Trends in the early careers of life scientists. Preface and Executive Summary.

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Molecular Biology of the CellVol. 9, No. 11 ArticlesFree AccessTrends in the Early Careers of Life ScientistsPreface and Executive SummaryCommittee on Dimensions, Causes, and Implications of Recent Trends in the Careers of Life ScientistsCommittee on Dimensions, Causes, and Implications of Recent Trends in the Careers of Life ScientistsSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:13 Oct 2017https://doi.org/10.1091/mbc.9.11.3007AboutSectionsView PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail PREFACEThe National Research Council has regularly reported on issue of the scientific and engineering work force, including questions related to the education, training, and deployment of scientific personnel. It actively maintains files on doctoral awardees and periodically surveys their employment in science. The Council’s interest in the arena is based on the importance of scientific research to the nation’s welfare, and that is also the reason for interest in support of the education and training of life scientists.That support has chiefly come from three federal agencies: the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the US Department of Agriculture; numerous private foundations and public and private universities have also contributed. The US Congress has manifested interest in questions of supply of and demand for trained scientists in biomedical and behavioral science by establishing the National Research Service Award program at NIH, which provides funding explicitly for training scientists, and by requesting a periodic report from the National Academy of Sciences on national needs for biomedical and behavioral research personnel. Other agencies support life science education and research through separate programs. Thus, this report, by the Committee on Dimensions, Causes, and Implications of Recent Trends in the Careers of Life Scientists, in the Board of Biology of the Research Council’s Commission on Life Sciences, deals with issues that are pertinent to the agendas of a very wide array of agencies and institutions.The committee was charged to examine trends in research careers of life scientists in training, at the conclusion of training, and in the years immediately after training and to examine the implication of these trends for the persons involved and for the health of the life science enterprise. The committee’s goal was to frame recommendations that would be beneficial both to the young aspirants to scientific careers and to the enterprise they had committed to. The committee recognized that it was dealing with interdependencies among educators, trainees, investigators, funders, and entrepreneurs that truly constituted a sociotechnical system of great complexity. The importance of established stakes in the status quo quickly became apparent, and the committee recognized that there was no single locus of power to make changes in the system that has produced undesirable outcomes for some young scientists. If change is to occur, it will be through the uncoordinated action of many persons at many institutions who try to consider what is best for their students and their profession and then take appropriate action.Those insights tempered any ambition that the committee might initially have had to “reform” the system overnight by taking bold measures. The risk of doing more damage than good is great, given the complexity of the educational system, the size of the enterprise, and its importance for the nation’s long-term interest. Accordingly, the committee’s principal recommendations are measured rather than dramatic.The committee appointed to prepare this report was intentionally composed of individuals with a broad range of backgrounds and experience. To be sure, 10 of them were life scientists, but their occupations and scientific expertise were diverse. Five of the 10 were tenured full professors at major universities, one a postdoctoral fellow, and one a graduate student at the time of their appointment. Two were employed in industry. Among the nonbiologists, bringing experience in studies of the scientific labor force and scientific careers and a distance from direct interest in life science research were two economists, two psychologists, and a sociologist. The age range of the members was from the middle 20s to the middle 70s. Two department heads, a vice-president for academic programs and planning, a dean of a graduate school, and a director of a research institute brought academic, administrative viewpoints to the deliberations. (See APPENDIX for the affiliations of the committee members.) In short, the interests of very nearly all of the “stakeholders” in the life-science enterprise were represented on the committee. Such diverse outlooks richly widened the arena of discussion and were mutually educative. They also tended to slow any rush to judgment until a true consensus could be achieved.To ensure that even the broad spectrum of views found among the committee members was enriched by outside views, we invited representatives of government and professional associations to testify before us. And we convened a public meeting at which 18 speakers presented their views, and more than 50 other persons attended the meeting or made their views known through written comments. A liaison group of government and scientific organization data experts were asked to provide reactions to our early collections of data; we established contact with institutions performing relevant studies and used the information they provided. The members of the liaison group are listed after the committee roster.An alternative perspective on the committee’s recommendation 3, regarding training grants, is included in the full report (available athttp://www.nap.edu). All members of the committee except the author of the alternative perspective endorsed recommendation 