The University of Alberta's pre-eminence in
Carlos Flores-Mir, a postdoctoral fellow in the university's orthodontic program, has attended some of these sessions. "I have all the support I need or could have imagined," he says. However, departments receive varying levels of support, he adds, because at this point, the office is still registering postdocs around campus.
Members of his department already have enrolled in the office's Postdoctoral Fellows (PDF) development program, launched in September 2003. The program offers training in communication, career...
In the Number 2 Spot: The University of Liverpool
Every five years, the United Kingdom conducts its Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), whereby its universities and colleges are judged for the quality of their research. According to the RAE Web site,1 institutions conducting the best research receive a larger proportion of money: In 2001, the pot contained about €5 billion.
The University of Liverpool had not been ranked among elite UK universities, but in 2001, a turnaround began: It received the high RAE rating of 5 for biology, chemistry, pharmacology, clinical laboratory science, and veterinary science, and the highest 5* rating for physiology. According to the school, 93% of its staff were assessed at performing at the highest levels, an improvement from its prior level of 62%.2
Jamie Wilson, a postdoc in cancer research, praises the quality of the university's science and boasts about its access to up-to-date equipment. "Just a very good place to be at the moment," he says. "It's now got a 5* rating [in physiology]. The new building has dedicated rooms for specific areas of research and yet has open, planned areas for interaction with other labs. There are always people to go and see when you need to."
For biological sciences in particular, the most important development was the consolidation of the whole school within a single, new state-of-the-art building in October 2002, says Brian Merry, a specialist in aging. "That's brought us in from seven old Victorian buildings scattered around the town. We've now got all postdocs together, with access to a wide range of expertise from ecology to genetics, and with access to all the latest technologies, such as proteomics, and also a confocal imaging suite, which is one of the best in the world." This consolidation, says Merry, has made it possible to obtain funding for collaborative projects that previously would have been impractical, given the school's fragmentation.
- Philip Hunter
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