Contributor Scott Chimileski
A few months away from finishing a PhD, my social media feeds are filled with negativity about postdocs, jobs and funding. Article after article, elaborate infographics – there are even special calculators now that predict your chances of becoming a principal investigator.
It is certainly true: the competition for a position as a science professor and to earn funding as a researcher is increasing. Raising consciousness around these issues is important, and these articles, driven by genuine concern, do help. However, I think it has gone too far. I see it affecting my peers on Facebook: “Wee!! Sadly this motivated me to get out of bed, someday I could make $40k!” accompanied by a link to the article “Too Few Jobs for America’s Young Scientists.” This same sort of sentiment is echoed on Twitter.
#Academic #science is on a downward spiral and needs rejuvenation, fast! Basic science fuels #innovation. https://t.co/2Kf01obUKU
— Tony Patelunas (@TonysPants) September 10, 2014
It’s human nature to focus on bad news; but it is long overdue to have a critical look at all the doom and gloom. Before we panic – before we decide there are too many PhD students and dream-up ways to intervene – let’s consider the history surrounding these issues, allow a little optimism in, and explore the positive. In this three part series, I want to help uplift my fellow young scientists.
We’ll begin by having a look at some data – not only over the past five years – but over five decades. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget keep excellent records of historical trends in federal R&D funding that formed the basis for the plots included here.
Like financial markets, federal funding for R&D increases and decreases in a cyclical manner. For example, we have experienced a recent drop caused in large part by an ailing economy and the 2013 federal sequestration. Similar in principle to a correction in the stock market, this downtrend is significant, not at all fun while it lasts, and has legitimately affected many scientists. However, when examining a fifty-year period, it becomes apparent that funding for basic science has increased overall, suggesting that the current scenario will most definitely improve.
Current budget requests indicate another upswing in funding could be underway. The 2014 budget increased for every U.S. science agency: by 3.5% for the NIH, 4.2% for the NSF and 9.7% for the DOE. Fiscal year 2015 budget requests add to these gains (by 0.7% for NIH, 1.2% for the NSF and 2.6% for the DOE). As predicted by director Francis S. Collins, the NIH will support 34,197 research project grants (RPGs) in 2015, including 9,326 new and competing RPGs (up by 329 from 2014).
From 1962 to 1982 the fraction of U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) used for non-defence research ranged from 0.5% to 1.0% as money was poured into the physical sciences during the space-race and the cold war. Since 1982, non-defence R&D funding as a percentage of GDP has been essentially flat, hovering around 0.4%, with a few drops to 0.3%. Research expenditure as a percentage of GDP varies from country to country as well. Any scientist would argue that more government money should be spent on R&D and perhaps it is reasonable to aim for a return to 1.0% of GDP for basic science someday. However it is important to realize that because the overall economy and federal budget has grown in the meantime, all forms of basic science funding have increased, despite a static R&D to GDP ratio.
Some articles go as far as arguing that there are too many scientists in training. But, should we expect the NIH budget to perfectly overlap with graduate enrollment? Likewise, I don’t think we should be shocked when there is not a linear increase in the number of principal investigators supported by the NIH every single year. This is like suggesting every business start-up will succeed in a constantly fluctuating economy. Science is competitive too: there will always be many trainees that will not end up having successful labs, and more scientists in total than will find funding each year. The odds don’t stop entrepreneurs – they shouldn’t stop aspiring scientists either. Competition is ultimately a positive force. In any case, the possible solution to this proposed problem seems even less realistic. Who might have the authority to regulate institutional admission decisions?
A PhD is, first and foremost, about education. Few would disagree that an overall trend towards higher levels of education is desirable in what biologist E.O. Wilson foresees as an emergent techno-scientific age – a time when we have serious problems to face (like a growing population). It seems more likely that government funds will continue to sway above and below the plot of graduate enrollment, and that, when looking over longer time scales, funding will hopefully parallel the influx of new scientists. If not, private foundations (such as the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation), industry, and other non-traditional sources may begin picking up more and more of this slack.
Though it may seem like a fixed thing, modern science is a developing human endeavour. Perhaps the current situation is not a crisis, but is more of a transition. Part two will examine where money for science has come from over time and where it might be drawn from in the future.
EDITORS NOTE: This article was altered slightly by Scott Chimileski to accommodate the infographic.
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While it is certainly true that social media (and mainstream media) are full of stories about doom and gloom (this sells better than sunshine and happiness) and funding for basically anything is cyclical with economic status, the current situation is not so easily dismissed as a trough, especially for basic science. There have been some fundamental changes to expectations of science such that return on investment and practical application are now written into many elements of funding assessment. Blame for this development can be laid partly at short-term thinking by politicians but researchers have also contributed by making promises that investments will deliver benefits. They will, but not in the manner sold. Increasingly, funders think they can select out and cherry pick the research most likely to yield returns. As a consequence, funding agencies have realigned their selection and scoring criteria to include aspects linked to socio-economic benefits, milestones and other measures of ROI that true basic science cannot and should not provide, since it is disingenuous. By definition, if such returns can be predicted, then was is being evaluated is not discovery/basic science. Instead, our predictions of ROI are based on historical analysis. We know that of 1000 new ideas, a few will lead to remarkable changes and advances. But we typically have no clue as to which of those 1000 best ideas will be winners at the time they are proposed. By incorporating the language of predictability of delivery in grant assessments, we are transitioning true basic science into translation or development. We are also doing society a disservice by glossing over the fact that research is high risk with no guarantees. It is only post facto that we can trace routes of innovation back to initial discovery. And when we do this, we often find serendipity, frustration and rejection accompany those initial findings.
It is possible that we will come clean and defend discovery research for what it is such that it is recognized for all its foibles as the wellspring of new knowledge, but that has become so politically incorrect that it is more likely we will continue to hide it in our laboratory basements, conducted in the dark while derivative, incremental work is conducted under the administrative rules.
There are also other changes at work including trends to “bigger” science, more expensive science, loss of buying power and abandonment of basic science support by charities. Young scientists are right to be worried about their future prospects and it’s about time we all stop making misleading promises in return for $$.
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Hi Jim – thank you for your comment. I agree that there are unprecedented aspects of the current downtrend and this situation cannot be dismissed. We should aim to consider the issue from as many angles and through as many metrics as possible. Looking at a change in the expectations of science and how this alters the practical definition of basic research is a great idea.
I think that the line between basic and applied research will continue to be somewhat fuzzy (but perhaps is becoming a whole lot fuzzier with more direct measures of ROI). Unanticipated advance in practical areas has always been an implicit justification for the funding of “curiosity-driven” science. For example, in part two of this series I discuss documents that led to the formation of the NSF in 1950. Even though we associate the NSF with basic research, at its very inception president Roosevelt suggested that “thousands of scientists should be used in the days of peace ahead for the improvement of national health, the creation of new enterprises bringing new jobs, and the betterment of the national standard of living.” NASA and the DOE were also born out of practical or defense related concerns.
So, as conducted through federal funding, it seems that discovery and application have gone hand in hand since day one. One might even argue that all forms of federal funding over time might be better placed into categories of “implicit/indirect” and “explicit/direct” applied science, versus “basic” and “applied.” Though curiosity is arguably a latent force behind all science, to really find research for pure discovery, not effected by any external influence, I think we have to return all the way to the gentlemen scientists (some of whom I also highlight in part two), or to hidden laboratory basements as you suggested.
As a young scientist myself, of course I wish that science funding and jobs would go in no direction but up! My goal is to offer some balance through a positive outlook. Historical trends give us reason for alarm, and reason for optimism (but I think the latter has been underreported).