One of the things I’ve been trying really hard to get over is the notion of the doctoral ‘student’. This is by far the most common way to refer to people doing a PhD, and it’s pretty hard not to use the ‘s’ word when it’s all around you. I think of myself as a recovering ‘s’ word user. I lapse occasionally, but I’m trying hard not to.

I want to use the term doctoral researcher instead – or dr for short. So, dr – not yet Dr but on the way. Just insert title (case) and the transition is complete.

Now, there are good reasons why the ‘s’ word persists. There is a fee for doctoral study, and yes, doctoral researchers are enrolled at a university. So this makes them students, just like any other students, right?

Well yes. But on the other hand…

One reason I dislike the…

New paper out in Oryx:

Half-Earth or Whole Earth? Radical ideas for conservation, and their implications

• Bram Büscher^(a1), Robert Fletcher^(a1), Dan Brockington^(a2), Chris Sandbrook^(a3), William M. Adams^(a3), Lisa Campbell^(a4), Catherine Corson^(a5), Wolfram Dressler^(a6), Rosaleen Duffy^(a7), Noella Gray^(a8), George Holmes^(a9), Alice Kelly^(a10), Elizabeth Lunstrum^(a11), Maano Ramutsindela^(a12) and Kartik Shanker^(a13)

last update: 27/2/2017

“…….So things might have happily continued, had not the corporate interests within this limited, subsidised economy pushed journal subscription prices to the point where access to the knowledge went into a state of decline, at a time when new publishing technologies enabled researchers to take publishing back into their own hands. These new technologies have been used to demonstrate how access can be greatly increased, improving the circulation of knowledge, restoring the researcher’s control of knowledge, and extending its value as a public good by making it far more widely available.” Willinsky J. 2003. The Nine Flavours of Open Access Scholarly Publishing . J Postgrad Med  49:263-7.

Academics write most of their work in journals. Journals should publish and curate good quality work, but unfortunately the majority are also used to make money for commercial publishers. This is not a win-win situation. Corporate profits are frequently high because companies…