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Escape from sunny Spain II
10 December 2009
By Rodrigo Carbajo
For me as an ex-postdoc in a MRC laboratory in Cambridge (1999-2004), scientific life has never been better than during those five years. Although it is frequent to hear from Spanish postdocs the topics about life in Britain (bland food, miserable weather, British coldness) most of them agree that scientifically and personally their postdoctoral stays have been well invested years, and it is quite common to find many who, after returning to Spain and finding still too hard to do science in their country, regret having left the UK. There are many things, some that might look small, that make the difference between the two countries. For example, one of the first things I noticed in the UK labs was the presence of well organised and competent technical support of all kinds. In the Spanish research centres and universities is still very hard to find technicians at all, as these positions are rarely funded and the labs are very much formed by bosses, postdocs and PhD students. The main consequence is that in the UK the most basic and menial tasks are undertaken by the technicians, while the more focused scientific personnel (us, the postdocs) could waste our time searching for the important things in science. That conveys a much higher scientific productivity in the UK. Resources are definitely much more abundant in the UK, a case in point being the access to computing equipment. I had exclusive use of two computers (workstation and iMac, both necessary for my research), which I saw as a luxury compared with the one for ten graduates during my PhD in Spain. Although Cambridge is probably not a good example due to its prominent position, scientific abundance in terms of equipment and money was common in the lab. Also, a major difference was the possibility of attending international meetings almost yearly, considered not only normal but necessary for our research, while in Spain many people still has to pay for those trips from their own pockets. But such abundance showed us as well that not all resources in the UK are well used, and a lot of money is wasted in UK science. Many lab things were considered disposable after being used once in order to avoid the annoyance of cleaning and many students (and some PIs) were not very thoughtful at the time of how to spend the research money.
Also, one of the major benefits of being in Cambridge was the critical mass concentrated there, that attracted so many researchers from around the world to spend some years, or simply give a seminar. The exchange of ideas and the lively discussions that followed created a unique atmosphere. The social recognition science has in the UK can only be properly understood when you come from a nation that lacks scientific tradition like Spain. The UK is proud of their scientific achievements, and it is quite common to have a Nobel laureate every other year. Spain has only got Ramon y Cajal (the father of neuroscience) in the scientific categories, but that was 103 years ago. Therefore, it is understandable that Spain is much prouder of its football and tennis players than of any of its scientists which are still anonymous figures to nearly all the population.
Matthew Salois 16 December 2009 at 05:33 PM
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I think your point about regarding available resources to researchers and scientific output and productivity is very important. In this weary economic climate, there are suddent impulses to decrease the amount of funding to academic and research institutions. And this is a global trend happening in the US, UK, and other European countries. However, this is a big mistake as scientific discovery is a big driver of economic growth. Pulling resources away from scientific endeavors in times of economic woe will only serve to worsen the situation in the long-run.
Tennie Videler 08 January 2010 at 01:49 PM
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Rodrigo has since had a letter along these lines published in EMBO Journal entitled 'The Bronze Age of science in Spain' : http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v11/n1/full/embor2009260.html have a read!
Catherine O'Brien 27 January 2010 at 11:30 AM
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Hello Rodrigo, I am a researcher at Cambridge University, trying to find out how social security problems influence the mobility of researchers in the EU. I wondered if you have any anecdotes from your personal experience of moving around the EU for your research work? This could be issues to do with pensions, unemployment, family, disability, benefits. For example, have you faced pension implications such as pensions not being portable when the researcher moved to the UK or Europe or to another country within the EU? I am collecting anecdotes about these issues with a view to forming policy recommendations for tackling the social security problems faced by internationally mobile researchers. Any help would be appreciated.
Rodrigo Carbajo 29 January 2010 at 06:24 PM
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Hi Catherine To be honest, I didn't pay much attention to those issues when in Cambridge. At that time, early thirties, doing science in a different country, most of us weren't thinking clearly about the future (big mistake!). First, it is difficult to predict how long you'll be a postdoc or living in the UK. I was offered entering the pension scheme at the MRC but I refused, but it didn´t look in detail if there were any advantages for joining. It was at the end when I started to realise I should look into those matters. Because some kind of treaty between Spain and the UK, Once I retire I´ll just have to sort out that issue from here, but apparently there should be no problem and they will add up to my pension the money generated from Spain.