AAS | Events | 14-15 February 2008

Jenny Graves: Thank you very much, Bryan. So much of what you said really struck chords in my memory, and I imagine that was so for everybody else as well.

Question: I have a question directed to both of you. I've not looked extensively at these particular schemes, but do they generally encourage people to go on inter-semester breaks? Some of us have teaching commitments so it is difficult to consider travel overseas unless you can fit it into a teaching schedule. So how should we look to apply for these, to make the most of our inter-semester breaks? Are they restricted to a time of year or not?

Bryan Gaensler: My understanding is that most of them are pretty flexible in their time and recognise that there might be only a certain time of the year when you can travel. Fortunately, our mid-semester break is quite often the middle of when the action is overseas, so it is a good time to travel. The other thing is that some universities provide for sabbaticals or research leave, or at least let you double up in one semester to avoid teaching in the other one. That is not always possible, but if you can plan ahead you might be able to carve out an extra block of time. It's not worth going overseas for a week. If you need a month, then you might have to prepare ahead to carve that out of your schedule.

Jenny Graves: I think most of these schemes are pretty flexible. What is not so flexible and is a real problem, I think, is that international meetings that you want to attend overseas are at a difficult time and you just have to juggle that. There is not much you can do about it.

Bryan Gaensler: I find volunteering to teach other people's classes when they need to travel earns you lot of points for when you need to go to a conference.

Question: Thank you for a great talk. I was thinking that we have heard a lot today about retaining Australian researchers and/or attracting them back. But, from your point of view, how do you attract the international people to come over here? You have alluded to Australia having a great lifestyle and said that is why people come over, but is there anything else that people will come to Australia for?

Bryan Gaensler: I wouldn't underestimate the power of that. I had colleagues from the Netherlands who were happily turning down other fellowships in the Netherlands just because they wanted to see the sun. So I think lifestyle and weather are important. People with children sometimes warm to the idea of a place that is generally safe and has a very good education system. Health care is a big issue for people in the US; here it is reasonably affordable and high quality. So I would say that lifestyle is a huge factor.

If you are trying to sell them on the research, my argument is that I was at MIT and Harvard, some of the best places in the world, and I would not have moved back here to take a step backward. I wanted to step up when I moved back to Australia, and I feel that I did. Obviously, you have to convince them that what you are doing is world class, but I think that Australia is world class, and if you have somehow got money to hire someone then you are probably at an international level and they are interested in you scientifically. It is just a case of convincing them that it is okay to do that, and do it in Australia. I have never encountered someone who says, 'I don't want to go to Australia because the work being done there is no good.'

Question: Talking about going and visiting overseas groups, you said that it may be better to visit a group that is not doing exactly the work you are doing. Any tips about how you front up to someone that you don't really know, working in a slightly different field, and say, 'Hey, I want to come and work with you for a couple of months'?

Bryan Gaensler: Yes, I did that myself and it is a rather hard thing to say, 'You've never heard of me and I don't work exactly in your area, but…' I think a lot of people are impressed by initiative and a desire to learn new things, particularly if you can bring something to them, the promise of possible collaboration. For example, in the US, students are ridiculously expensive and quite hard to get. If you can dangle them the promise, 'If we build up a link, maybe my students can come and work with you,' that is quite appealing.

In general, I find most people, at least in astronomy, pretty friendly, and many of them will actually say, 'Well, if you come, you pay your airfare and we'll pay your local hotel bill.' I can't generalise; other fields might be different. I know the life sciences tend to be a bit more competitive and less collegial sometimes. But generally I think if you are prepared to make the effort, you think it is worth spending time with them, most people will be happy to accommodate you. And even if you don't have a proposed program of research – 'On Monday we'll do this' – just by hanging around, giving a talk, talking to the students, you find that after a few weeks ideas just start to develop on their own.

Jenny Graves: I don't know anybody who is not really flattered by getting an email from somebody they have never heard of, saying, 'I'm terribly interested in your work and I want to come and work with you.'

Bryan Gaensler: They may not say, 'We'll pay your airfare, we'll fly you up there,' but if you're going to the trouble of getting the money they'll normally make an effort.

Question (cont.): But some of these top people will be getting a dozen of these emails every month.

Bob Williamson: I talked to Fred Sanger about 20 years ago about this, and he said that everyone was so intimidated that he did not actually get students applying. And I agree with Jenny and Bryan: flattery will get you anywhere.

Bryan, I agreed with everything you said, but I would like to comment on one problem you mentioned. When I was at Imperial College London, running a molecular genetics group, my group of about 40 people probably had 30 nationalities in it. Not only were all of them extremely good, very ambitious, but it made a better group because everyone came from a somewhat different background, there was a lot of grist in the mill. It was incredibly productive.

At the Murdoch, although we have an international reputation, the students whom I knew from the UK or France or the US tended to want to go to Harvard and MIT. And I just found it very, very hard to recruit. When you add to that the tradition here of having smaller groups than they often have in the States or Europe, I really don't know quite what you do about this. Any ideas on what we can say to the minister?

Bryan Gaensler: Well, I think at the most idealistic level there is ambition to get some of our universities into the top 10 in the world. We are almost there, and I think at that point people start to think, 'This is the place to be.' I was very worried about that exact problem: if someone has a job offer at Harvard and Sydney, they're never going to come to Sydney. But so far, in the six or so hires I have made since I moved back a year ago, I am almost batting 100 per cent. And I think it is just because I go beyond making the job offer – I recognise that moving to Australia might be moving out of the loop, I try and to come up with sweeteners in terms of saying, 'Before I even hire you, I guarantee you $12,000 a year in travel funding.' That is a big sweetener, because at another job, even though it might be at Harvard, they know they are going to ask every time they want to travel. Just having that reassurance that whenever they need to get on a plane they can is a huge incentive, just that feeling of independence, that you are not just somebody's slave helping glorify their CV.

But it is a challenge, and at some level it will always be there.

Also, if someone is good enough to get to MIT, then in some sense I want what is best for them. I think that is the other thing in recruiting, that ultimately you have to put your own ambition aside. You want to see what is best for this person, and that will pay itself back. If I tell someone, 'Don't come with me. Go to MIT; it's going to be really good for you,' then three years later they might say, 'Okay, I had a great time and now I have got this fellowship and I want to come and spend three years in Australia.'

Question: I have recently got some money to go overseas and I want to try and block in going to some other institutes. What is the minimum amount of time that you reckon is a useful amount of time to spend in a various range of institutes or places? It should be as long as possible, obviously.

Bryan Gaensler: Yes. Obviously, that is an open-ended question. I don't think it makes sense to visit any individual place. If you want to come away with something more than just, 'Enjoyed your talk,' you really need to be there for three or four days at the absolute minimum, and preferably longer. So, if you were doing a bit of a travel around, I would guess three or four weeks if you can swing it, at least – particularly if you want to come away with a plan for the future. When you actually say to someone, 'Let's talk about grants,' and you sit there in a room, quite often you don't come up with any good ideas. But then two days later you're talking over coffee about something else or some paper has just come out, and that's when the idea kicks in. So I think you have to avoid setting up an artificial situation where you are forced to come up with some sort of plan. If you just have enough time to let things happen, I think the results are a lot better.

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