He attributed this decline to psychological factors (a city with "depressed", "disinterested" and "filthy" inhabitants), but also to clientelism and the excessive powers of the central government. On Washington's Birthday, 1932, he discussed "The Scientific Spirit in America and in Europe" at the Friends of America society in Bucharest. An admirer of the British educational model, he was a research fellow at the University of Cambridge for four to six months a year in 1927–1930, 1932 and 1935–1938. He was also Romania's sole representative to the University of London Centennial, in 1936. A corresponding member of the Romanian Academy from 1936, Grigore T. Popa was Dean of the Iași medical faculty for two years, from 1938 to 1940. At around that time, he drifted apart from his mentor Rainer, and relations between them became "tense". According to a popular account that Popa repeatedly challenged, Rainer had claimed the discovery of the hypophyseal portal system some years before Popa and Fielding. In January 1936, together with writers Mihail Sadoveanu, George Topîrceanu and Mihai Codreanu, Popa founded "Însemnări Ieșene" ("Recordings from Iași"), a magazine of commentary. With his intercession, the original group grew to include other intellectuals, including philosopher Ion Petrovici and physician-novelist I. I. Mironescu. He also used the magazine to popularize the anthropological work of his former teacher, Elliott Smith. "Însemnări Ieșene" ran for four years, coinciding with the peak of political turmoil. It borrowed inspiration from "Viaţa Românească", Romania's classical tribune of social criticism, with Popa joining in the trend. As argued in 2012 by author Constantin Coroiu, Popa expanded the magazine's focus beyond cultural matters: "He takes up issues, analyses and criticizes mindsets, mores, inertia, cowardice, grave failures of character, and, what's more, the scourges of Romanian, and even European, society in his own day and ever since." At "Însemnări Ieșene", which, under Topîrceanu's guidance, made efforts to preserve its political independence, Popa took a firm stand against the violently fascist Iron Guard, and denounced scientific racism.