3 after extensive discussion at several committee meetings.We have many other people to thank for assistance in accomplishing our task. Persons who in many instances gave up parts of their weekends to share their knowledge with the committee are Ruth Kirschstein, Walter Schaffer, John Norvell, and James Onken of NIH; Mary Clutter and Joanne Hazlett of NSF; Douglas Kelly, Jennifer Sutton, and Stanley Ammons of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC); Mary Jordan of the American Chemical Society; and Roman Czujko of the American Institute of Physics. Walter Schaffer of NIH and James Edwards of the NSF were extremely helpful in their roles as program officers on behalf of their agencies. Data were made available by and useful discussion was held with John Norvell of NIH, Lawrence Burton of NSF, Lisa Sherman and Brooke Whiting of AAMC, Georgine Pion of Vanderbilt University, and Thomas J. Kennedy, Jr. Edward O’Neill and Renee Willard of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Center for the Health Professions provided us with their report on Pew scholars in the biomedical sciences, and the BioMedical Association of Stanford University and the Postdoctoral Scholars Association of UCSF shared the results of their surveys of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.The committee’s task would have been immeasurably harder without the constant logistic, managerial, and professional support of Al Lazen, Porter Coggeshall, James Voytuk, Karen Grief, Charlotte Kuh, and Molla Teclemariam. At every stage of our work, these dedicated National Research Council staff prepared material for our enlightenment, responded to requests for more help, and took a constructive part in our meetings; they deserve no blame and much credit for our report.Shirley TilghmanChairCommittee on Dimensions, Causes,and Implications of Recent Trendsin the Careers of LIfe ScientistsExecutive SummaryINTRODUCTIONThe 50 years since the end of World War II have seen unprecedented growth in the life sciences. In 1997 US government investments in health research exceeded $14 billion, private foundations contributed more than $1.2 billion, and industry’s investment in health research and development exceeded $17 billion. Government and private support of agriculture and environmental research approached $5 billion. Clearly, the life-science enterprise is large and vigorous.The large investment in the life sciences has produced many important results. Discoveries in agricultural science have improved our understanding of soils and their chemistry and have led to the development of new strains of crop plants that are resistant to diseases and yield more food per cultivated acre. Environmental sciences and forestry have evolved new methods for managing sustainable resources that will help our expanding population to pass on more of its natural wealth to future generations. Medical science has provided fundamental understanding of the molecular basis of numerous diseases which has led to the elimination of some and the containment of many. Advances in molecular biology not only have spawned the economically important biotechnology industry but have contributed fundamental knowledge about the structure of genes and the behavior of biological macromolecules. These advances have yielded new insights into the relationships among organisms and into the continuum of structure and function that connects living and nonliving things. The long-range implications of all the rapidly evolving knowledge are hard to predict, but many additional benefits are now on the horizon.The continued success of the life-science research enterprise depends on the uninterrupted entry into the field of well-trained, skilled, and motivated young people. For this critical flow to be guaranteed, young aspirants must see that there are exciting challenges in life-science research and they need to believe that they have a reasonable likelihood of becoming practicing independent scientists after their long years of training to prepare for their careers. Yet recent trends in employment opportunities suggest that the attractiveness to young people of careers in life-science research is declining.In the last few years, reports from the National Research Council have detailed a changing world for young scientists. A 1994 study sought to determine whether young investigators in the biologic and biomedical sciences might be at a disadvantage compared with older, established scientists in the competition for research support. The study found no evidence of discrimination by age in National Institutes of Health (NIH) awards; but it did reveal that NIH research-grant applications from investigators below the age of 37 had plummeted between 1983 and 1993. The reasons for the decline were not immediately obvious, but concern over the seeming contraction of young research talent led to the appointment of the present committee. A 1995 study examined graduate education in all fields of science and engineering and the changing employment opportunities for PhD graduates. That committee found that more than half of new graduates with PhDs in all disciplines now find employment in nonacademic settings, and it recommended that graduate programs diversify to reflect the changing employment opportunities afforded PhD scientists.This report extends the analyses of the previous reports by examining the changes that have occurred over the last 30 years in graduate and postgraduate training of life scientists and the nature of their employment on completion of training. It suggests reasons for the decrease in the number of young scientists applying for NIH grants and the growing “crisis in expectation” that grips young life scientists who face difficulty in achieving their career objectives.CHARGEThis committee was charged to: (1) construct a comprehensive data profile of the career paths for recent PhD recipients in the life sciences; (2) use the profile for assessing the