Ten rules for (possibly) succeeding in academia through upward kindness

I hope we all get your wish for next year; and you get you big red India-Rubber Ball and may be a pocket knife that really cuts.

After Christmas, (if there are any in the January sales), I will buy and send you a big, red, India-rubber ball. I do like some of the ideas put forward in this article. However, in the U.K. and all round the world, there are too many vested interests and scientific pirates, quite willing to steal your original ideas and have their (often) huge research groups do the experiments in a few weeks and publish them without you or your name appearing on any published works/grants etc. I have had my ideas pirated in the U.K .and abroad on three separate occasions, over 35 years, all of which resulted in highly cited papers in high impact factor journals (without my name as an author). My advice to students/post-docs is, wherever possible to keep your best ideas to yourself and not disclose them when you are not in a position to be able to do the experiments, publish and get the paper/grant/ next research job yourself.

Thank you! I love this. Let’s flip the narrative in 2020. Kindness is a superpower that connects us. We need it more than ever if we are to protect what is great about our universities

Admirable suggestions.