After a nice holiday here in sunny Portugal, life is all about writing project proposals. I'll submit one to the Research Council of Norway (RCN) on September 4th (BIOTEK2021) and another one to the Portuguese research council (the FCT Investigator Programme) on September 10th. One is based on my recently established collaborations within marine biotechnology here in Portugal (University of Azores and BioCant), the other one to continue my research within DNA repair. It keeps me busy day and night now, but what can you do? My Marie Curie fellowship will be over on March 31st 2014 and I would like to continue with my research somewhere – I just need another grant, and then another one, and then another one, and that’s probably how it’s going to be until the end of my career. It is sad, but true - the conditions for young (in my case - soon middle aged:) scientists in Europe is difficult, and a lot of us will still for many years have to fight about money for a salary in order to continue our search for answers on our hypothesis. Here in Portugal the situation is extremely difficult now because of the economic crisis, and the country has to see many brilliant young scientists leaving to pursue an academic career in other counties. It’s a shame because they have already invested a lot of money in their young scientists through scientific programmes which started about ten years ago, and now they have to see their investment go away. These young people would be important keep here, to help out in the reconstruction of the country when the crisis is over, but when the alternative is unemployment…..
Anyway, I should get going on my proposals again – every minute is precious now J
Have a nice weekend J
