Community or clique?
Charles Harrison implores us to welcome new blood and ideas into the chemistry education community
Picture the scene: you enter a room dimly lit by flickering candles and approach a circle of high backed chairs shrouding their occupants in darkness. You are standing in the centre of a circle of candlelight when an ominous voice asks ‘what makes you worthy to join the chemistry education community?’
Perhaps this exaggeration is a little unrealistic, but it highlights an important question – when does a community become inaccessible or unfriendly to newcomers?
Often at conferences, we see the same names year after year. Sometimes I wonder if they are selected to speak on merit, or because they are ‘insiders’. The aim of a conference is to share best practice. Is it possible that innovation could it be stymied by the dominance of individuals pushing ideas that are simply rehashed from things they’ve done previously?
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