implications of recent career trends for individuals and for the research enterprise; and (3) make recommendations, as appropriate, about options for science policy.The charge called on the committee to consider all the life sciences and the health of the enterprise in addition to the well-being of the individuals involved.The committee approached its first task by analyzing data contained in the large databases maintained by the National Research Council Office of Scientific and Engineering Personnel, which provides the most comprehensive and accurate record available of the educational course and employment status of scientists educated to the PhD level in the United States. These records are collected when degrees are awarded and updated biennially through surveys of a sample of doctorate holders. The committee’s analysis included the 1970–1995 surveys, and thus enabled documentation of trends in important career stages.FINDINGSThe training and career prospects of a graduate student or postdoctoral fellow in the life sciences in 1998 are very different from what they were in the 1960s or 1970s. Today’s life scientist will start graduate school when slightly older and take more than 2 years longer to obtain the PhD degree. Today’s life-science PhD recipient will be an average of 32 years old. Furthermore, the new PhD today is twice as likely as in earlier years to take a postdoctoral fellowship and thus join an ever-growing pool of postdoctoral fellows—now estimated to number about 20,000—who engage in research while obtaining further training and waiting to obtain permanent positions. It is not unusual for a trainee to spend 5 years—some more than 5 years—as a postdoctoral fellow. As a consequence of that long preparation, the average life scientist is likely to be 35–40 years old before obtaining his or her first permanent job. The median age of a tenured or tenure track faculty member is now about 8 years more than that of the faculty member of the 1970s.Those facts suggest one source of the seeming contraction of “young investigator” applicants for NIH research grants. “Young” investigators have grown older, and fewer are in faculty positions before the age of 37. More of them are postdoctoral fellows, who, by most institutional regulations, may not submit applications for individual research grants.There have been major changes in career opportunities for PhDs over the last 3 decades. Historically, the three major employment sectors for life scientists have been academe, industry, and government; academe has been the largest. The opportunity to secure an academic appointment has steadily narrowed since the 1960s. Of life scientists who received the PhD in 1963 and 1964, 61% had achieved tenured appointments at universities or 4-year colleges 10 years later. For the cohort who graduated in 1971–1972, that percentage had dropped to 54%; and for the 1985–1986 cohort, to 38%. The probability of industrial employment rose from 12% to 24% for the cohorts described above, and the probability of working in a federal or other government laboratory dropped from 14% to 11%. Overall, the fraction of PhDs with “permanent”1 positions in the traditional employment sectors for PhD scientists—academe, industry, and government— 9–10 years after receipt of the PhD declined from 87% to 73% from 1975 to 1995. For the cohort 5–6 years after receipt of the PhD, the fraction has declined from 89% to 61% from 1975 to 1995.During most of the time that those changes in permanent research-career outcomes were taking place, the number of life-science PhDs awarded annually by American universities was growing steadily, but slowly, from about 2,700 in 1965 to about 5,000 in the middle 1980s. Then, in 1987, the number began to rise rather steeply—to 7,696 in 1996. PhDs awarded to foreign nationals made up the majority of the increase after 1987. There has been a steady increase in the number of women receiving PhDs since 1965. Differences exist between biomedical and nonbiomedical fields; almost all the growth in numbers among life-science PhDs has been in the biomedical fields.The 42% increase in PhD production between 1987 and 1996 was not accompanied by a parallel increase in employment opportunities, and recent graduates have increasingly found themselves in a “holding pattern” reflected in the increase in the fraction of young life scientists who after extensive postdoctoral apprenticeships still have not obtained permanent full-time positions in the life sciences. In 1995, as many as 38% of the life-science PhDs—5–6 years after receipt of their doctorates—still held postdoctoral positions or other nonfaculty jobs in universities, were employed part-time, worked outside the sciences, or were among the steady 1–2% unemployed. The comparable fraction in 1973 was only 11%. What may be most alarming about the 1995 figure is that it reflects the situations of those earning PhDs in 1989 and 1990, at the beginning of the sharp rise in the rate of PhD production.The frustration of young scientists caught in the holding pattern is understandable. These people, most of whom are 35–40 years old, typically receive low salaries and have little job security or status within the university. Moreover, they are competing with a rapidly growing pool of highly talented young scientists—including many highly qualified foreign postdoctoral fellows—for a limited number of jobs in which they can independently use their research training. This situation—and its implications for both individual scientists and the research enterprise—is a matter of concern to the committee.The committee viewed it as unlikely that conditions will change enough in the near future to provide employment for the large number of life-science PhDs now waiting in the holding pattern. Federal funding for life-science research is expected to grow but the growth is unlikely to compensate for the imbalance in production of PhDs as federal funding was growing substantially through the 