What, ultimately, are we doing with science? The idealistic view (most likely, I would suggest, to be held by the general public), is that we are discovering ‘the truths of the universe’. If on the other hand you were to ask someone mired in the day-to-day realities of research if this is how they spend their time, you might raise a wry smile. And what is an individual scientist to do? Particularly for PhDs and early career researchers, the scale of the challenge feels immense: the problems we w