Dear Reader,
The magazine at hand results from an initiative led by graduate students of the Tübingen Graduate Training Centre of Neuroscience (GTC). The mastermind behind it is Michael Paolillo, who graduated in 2015 from our Cellular & Molecular Neuroscience
master’s program and who is now a doctoral student conducting research in the group
of Robert Feil at the Interfaculty Institute of Biochemistry. Michael started with an
online version of Neuromag, but always with the idea in mind to publish a print version of the magazine, an endeavor that I fully support. During a recent discussion, the
question came up whether it’s worthwhile to have – in addition to an online version – a
hard copy of Neuromag. I am convinced that in an increasingly virtual world, an enduring hard copy – which comes along with a haptic experience – more strongly values
the authors’ contributions and thus attracts people to produce content for later issues.
In the long run, the GTC will definitely benefit from a student-produced magazine and
create a sense of ‘identity’ for the GTC students of what it means to be part of a graduate school.
The spectrum of topics covered by the present Neuromag articles is quite broad, ranging from interviews and a book review to a report on a recent student conference. It
also contains a thoughtful article on the individual experiences during a job search –
including useful guidelines on how to get started with a job search –, a critical view
on ‘science’ with its insufficiencies & pitfalls, and this first issue even comprises an
inspired text titled ‘Floating,’ among others. While the individual articles span a wide
field, they are all genuine writings of our students and, moreover, they are of an excellent quality! But go ahead and form your own opinion about this new magazine and
the quality of its articles.
I am quite optimistic that the Neuromag endeavor will endure even after the current
generation of publishers graduate. I see the baton handed over to the successive generation of graduate students. We have seen this happen for the NeNa conference, an
annual meeting for graduate students, organized by graduate students, which was
kicked off at least 15 years ago and has taken place annually ever since. Hopefully the
premier issue encourages YOU to spring into action and contribute to the next issue of
Neuromag, whose publication is scheduled for December 2016.
Prof. Dr. Horst Herbert
Head of the Graduate Training Centre of Neuroscience
International Max Planck Research School
3 | NEUROMAG | July 2016