• Question: How severely would not winning the vote affect your career and your research, would you be able to complete your research without it because Harriet mentioned giving the money to charity which although is very nice it doesn't help your research in science!?

    Asked by x.genie to Andy, Chris, Harriet, Jess, Nikki on 9 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Christopher Blanford

      Christopher Blanford answered on 9 Mar 2016:

      Giving the money to charity will help science.

      Science costs a lot of money to do, especially the science we’re all doing. That’s why you always see adds on TV for Cancer Research UK and others.

      Some of my current work is supported by a charity that helps people with a skin disease that causes painful bumps under the skin.

      I want to help science education, especially places I can’t reach (you know, past Croydon 🙂 ).

      Will it affect my career? No.

      Will it make me cry? Only a little. 😈

    • Photo: andy chapman

      andy chapman answered on 9 Mar 2016:

      I am totally dependent on it. If i don’t win I will be out of a job.

      No, jokes aside, it won’t affect me at all. Giving the money to charity is a great thing to do with it. We get money in other ways for our research and science can be so expensive to do that £500 does not go that far. It would be really helpful for my outreach project, or a charity though.

    • Photo: Harriet Reid

      Harriet Reid answered on 9 Mar 2016:

      Obviously I would be heartbroken… but I think I would get over it eventually!

      The most important thing for a scientists career is the papers that they publish in scientific journals. Thats how other scientists know what research they have done, and what other scientist think about the work.

      As Andy said science is very expensive to do, did you know that the average cost of developing a new drug is around $1 billion (know its a ridiculous amount of money!) In universities most of the money to do research comes from the government, through funding councils. Scientists write to say what science they want to and why its important, the the best ideas get funded.

      We would all spend the money on telling people about science (though in different ways). Some of the most biggest political debates we have are over science, think about climate change, GM food, new medicines and so many more! Teaching people about how science works will help them to look at the evidence and decide for themselves who to believe!

      The charity I would give the money to the the Lightyear foundation, they send scientists to schools in Africa to help kids (and teachers) there to learn about science.

    • Photo: Jessica Groppi

      Jessica Groppi answered on 9 Mar 2016:

      Hi!

      These projects and ideas we presented here are side activities that we do because we love science and we would like to get young people to love it as well. None of the money we would win will fund our research, it would just help us a little bit in developing what we have in mind and maybe get more funding in the future from other sources.

      Not winning would not affect my research, although it would be nice to win!!

      Jess.

    • Photo: Nikki D'Arcy

      Nikki D'Arcy answered on 10 Mar 2016:

      Hi,

      I hope that by winning, I can use the money to insire more scientists and then that will help research in science! I have worked in a lab supported by charity money, so really appreciate the impact that donations have directly on research.

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