[3dem] GRC Locations

[Bohn, Stefan]

Hello Henning,

thank you (and everyone involved) for the open request to move the conferences out of the US. I believe this to be a reasonable and necessary step to take.

Adding to Ulrikes comment, many foreign scientists working in the US would then not be able to attend conferences outside the US - I, for example, would need to renew my visa at an embassy abroad. However, due to the "increased scrutiny and screening process" we were already warned by the university, that the time from interview to visa-granting may now take much longer than the current 1-2 weeks. Of course I can not take the risk of being stuck abroad for a month or two for the sake of a conference, even if it would be a cryoEM conference.

Protectionism, nationalism and all their siblings have no place in open and (ideally) unbiased science - I spare you the rest of the rant, it could go on for a while. Working in the US for almost five years it is heartening to see how much disapproval is displayed here (San Francisco may not be the example of all of US) regarding such ridiculous decisions as the "muslim ban". For the last days I have been asking myself, what I can do about the developing situation. I haven't come up with much, with hands tied in Postdoc work, family life and living in a very unsecure situation (application for H1 is planned for June, but what if it is not granted on time?). That's why I am at least glad to support this letter.

With best regards,
Stefan.




________________________________
From: 3dem [3dem-bounces at ncmir.ucsd.edu] on behalf of Ulrike Boehm [ulrike.boehm at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2017 12:17 PM
To: Henning Stahlberg
Cc: Microscopy; 3dem; Nancy R. Gray
Subject: Re: [3dem] GRC Locations

Hi Henning,

It is a good suggestion. But we would still run into difficulties for foreign scientists (from the banned countries) doing research in the US who might not be able to return to their US institution after conferences in Europe and Asia.

Best regards,

Ulrike

___________________________________________

Ulrike Boehm, Ph.D.
Laboratory of Receptor Biology & Gene Expression
NCI, National Institutes of Health
Building 41, Room B303
41 Medlars Drive
Bethesda, MD-20892, United States
p (office): +1 (240) 760 6581
P (lab): +1 (240) 760 6686
f: +1 (240) 541 4450
http://ulrikeboehm.org/
ulrike.boehm at nih.gov<mailto:ulrike.boehm at nih.gov>

On 30 January 2017 at 15:08, Henning Stahlberg <henning.stahlberg at unibas.ch<mailto:henning.stahlberg at unibas.ch>> wrote:

Dear Nancy,

Science is open and international. The US is currently not, unfortunately.
Until that situation is resolved, may I ask you to consider moving the upcoming GRC conferences to openly accessible locations, such as international conference sites as in Cancun in Mexico or in other countries.
This would allow fair and equal access of scientist from all countries and religions to your conferences, and prevent a boycott movement from forming.
Your conferences in Europe and Asia are a great start.

With best wishes,

Henning Stahlberg.


Henning Stahlberg, PhD
Prof. for Structural Biology, C-CINA, Biozentrum, University Basel
Mattenstrasse 26 | D-BSSE | WRO-1058 | CH-4058 Basel | Switzerland
http://c-cina.org | Tel. +41-61-387 32 62<tel:+41%2061%20387%2032%2062>




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