Antiparasite behavior

What do you think are the biggest challenges to the scientific community in the short/medium/ long term? I think we need to get out more. Science has become ghettoised. The pressures of the grant-publication-grant cycle are keeping people in their labs, talking to a very narrow range of people. Science is increasingly a disconnected and segregated activity. This situation has a lot of very negative consequences. Among them, the public becomes suspicious of science and innovation, delaying or preventing the adoption of sciencedriven solutions to societal problems; interesting synergies between unlikely partners are missed; and research careers look unattractive to the next generation. There has been a lot of complaint in the community about the UK Research Council Impact Agenda, and the requirement to explain ‘pathways to impact’ in grant applications. People think it is about making us predict how our research might be applied in the future and/or making us do research that is immediately applicable. I disagree with this interpretation. I think it is about highlighting the imperative that science and scientists engage with a much wider range of people than is currently usually the case. This includes wider engagement with academia; the public, private and charitable sectors; and a range of general audiences. The current isolationism is giving the impression that science is some kind of special activity accessible only to the chosen few who think they are infallible. Science is a very creative and inclusive human thing, with tremendous power to improve life for everyone. If we can’t reintegrate it with everything else, then its potential will be lost. So I think we should stop complaining and get out more.