http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/193001/Escape-from-sunny-Spain-II.html Feed for Escape from sunny Spain II en-gb http://vitae.ac.uk 24-Feb-2010 14:55:08 http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/193001/Escape-from-sunny-Spain-II.html Hi Catherine To be honest, I didn't pay much attention to those issues when in Cambridge. At that time, early thirties, doing science in a different country, most of us weren't thinking clearly about the future (big mistake!). First, it is difficult to predict how long you'll be a postdoc or living in the UK. I was offered entering the pension scheme at the MRC but I refused, but it didn´t look in detail if there were any advantages for joining. It was at the end when I started to realise I should look into those matters. Because some kind of treaty between Spain and the UK, Once I retire I´ll just have to sort out that issue from here, but apparently there should be no problem and they will add up to my pension the money generated from Spain. http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/193001/Escape-from-sunny-Spain-II.html http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/193001/Escape-from-sunny-Spain-II.html Hello Rodrigo, I am a researcher at Cambridge University, trying to find out how social security problems influence the mobility of researchers in the EU. I wondered if you have any anecdotes from your personal experience of moving around the EU for your research work? This could be issues to do with pensions, unemployment, family, disability, benefits. For example, have you faced pension implications such as pensions not being portable when the researcher moved to the UK or Europe or to another country within the EU? I am collecting anecdotes about these issues with a view to forming policy recommendations for tackling the social security problems faced by internationally mobile researchers. Any help would be appreciated. http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/193001/Escape-from-sunny-Spain-II.html http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/193001/Escape-from-sunny-Spain-II.html Rodrigo has since had a letter along these lines published in EMBO Journal entitled 'The Bronze Age of science in Spain' : http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v11/n1/full/embor2009260.html have a read! http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/193001/Escape-from-sunny-Spain-II.html http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/193001/Escape-from-sunny-Spain-II.html I think your point about regarding available resources to researchers and scientific output and productivity is very important. In this weary economic climate, there are suddent impulses to decrease the amount of funding to academic and research institutions. And this is a global trend happening in the US, UK, and other European countries. However, this is a big mistake as scientific discovery is a big driver of economic growth. Pulling resources away from scientific endeavors in times of economic woe will only serve to worsen the situation in the long-run. http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/193001/Escape-from-sunny-Spain-II.html