Often what we do is either peripheral mining of the "transformative" veins being explored by others or tailings mining of the debris pile left behind as the miner who opened the vein went for the rich ore. Often different people will disagree as to what type of mining you are engaged in, but it is important in terms of your standing in the community.
Peripheral mining demands that you think a few steps ahead to where a vein might lead and sink a shaft out beyond the boundaries of the current work. This has challenges and risks. If you misjudge where the vein will go you sink resources into a shaft that comes up empty. If you get too close to the current work you can come into conflict with the current work. I have received reviews that essentially indicated that the area I proposed to explore belonged to a specific RO1 researcher who had never shown any inclination to move in the direction I was going, but since my synthesis utilized their methods the reviewers declared the field off-limits to me. (I have explored the field without funding and slowly moved forward, never being in conflict with any other miners.)
Tailings mining by my definition is the me-too research that some journals specialize in. We have all seen this stuff. Chiral amino alcohols influence the stereoselectivity of additions of organozinc species to aldehydes. When the tailings miners come in they pick every aminoalcohol that exists or can be made and run the reaction. Their publications only show the amino alcohol and the yields and selectivities, but make no attempt to add to our understanding of the science. In this specific case there are scores of papers in this area and dozens more come out each year.
Mining the tailings can help get that minimum number of papers you need to get tenure, but you need peripheral mining or your need to open new mines to have a viable and fundable research program. Challenging? Sure, but if you don't like challenge research is not for you.
TS Hall
All very good points, a difficult act to follow. What professors do you know went from a PUI/MCU to an RO1 institution? Those would definitely be interesting stories.
ReplyDeleteI definitely like the mining analogy, since I tend to think of research as a mining operation myself. Discovery is our gold, the rocks in between are all the hard work.
The first name that leaps to mind is Michael Doyle (http://www.chem.umd.edu/Faculty_Directory/faculty.php?id=10). If memory serves me, he started at Hope College, moved to Trinity in San Antonio, then to Arizona with a position at Research Corp. and he is now the Chairperson at the University of Maryland. Professor Doyle was heavily involved in, if not one of the founders of, the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) (http://www.cur.org/), of which I am a member.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this information. I did not know such an organization existed, I'll definitely take a look at some of the literature and recommend it to others.
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