In today's issue of Science, AAAS CEO Alan Leshner argues that young scientists are getting a raw deal, and that the current system is stunting the growth and creativity of young scientists:
A major problem is that in many countries, research funding is quite constrained, so it's getting increasingly difficult for new investigators to secure their first grants. As a result, investigators are older and older when they finally begin independent work.Currently, typical new investigators get their first grants in their late 30's or 40's - much later than what the average was 30 years ago. Part of the problem, as Leshner points out, is that younger investigators with new, unstaffed labs are automatically at a disadvantage when competing for funding with senior labs that, because of their already established research programs, are able to generate a lot more preliminary data to include in a grant proposal. Thus a senior lab can more easily lay a substantial part of the groundwork for a new project before a proposal is even submitted. It's like trying to run a college sports team by rejecting talented but unseasoned freshmen simply because they can't outcompete the experienced senior players. At some point, your seniors graduate and you haven't nurtured any younger players to replace them. Unfortunately, that's how we're running science right now. The long delay in obtaining funding has negative effects on the creativity of this younger generation of scientists, argues Leshner:
This prolonged wait for a grant is not the only problem. A new investigator often has to have completed two or three postdoctoral training periods before securing a tenure-track position...this extensive post-Ph.D. training, in which one often focuses on a mentor's research agenda rather than one's own, may stifle innovation and overly narrow young scientists' interests. If this is true, our models for postdoctoral training need revision.Not only does this long 'training' period have negative effects on creativity, it damages morale. During that long period of time, young scientists are essentially living on subsistence wages, with few benefits, no real financial payoff for their extensive training or research successes, and essentially no opportunity to start saving for major life expenses, like a home purchase, children's college tuition, and retirement - not to mention student loan repayments. As Leshner says, scientists need to show "a real commitment of the scientific enterprise to ensuring its own continuity."
