Training the Next Generation of Scientists
Dr. Peter W. Brothers, Head, IRRI Education
Abstract: Scientific method still follows much the same the principles offered by Francis Bacon in 1620. However the context in which researchers work continually evolves.
From the perspective of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) the rate of change is increasing. Every year we have over 300 MS and PhD students and early-career scientists come to work at IRRI, and we are finding that the experiences and skills that they are looking for while they are with us are becoming more complex.
It is not just that the nature of rice-based agri-food systems research is changing. That is true, and the topics in this Symposium attest to that. It is also that the nature of the careers that they will have, the funding systems that will employ them and support their research, and their opportunities for international collaboration will be quite different from those of prior generations of scientists.
This paper considers these factors and offers ideas about the training of early-career researchers and the implications for international research collaborations.
Bio: Dr. Peter Brothers is Head of IRRI Education, the training arm of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
He is an engineer by background, and both a researcher and educator. From New Zealand, he spent twenty years in the United States, studying at Colorado State University, doing research at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, being an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado, and leading both research and technical training at Johnson Controls (a Fortune 100 corporation based in Milwaukee).
Returning to New Zealand, he was Dean of Engineering at the University of Auckland, and then Chief Executive of the Manukau Institute of Technology, a vocational training institution. He has been at IRRI for eighteen months, going there to expand IRRI’s training activities to address the full spectrum of educational needs in the rice-based agri-food systems world that IRRI serves.
