Whew, that was fast.
But a single day had to pass after the Obokata announcement of a new and better pathway to producing stem cells, one seemingly consigning to the footnotes the government's 110 billion yen investment in Yamanaka Shinya's induced pluripotent stem cell method, for Education Minister Shimomura Hakubun to announce a plan to dramatically raise both the Riken research center's official status and the Riken staff pay (Link). The Yomiuri Shimbun, perhaps getting a little ahead of itself, speculates that under new guidelines research centers of Riken's new elevated status could offer hot researchers pay packages of USD 1 million per year. (Link - J)
Whatever one may want to say about the Abe Administration, one cannot complain about its moving too slowly and meekly to exploit opportunities to get behind a winning team.
Hopefully, Abe-san will restore the pay of Japanese academics in general. After the cuts of a few years ago, some of my colleagues are making pennies at this point, despite increasing obligations.
ReplyDeletePlot got thicker, didn't it? Was hoping for your take on the attacks on her. Here's mine.
ReplyDeletehttp://hanlonsrzr.blogspot.jp/2014/04/haruko-obokata-standing-nail-perverted.html