Feel like joining my research team? … WELL, DON’T!

In the past, I have supervised dozens of degree students – I estimate the total number to be around 50! Most of them were in Munich, a few in Hannover, some in Vienna and around 10 in Exeter. Almost without exception, I enjoyed this work, mostly perhaps because each thesis had a time limit and at its end there was a joyful outcome. I remeber only two degree projects that were started but failed to conclude.

The degrees we managed at Exeter were particularly fun. Many of the students came with their own funds from abroad, and we were able to learn from them as much as they learned from us.

Here are just some examples of the papers that came out of these efforts:

• Ernst E, Pittler MH. Alternative therapy bias. Nature. 1997 Feb 6;385(6616):480. doi: 10.1038/385480c0. PMID: 9020351.
• Pittler MH, Vogler BK, Ernst E. Feverfew for preventing migraine. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2000;(3):CD002286. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD002286. Update in: Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2004;(1):CD002286. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD002286.pub2. PMID: 10908545.
• Park J, White A, Stevinson C, Ernst E, James M. Validating a new non-penetrating sham acupuncture device: two randomised controlled trials. Acupunct Med. 2002 Dec;20(4):168-74. doi: 10.1136/aim.20.4.168. PMID: 12512790.
• Kanji N, White AR, Ernst E. Autogenic training reduces anxiety after coronary angioplasty: a randomized clinical trial. Am Heart J. 2004 Mar;147(3):E10. doi: 10.1016/j.ahj.2003.10.011. PMID: 14999212.
• Habacher G, Pittler MH, Ernst E. Effectiveness of acupuncture in veterinary medicine: systematic review. J Vet Intern Med. 2006 May-Jun;20(3):480-8. doi: 10.1892/0891-6640(2006)20[480:eoaivm]2.0.co;2. PMID: 16734078.

Today, I regualry receive emails from foreign researchers who want to join my team.

• Some say they want to do a PhD.
• Others already have a higher degree and just want to join us for a specific research project.

Almost all offer to bring their own funds.

I used to respond enthusiastically and encourage all suitable candidates to come and work with us. Over the years, we thus welcomed in Exeter numerous researchers from all corners of the planet. A good proportion of our published papers is based on the research that originated from these initiatives.

When I retired some 10 years ago, the emails from students who were keen to join us did not stop. Obviously, I now had to disappoint all the applicants. For the next ~7 years, I wrote individual replies to all the applicants explaining that my department had been closed. Since about three years, I have stopped doing this.

Why?

I certainly do not want to offend anyone. Yet I figure that, if an applicant finds my published research and thus decides that he or she would like to join my team, but is unable to do even the most minimal research telling him/her that the Exeter department had been closed, he or she cannot be a serious contender for conducting decent research.

So, indead of all these individual emails to people who want to join my team, I hope that publishing this blog post and statedment will do the trick:

I am sorry to not be able to accommodate students any longer.

My department closed years ago!

PS

Details about the closure can even be found on Wikipedia:

Ernst was accused by Prince Charles’ private secretary of having breached a confidentiality agreement regarding the 2005 Smallwood report. After being subjected to a “very unpleasant” investigation by the University of Exeter, the university “accepted his innocence but continued, in his view, to treat him as ‘persona non grata’. All fundraising for his unit ceased, forcing him to use up its core funding and allow its 15 staff to drift away.”^[15]

Writing in 2022, after Charles’ accession to the throne, Ernst said, “There never was a formal confidentiality agreement with signature etc. But I did feel bound to keep the contents of the Smallwood report confidential. The investigation by my University was not just ‘very unpleasant’, it was also far too long. It lasted 13 months! I had to take lawyers against my own University! In addition, it was unnecessary, not least because a University should simply establish the facts and, if reasonable, defend its professor from outside attacks. The facts could have been established over a cup of tea with the Vice Chancellor in less than half an hour. When my department had been destroyed in the process, I retired voluntarily and was subsequently re-employed for half a year to help find a successor. In retrospect, I see this move as a smart ploy by the University to keep me sweet and prevent me from going to the press. A successor was never hired; one good candidate was found but he was told that he had to find 100% of the funds to do the job. Nobody of high repute would have found this acceptable, and thus the only good candidate was not even tempted to accept the position.”^[27]

He retired in 2011, two years ahead of his official retirement.^[9][28] In July 2011, a Reuters article described his “long-running dispute with the Prince about the merits of alternative therapies” and stated that he “accused Britain’s heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles and other backers of alternative therapies on Monday of being ‘snake-oil salesmen‘ who promote products with no scientific basis”, and that the dispute “had cost him his job – a claim Prince Charles’s office denied”.^[13][29] According to Ernst, “The snake oil salesman story is an entirely separate issue”, which “happened years later.” He added, “It is true that Charles’s office denied that Charles knew about his 1st private secretary writing to my Vice Chancellor asking him to investigate my alleged breach of confidence.” Ernst claims that as Sir Michael Peat wrote his letter in his capacity as the Prince’s private secretary, Ernst finds that “exceedingly hard to believe.”^[27]

Ernst’s book, Charles, the Alternative Prince: An Unauthorised Biography, was published in February 2022. It focuses on Charles’s interest in alternative medicine, with a critical assessment of his views.^[30] In 2009, Ernst’s name appeared on a list of supporters of Republic – an organisation which campaigns for the abolition of the British monarchy.^[31] However, writing on his website in 2022, Ernst clarified his position: “Even though Charles did a sterling job in trying, I did not become a republican. I do have considerable doubts that Charles will be a good King (his reign might even be the end of the monarchy), and I did help the republican cause on several occasions but I never formally joined any such group (in general, I am not a joiner of parties, clubs or interest groups).”^[27]