News from the Guardian on a report called report Careering out of Control: A Crisis in the UK Science Profession?:
Science has always been a tough profession. The hours are long, the pay is relatively poor for the education and training required (usually about a decade), and permanent positions are scarce. Most research worldwide is fuelled by a vast legion of enthusiastic, talented younger scientists – PhD students and postdocs who work on a string of short-term contracts.
Most will be forced to leave the profession because there is no place for them. The structure is often likened to a pyramid, but in reality, with its absence of mid-level permanent positions, it’s more like a spike on a vast flat plane.
What’s more, almost uniquely among modern professionals, many scientists find that experience counts against them as they get older and become more expensive to retain on cash-limited contracts. The present system is extraordinarily wasteful.
Science as a pernicious Ponzi scheme. Click to see original at Piled Higher and Deeper.
Increasingly, the sense I get when I listen to researchers talk is that the system has let them down. But without their dedication and sacrifice, science would grind to a halt – and all its economic and societal benefits along with it. Morale in UK science seems to have hit an all-time low. read on
Yes, it’s telling us what us scientists already know – as I’ve previously blogged about – but if we have to keep restating it is “hellish” over and over again to get people to listen, then so be it. I find it so hard to get friends to grasp just how hideously screwed up the scientific career path is, even those in seemingly related fields like engineering PhDs.
Yes, all jobs have a pyramid with lots of people at the bottom and few senior people at the top. But no other profession insists that every few years everyone must make a mad scramble for the next level up, and, like an evil game of musical chairs, those who don’t get a seat are out of the profession for good. 10 years of training to produce a highly skilled scientist, and most people end up having to find a different job because you can’t work as a really good scientist – because there’s no such job as a scientist.
The pyramid in action - NHMRC fellowships in Australia for biomedical researchers
Imagine if all our teachers, engineers, physios, lawyers, medical doctors, architects, dentists, surveyors, nurses, etc, could not work as a competent and increasingly experienced professional all their life – instead their employer told them they all must compete every few years to move up a step into management (eg. teacher → deputy principal → principal) and everyone who didn’t make it had to change professions. It’s a stupid and wasteful system that doesn’t give us the best scientists doing research – more like the best self-promoters.
Check out this article on how to improve science careers in Nature News (it may require you to create an account to access, but it’s free), talking about how we need to create an actual job for post-doc scientists.
The scientific enterprise is run on what economists call the ‘tournament’ model, with practitioners pitted against one another in bitter pursuit of a very rare prize. Given that cheap and disposable trainees — PhD students and postdocs — fuel the entire scientific research enterprise, it is not surprising that few inside the system seem interested in change. A system complicit in this sort of exploitation is at best indifferent and at worst cruel. I have no doubt that most lab heads want the best for their many apprentices, but at the system level, the practice continues. Few academics could afford to warn trainees against entering the ring — if they frightened away their labour force, research would grind to a halt.
This is a familiar lament, but I also propose a solution: we should professionalize the postdoc role and turn it into a career rather than a scientific stepping stone. read on
The UK Science is Vital report concludes the same:
- The creation of more permanent research staff positions that are not principal investigators/lab heads
- More independent fellowships, and the abolition of eligibility criteria that effectively discriminate against older postdocs or those who have followed a non-traditional career path
- The inclusion of early and mid-career researchers in ongoing discussions about the scientific career structure and funding issues
Except most young scientists won’t speak out about this outside of the tearoom with their peers. Why? Because they don’t want to jeopardise their 1:100 chance of having a job in a few years time? And why would the lucky few who reach seniority rock the boat?
I think it’s a travesty that the highly publicised winners of best early career researcher awards (eg. Tall Poppy) will behind the scenes complain about this drastic problem (and discuss if they will become a school teacher or run a coffee shop when their funding runs out), but then stand up and promote science careers (even saying there’s a shortage!) to school kids and undergraduates as great career they should get into. They shouldn’t tell white lies.
And young scientists need to get out there and spread the reality and what should be improved. Yes bloggers, I’m looking at you.
Update 7/10: Aussie researchers can have their say in an online survey about research careers in Australia, funded by the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science and Research.
Clancy James
28/10/2011
Great article. Private industry would go insane at the idea of taking your best young employees and turfing them out after two-three years, because so much gets wasted on training and re-training and so on (even aside from the question of whether or not your employees hate you), yet universities seem to want to encourage this. It’s insane.
The only reason science survives is because people actually like doing it. it’s got absolutely nothing else going for it as a profession.
sansscience
05/11/2011
Hi everyone, because I think people young scientists should talk out about this more, not just behind closed doors, and also so it’s not just me whinging about this – if any fellow Frome Road researchers (even further abroad) want to write a guest post on this topic they’re welcome. It can be anonymously. (And of course it’s my blog so I get to decide what gets posted
)
Vent some of that post-NHMRC anger [politely with well reasoned argument]