1980s and 1990s while the employment situation for the increasing number of young life graduates worsened. We believe that the growth in funding does not ensure that trends in obtaining permanent jobs will improve. The cost of doing research at private universities has been borne traditionally by federal and private granting agencies, and it is highly unlikely that tuition, already high, can be increased to the extent that it could provide needed research support. Schools of medicine, where large numbers of PhDs are educated and work, are faced with the need to adjust to the era of “managed care” with a marked reduction in income from clinical-practice plans that previously contributed substantially to the support of research and training. Finally, industry—and perhaps specifically the biotechnology sector—which employed large numbers of new life-science PhDs in the 1980s, has slowed its hiring in the 1990s.In response to the increasing difficulty of finding employment in traditional sectors, trainees and their mentors have looked to alternative careers, such as law, science writing, science policy, and secondary-school teaching. Our analysis suggests that opportunities in these fields might not be as numerous or as attractive as advocates of alternative careers imply.IMPLICATIONSWhether the career trends described above are a source of concern depends on the viewpoint of the stakeholder observing them. To the graduate student and postdoctoral trainee who have invested many years of preparation with the expectation of having a research career, the situation is discouraging indeed. To the established investigator and the overseers of life-science research, the availability of large numbers of bright young scientists willing to work very hard for relatively little financial compensation is an asset that contributes to a remarkably successful enterprise. Since World War II, the structure of life-science research has been built around these young scientists, who are the primary producers of research. The public, whose taxes support the enterprise, has benefited from the abundance of young trainees.The imbalance between the number of life-science PhDs being produced and the availability of positions that permit them to become independent investigators concerns the committee. The long times spent in training, the delay in achieving independence, and especially the difficulty in finding positions where young scientists can independently use their training have led to a “crisis in expectation.” The feelings of disappointment, frustration, and even despair are palpable in the laboratories of academic centers. Many graduate students entered life-science training with the expectation that they would become like their mentors: they would be able to establish laboratories in which they would pursue research based on their own scientific ideas. The reality that now faces many of them seems very different. The future health of the life sciences depends on our continuing to attract the most talented students. That will require that students be realistically informed at the beginning of their training of their chances of achieving their career goals and that faculty recognize that current employment opportunities are different. The challenges for the life-science community are to acknowledge that it is the structure of the profession that has led to declining prospects for its young and to develop accommodations to maximize the quantity and quality of the scientific productivity of the future.CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONSThe committee’s analysis of the patterns of employment of recent recipients of life-science PhDs suggests that the current level of PhD production now exceeds the current availability of jobs in academe, government, and industry where they can independently use their training. While only a small minority of recent PhDs have left the field entirely, a large fraction of the “excess” supply is currently found in two kinds of appointments, “postdoctoral” and “other academic,” where they may be called “fellows,” “research assistants,” “adjunct instructors,” or some other title that conveys a clear message of impermanence in academe—outside the tenure track of regular faculty.The professional structure of the life sciences research enterprise, in which the important work of conducting experiments rests almost entirely on the shoulders of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, was based on the premise that there would be continuous expansion of available independent research positions to provide employment commensurate with their training for the ever-growing number of trainees. By the 1980s, however, there were signs of trouble ahead as the postdoctoral pool began to swell in size. The dramatic jump in number of graduates from PhD programs that began in 1987, driven by the influx of foreign-born PhD candidates together with the increase in foreign-trained PhDs who have sought postdoctoral training in the US, has greatly exacerbated what was already the growing imbalance between the rate of training versus the rate of growth in research-career opportunities.Although the current abundance of PhDs is an advantage to established investigators, those responsible for graduate education in the life sciences should realize that further growth in the rate of PhD training could adversely affect the future of the research enterprise. Intense competition for jobs has created a “crisis of expectation” among young scientists; further increase in the competition could discourage the best from entering the field.Recommendation 1: Restraint of the Rate of Growth of the Number of Graduate Students in the Life SciencesThe committee recommends that the life-science community constrain the rate of growth in the number of graduate students, that is, that there be no further expansion in the size of existing graduate-education programs in the life sciences and no development of new programs, except