2024-June Quarterly Meeting Notes and To Do Items - ACCESS Awards

A brainstorming session around the notion of recognizing the research & education taking place on ACCESS resources (geared around our personas/stakeholders) as well as ACCESS Staff Members; slides here.

Type: Parallel

Presenter: Stephen Deems

Follow Up

Staff ACCESS Awards

• Can we have any little something (like an ACCESS T-shirt or mug?)

  • Need to look into prizes/swag

• can we give more weight to people who nominate team members on other awards

• We should also refrain from nominating PIs.

• picking those that we don’t typically see would be great. 

• Also highlight in quarterly meetings

  • do we want the nominator to talk and do the presenting? Or should it be from PI/Manager/etc.

• Put it in newsletter as long as the person is not uncomfortable about being discussed

• if the person approves, we could promote it on LinkedIn

• Students working on the ACCESS project could be really impactful

  • Early career folks in general could benefit

  • https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-024-02351-8

    • The rise in team size in academic science has generated an unintended side effect: junior scientists are less likely to secure research funding or obtain tenure and are more likely to leave academia.

    • Our evidence suggests that increases in average team size worsen the career prospects of scientists. Following 10 cohorts of science and social science graduates over time, we found that as team size at the time of graduation increased across fields and time, individuals were less likely to obtain tenure-track jobs, receive tenure and receive federal research funding. In addition, these individuals were more likely to leave academia and their scientific field. Surprisingly, the estimated impact of team size is able to account for the entire decline in tenure prospects for young scientists over this period.

       

      There are theoretical explanations for why the careers of junior scientists might suffer when larger teams become the norm: primarily, it becomes more difficult for funding agencies and universities to be confident in the abilities of young scientists working in teams16. As a result, less funding goes to junior scientists and more funding and rewards end up being allocated to well-established scientists. The shift in funding away from junior scientists has led to concern that funding agencies may suffer from bias (such as the Matthew effect, in which young scientists’ achievements are attributed to senior scientists on their team17), and we do find some evidence that female and foreign-born scientists have worse career outcomes. It has also led to policies that allocate some funding exclusively for young scientists. But it is possible that funding agencies are not highly biased and are mostly responding to the reduced information now available on younger scientists.

Community ACCESS Awards

• Announce at an event/panel/symposium

• Also maybe MSIs, non-R1s

• Could potentially break down Outstanding RP into New and Existing

• Type of Award?

  • I'm guessing if you have it at a big conference you'd pay for the winner's registration?

    • I'm imagining some of these folks might not show up at SC due to the cost?

    • That could be the role of the CCEP that Stephen was referencing. It probably depends on total number of winners.

  • Would corporate sponsors (i.e. NVIDIA, etc) be allowed to support it? Could even co-brand award to help showcase industry partners

    • Lots of support for this

• Prize raffle for nominators to encourage nominators

• See above:

  • Early career people would benefit 

  • For things like the students, there could be a finalists list if not multiple awards 

    • that in itself could be prestigious

• RPs do some of the nomination would be great,

When can we start?