This blog is where we share stories, announcements, and insights from around the iGEM community.
All in iGEM Community
Academic writing and publishing are imperative skills for a scientist. Over a million scientific articles get published each year in innumerable journals, and the scientific knowledge is only growing larger. iGEM Community’s Academia and Research Network launched their Academic Publishing Workshop series to give a walkthrough of the basics of scientific writing all the way to the process of submission and publication and help scientists to share their work effectively.
The iGEM community is ripe with enthusiastic, innovative and young scientists who have made their mark on this world with their ideas and scientific contributions through their iGEM projects. Each year hundreds of teams provide new perspectives to synthetic biology and showcase their projects in the Jamboree and through publications. Who better than iGEMers to guide and encourage new iGEMers to publish their work?
As an iGEM alumnus, you automatically become a member of iGEM Community, and your iGEM pin becomes a memento symbolizing this vibrant and active community – Welcome to iGEM Community!
Since 2004, iGEM teams have been creating exciting, impactful projects just like yours. A handful of these projects have lived on as published academic papers, or have formed the basis for PhD projects, or have grown as start-up companies. However, many of the most imaginative and innovative projects have been simply left as wikis, without a clear path to enable others to move those projects forward. That changes now … enter the Phoenix Project!
Imagine a community of more than 50,000 people, spread around the world, that share the same love and passion as you do for Synbio, innovation, open science and solving problems – that is the iGEM community. Now imagine expanding and strengthening this magnificent community through the Global Alliance of Regional SynBio Associations.
The first iGEM Ambassadors were appointed in 2006 and charged with helping each team, in particular new teams, to ensure that they have a successful experience. Although this pilot program did not continue, many of the 2006 iGEM Ambassadors continued in their synthetic biology careers and remain connected to the iGEM community.
The iGEM Mentorship Program has been providing mentorship opportunities to iGEM teams and alumni since 2015. We at the iGEM Education Network have continued to analyze data from the program, to make improvements and better serve iGEMers around the world. This year we plan to launch two new initiatives – the Mentors Network and EduHall.
In 2016, iGEM Foundation started the After iGEM Delegate Program, for iGEMers to engage in the international policy dialogue on synthetic biology, experience the setting, and learn about treaties and protocols which influence how scientists conduct, share, access, and support research.
