrier. The porewater (obtained in aqueous extracts 1/2 -1/2.5 solid-to-liquid ratio after bench centrifugation and 0.45µm-filtration) will be analysed for pH and electrical conductivity (electrodes), major anions and ammonium (IC), metals and rest of major cations (ICP-MS) and carbon (TIC/TOC analyser). The barriers tested will then be ranked from the least to the most effective one. The effect of rainwater on the reversibility of the attenuation will be considered, too.
Knowledge, skills and competences acquired by the student at the end of the short-stay (expected Learning Outcomes):
S/he will:
– acquire scientific knowledge covering from fundamental research (namely experimental analysis of multi-component solute transport in compacted porous media) to applied research (namely geotechnical and geochemical engineering design of barrier systems from first principles)
– develop theoretical, practical and modelling skills in the evaluation and design of sustainable barrier systems to mitigate contaminant emissions from wastes disposal facilities
– access the noteworthy training offered by the host institution, such as:
—> research project, team-building and effective communication
—> academic and research writing in English, good publication practice guidelines and bibliometric analyses
—> effective presentations to different audiences using different media…
Monitoring plan: Available under request
Evaluation plan: Available under request
Benefits of the research short-stay to the host
In turn the student will provide relevant support in lab-scale experiments for studying the attenuation processes through landfill barriers. The supervisor will give continuous training to the student and transfer her/him unique analytical and technical skills, from the very first moment. This will ensure a rapid productive start of the student in the host institution, under appropriate knowledge and direct supervision. Specifically, student will help in the:
– preparation of barriers (homogenizing, sieving, blending, moistening, curing, compacting)
– geotechnical engineering tests (soil consistency and permeability)
– sampling of barriers after geotechnical centrifugation
– preparation of aqueous extracts and determination of moisture contents 
– sample preparation for chemical analyses

Winter School on Sustainable Waste Management

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Deadline of Competition Submission: 30 September 2019 (Texas local time)

Participate in the Essay Competition for winning a full or a partial scholarship to attend the ISWA-SWIS Winter School Jan 2020. This is the only international, 2-week course about sustainable waste management, including modern landfills and landfill mining. It offers a good mix of theoretical lectures and practical site visits (have a look to the programme here!).

Spread the word around!

Innovation Summer School in Darmstadt, Jun-Aug 2019

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Don’t miss out on this tremendous opportunity: the chance for brilliant international students to attend the 3-month Merck Innovation Summer School at Merck Innovation Center in Darmstadt this June.The Merck Innovation Summer School is a paid 3-month intrapreneurship program (June-August 2019) that allows you to learn about intrapreneurship, meaning innovation in a corporate environment, and grow a seed idea into a “pitchable” innovation concept. The program is designed for PhD students and experienced Masters students and is fully integrated into the Merck Innovation Center.  Hurry up! the application deadline is coming very soon!
REGISTER

Retractionwatch: an indispensable tool in scholarly publishing

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Since August 2010, there is a place for recording  studies no longer reliable. The blog retractionwatch.com created the first database of retractions, with nearly 18,000 retractions so far, stretching back decades. There are well over a thousand retractions each year and this database inform about scientific misconducts.

Retractionwatch is doing deeper dives, prompting to file public records requests for reports of misconduct investigations and other materials (and their co-founders to urge universities to do a better job with them). In the past year, retractionwatch has collaborated together with journalism organizations, to bring readers stories that go deep and reach larger audiences than retractionwatch can on the blog. There are their established partnerships with STAT and Science, where they continue to break news and help readers make sense of developments.

Some of the most impressive stories related to retractions and academic misconduct include:

Can you share yours in the comments below?

This non-profit organization have received some foundation support from MacArthur Foundation, the Helmsley Trust, and the Arnold Foundation. The founders, Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus, are not taking salaries from the organization. One can contribute with a tax-deductible donation to The Center For Scientific Integrity or contribution, follow them on Twitter, like them on Facebook, add them to your RSS reader, sign up for an email or subscribe to daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in their database, you can let them know here. For comments or feedback: team@retractionwatch.com.