Jerome Wenger NanoBioPhotonics

Our recent research results on single molecule fluorescence control with nanoantennas have just been highlighted in the April issue of CNRS Le Journal, the monthly magazine presenting the most recent scientific results obtained within the CNRS. See the article on our research on page 13 : "Very Bright Molecules".

Only one week left until the application deadline !

The Fresnel Institute is seeking a top qualified researcher to fill an assistant professor (Maitre de Conference in French) position. The research topic will primarily deal with theoretical simulations of nanophotonics. Read the full details here, and the official announcement here.

A little of self-satisfaction won't hurt... Thanks to all colleagues who found part of my work of interest to their research.

Check the items on the left column for latest research results and publications for download (more science to follow on this blog).

CNRS colleagues are organizing the next advanced school on nano-objects NOIS 2011(May 16-20 2011, Anglet, France). I will give two lessons on photonics structures for the enhanced detection of nano-ojects.

See the official website here. Application deadline: 08 april 2011

Last week, I had a (long) discussion with French colleagues about the most relevant way to show scientific independence. The issue in France is that as young researchers (age typically < 40), we are NOT intended to run our own group, but have to be integrated into a (larger) group lead by a so-called "class A" researcher (understand full professor or CNRS director). Leading his/her own young research group is not the point in France, contrarily to colleagues in UK, Germany or Spain.

The crazyness of this situation is that all young researcher I know are performing their research independently on their senior group leader. All this looks like mostly an obscure French administrative issue: young researchers can be scientifically autonomous within a group, but not fully administratively autonomous.

So, how to demonstrate independence? This can be a real issue in fierce funding competition at European level. The best answer I can provide is to go back to the scientific output, ie peer-reviewed papers, and check for corresponding authors and last authors. For my own case, here is the kind of graph to show my transition to independence:

Data are in % of total articles per year (for 2011 it also includes submitted and in press manuscripts). Of course, this does not constitute the sole evaluation criterion, yet combined with publications list and brief scientific achievements description, I think it can provide a fair overview.