One hears horror stories about labs all too often. Graduate students who are left to sink or swim. Highly competitive environments in which people don't talk to each other. Labs where graduate students are at the beck and call of an overbearing lab head who treats them like fodder for his or her own glory... Paradoxically or not, such tales often emerge from outstanding labs. It seems that 'incorrect' management and rank exploitation are no barrier to a record of outstanding scientific achievement—by the person doing the exploiting, at least. Less often heard are tales of outstandingly good management. Most important, surely, are ways in which some lab heads empower their students not only to achieve outstanding work in their years of formation, but also to continue in that vein independently. Better still if the students hand on such empowerment to the next generation. So we set out to look for such outstanding mentors. We did so in collaboration with NESTA, the UK National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. NESTA sits between the UK research councils and the arts funding agencies in supporting projects that foster individual artistic, technological and scientific creativity (see www.nesta.org.uk). Its terms of reference required the awards toberestrictedtoBritain.
展开▼
