NEWS from The Royal Society May 95

The Royal Society is piloting a new postdoctoral fellowship scheme, to be known as the Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowships. The idea for the scheme arose from the Society's own investigation in 1994 into the current situation for women scientists, and was consolidated by the findings of 'The Rising Tide' a report produced for the Office of Science and Technology (OST). Both the Society and the OST concluded that the first few years after a PhD, when young persons aged between 25 and 35 are establishing themselves in scientific careers, is also the time when a) the individual may be starting a family b)the "system" offers very little in the way of security and flexibility at work.

Clearly the conflict of pressure from home and work will impact on both parents, but as women tend to take on the main responsibilities of child-rearing they are normally the ones most severely affected. Statistics show that the stage between PhD and Lecturer is one during which a significant number of women find themselves either progressing rather more slowly than their male colleagues, or deciding to abandon their research careers altogether. The Society is therefore piloting this new scheme to offer a recognised first step into a research career for excellent young scientists and engineers. The fellowships are open to both sexes and will offer a high level of support and flexibility which is advantageous to both, but should be particularly useful and encouraging to women. The Society stresses that awards will be made on merit.

Ten fellowships will be available offering four years' guaranteed tenure on research Staff IA/II scale, up to �5000 annual grant to cover research expenses, the option of participating in mentor and networking schemes, the option of working part time, regular career advice, support and flexibility with maternity cover.

Applicants should preferably not have passed their 35th birthday by 1 October 1995 and should have Ph.D or equivalent research experience. They should have had no more than three years' research experience at post-doctoral level on taking up the fellowship and should be normally resident in the UK.

The Royal Society enrolled the help of universities, as prospective employers of the Dorothy Hodgkin Fellows, by asking them to advertise the scheme internally. Two different forms of advertisement were used, one for those departments where women are significantly under-represented, the other for all other departments.

Although named after Dorothy Hodgkin, the fellowships are not limited to crystallographic applicants, they cover all areas of natural sciences. They will be funded by a mixture of the Society's own private funds and its Parliamentary Grant-in-aid.

The closing date for these fellowships was 19 May 1995, so by the time you read this it will be too late to apply, but I thought members would like to learn of this initiative. Those of you who have been regularly looking at BCA news on our World Wide Web homepage will have seen this news in time to apply.

We hope to bring you a report on the winners of the first set of fellowships in a future issue of 'Crystallography News'.

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