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Join our #Forests2015 social media team!

The #Forests2015 Blog

social-media-appAre you familiar with things like “Twitter”, “Facebook”, “blogging”, “vlogging”, “podcasting”,…? Join us!
Or if those words sound like gibberish to you, well… you are welcome too!

Experienced social media users, professionals, volunteers, journalists as well as novices are equally welcome in the social media team of the XIV World Forestry Congress (#Forests2015) held in Durban (South Africa), on 7-11 Sept 2015…

We are assembling a large team of social media volunteers to support the conference. The volunteers can participate either online, or at the event itself.

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Posted on by Erick Center

Twenty tips for writing a research proposal

ConservationBytes.com

Proposal FormatThis post’s title might promise a lot, but it would be disingenuous of me to imply that I could cover all of the essential components of this massive topic in one blog post. Many people (my wife included) have made careers out of teaching people how to write successful grant proposals, so I won’t pretend to be comprehensive and insult their expertise. That said, I’ve been reasonably successful on the grants’ side of the science game, and I’ve assessed a fair few grant proposals in my day, so I think I can offer at least a few pointers. As usual, each person probably has her or his own way of doing things, so there’s unlikely to be a single, winning method. Approaches will also vary by funding agency and country of origin. I am therefore targeting the earlier-career people who have yet to get fully indoctrinated into the funding cycle…

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Posted on by Erick Center

RUFORUM Fellow scores a double

The RUFORUM Blog

Winner: Blessing Odugwu (Second left) Winner: Blessing Odugwu (Second left)

Blessing Adanta Odogwu, a Nigerian PhD student of Plant Breeding and Biotechnology at Makerere University, Uganda, has won the 2014 African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) and the 2014 fall Norman Borlaug Leadership Enhancement in Agriculture Programme (LEAP) fellowships.

AWARD is a career-development program that equips top women agricultural scientists across sub-Saharan Africa to accelerate agricultural gains by strengthening their research and leadership skills, through tailored fellowships. Fellowships are competitive and awarded on the basis of intellectual merit, leadership capacity, and the potential of the scientist’s research to improve the daily lives of smallholder farmers, especially women. As a fellow, Mrs. Odogwu will benefit from a two-year career-development program focused on fostering mentoring partnerships, building science skills, and developing leadership capacity. She will be mentored by Dr. Mildred Ochwo-Ssemakula, a Lecturer and Coordinator for Graduate Studies at the School of Agricultural Sciences…

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Posted on by Erick Center

Learning Soft Skills During Your PhD Training

WildlifeSNPits

We’ve all talked to PIs who express how surprised they are to leave the bench when they become assistant professors.  They lament how much grant writing and budgeting they do and that PhD training did not prepare them for the job.  Additionally, we hear from many PhDs that their program didn’t prepare them for a non-academic job.  However, this does not have to be the case.  With planning, PhD students can train in the numerous soft skills that will be useful for either academic or non-academic jobs.

  • Social media to promote science and build a brand (your brand or an employer’s brand). Not every platform is right for everybody; however, using social media can increase your individual reach.
    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • Storify
    • Instagram
    • Pintrest
  • Blogging to promote science outreach
  • Working with your university press office
    • Promote recently published papers with press releases
    • Media training
    • Working with your press office will force…

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