under rare and special circumstances, such as a program to serve an emerging field or to encourage the education of members of underrepresented minority groups.The current rate of increase in awards of life science PhDs—5.1% from 1995 to 1996—if allowed to continue, would result in a doubling of the number of such PhDs in just 14 years. Our analysis suggests that would be deleterious to individuals and the research enterprise. The committee recognizes that the number of PhDs awarded each year might already be too high. Although a return to pre-1988 levels of training might be beneficial, we believe that a concentrated effort to reduce the size of graduate-student populations rapidly would be disruptive to the highly successful research enterprise. While our data show a current abundance, some unanticipated discovery in the life sciences or unexpected change in funding trends might lead to an increase in demand for life scientists. The committee believes that the current system is well prepared to meet such a need.We caution that it will be necessary to distinguish among fields when making decisions about optimal numbers of graduate students. As shown in chapter 2, almost all the increase in life-science PhD production has been in biomedical fields. Actions taken in one field of the life sciences might be unnecessary in others. It is worth noting, however, that the data shown in Figure 3.10 (in the full report) suggest that biomedical and nonbiomedical life-science fields are experiencing similar changes in employment trends, for example, smaller fractions of PhDs finding permanent employment in academe.The committee examined several approaches to stabilizing the total number of PhDs produced by life-science departments beyond the first and obvious approach of individual action on the part of graduate programs to constrain growth in the number of graduate students enrolled. Some might argue that this solution is expecting unreasonably altruistic behavior on the part of established investigators and training-program directors and that graduate programs will continue to accept large numbers of students simply to meet their faculties’ need for instructors and laboratory workers. The committee urges life-science faculties to seek alternatives to these workforce needs by increasing the number of permanent laboratory workers. As the increases over the last decade have been fueled almost entirely by the increased availability of federal and institutional support for research assistants, consideration might be given to restricting the numbers of graduate students supported through the research-grant mechanism.The committee believes the most prudent way to reasonably reduce the rate of increase in the number of PhDs awarded annually and perhaps to achieve a gradual reduction in the numbers being trained is to help students to make informed decisions about their career choices.To be effective, such decisions must be based on relevant and up-to-date information about both the quality of the training available in particular graduate programs and in the job opportunities of a given field. Equally importantly, this information must be used by individual graduate programs and mentors in determining the numbers of trainees they accept and in assessing the effectiveness of their programs. It is our expectation that such information will have the salutary effect of letting market forces control the rate of entry into the professionbefore young people have invested ten and more years in training.Recommendation 2: Dissemination of Accurate Information on the Career Prospects of Young Life ScientistsThe committee recommends that accurate and up-to-date information on career prospects in the life sciences and career outcome information about individual training programs be made widely available to students and faculty. Every life science department receiving federal funding for research or training should be required to provide to its prospective graduate students specific information regarding all predoctoral students enrolled in the graduate program during the preceding 10 years.With the most accurate information available, students will be able to make informed decisions about their careers.Recommendation 3: Improvement of the Educational Experience of Graduate StudentsThere is no clear evidence that career outcomes of persons supported by training grants are superior to those of persons supported by research grants. However, the committee, which included members with direct experience with training grants, concluded that training grants are pedagogically superior to research grants and result in a superior educational climate in which students have greater autonomy. First, training grants are pedagogically superior because they provide a mechanism for stringent peer review of the training process itself, something that is not considered in the review of a research project. Second, they improve the educational climate because they minimize the potential conflicts of interest that can arise between trainers and trainees. Although the student-mentor relationship is ordinarily healthy and productive for both partners, it can be distorted by the conditions of the mentor’s employment of the student and limit the ability of students to take advantage of opportunities to broaden their education. Third, training grants provide the federal government with information that it needs to evaluate the level of its investment in graduate life-science education with the aim of developing a funding framework for graduate education that contributes to the long-term stability and well-being of the research enterprise.The committee encourages all federal agencies that support life-science education and research to invest in training grants and individual graduate fellowships as preferable to research grants to support PhD education. Agencies that lack such programs should look for ways to start them, and agencies that already have them should s