This is a quick post to announce what I’ll be doing next after my postdoc at the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge. From June 2017 onwards, I’m delighted to say I’ll be the new Open Access Grants Manager for Arcadia Fund.
About Arcadia Fund
If you haven’t heard of it before here’s what you need to know: Arcadia is a charitable fund, set up by Peter Baldwin and Lisbet Rausing in 2002. So far, it has awarded more than $440 million to cultural, environmental and open access projects. Within the open access funding programme Arcadia have awarded grants to organisations including Creative Commons, Wikimedia Foundation, Authors Alliance, Public.Resource.Org, Internet Archive, Digital Public Library of America and more…
New Career, Same Me
When the job ad came-up I could scarcely believe how good the organisational fit was for me: Arcadia funds brilliant projects in this space. I am genuinely looking forward to developing and advising on Arcadia’s open access policy, to continue engaging with the wider open access community, to manage Arcadia’s existing grants portfolio, and to identify new opportunities for high impact initiatives where funding from Arcadia will make a difference.
I feel extremely grateful to have been chosen for this position against many other talented and experienced applicants (and friends!) and although it’ll take me many months to ‘learn the ropes’ I see this as my new career now, no going back. I’m now part of the 88% majority of UK postdocs who never secure a tenured position in academia; but don’t feel sorry for me – I’m delighted with this new direction. New career, same me.
A lot of passionate, intelligent young people with an academic background have jobs where they can really make a difference (i.e. not in academia). In this regard, I’m inspired by the likes of TJ Bliss at Hewlett Foundation, Carly Strasser at Moore Foundation, Nick Shockey at SPARC, Heather Piwowar and Jason Priem at Impactstory, Joe McArthur at The Right to Research Coalition, and Jonathon Gray at Open Knowledge. Now I’ve turned 30, I’m married, and I have a beautiful baby daughter. Some things have changed, but my passion for open knowledge hasn’t. Doing ‘open’ on the side of research wasn’t enough. Soon it’ll be my full time endeavour!
Comments
3 responses to “New Career, Same Me”
This is excellent news, and well deserved — congratulations!
congratulations Ross!!
Well done Ross. And congratulations to Arcadia for their discernment in hiring you!