As I promised a couple of weeks ago (where does the time go?), I wanted to ask you all for input on another topic that I think about a lot.
In particular, there is obviously a great group of people who get their Ph.D.s, do postdocs, and then decide that they are crazy enough to dedicate themselves to academia.* These people then have an obvious interest in making themselves/their research known to the external world through publications, websites, conferences, etc., as this is the way they are evaluated for tenure, awards, grants, etc.
However, there is another great group of people who are highly educated and trained, but decide they are not crazy enough to become professors. For simplicity’s sake, let’s say they all go to industry (to big pharma, small biotechs and start-ups). These people (or their companies), in stark contrast to professors, mostly have a significant interest in not making themselves/their research known to the world. The company websites don’t list contact information. The things that do get published or presented are often projects that failed or are out of date,** or come from the rare companies doing basic research.
This is really frustrating for us because these great minds are basically disappearing into a black hole, even though we would value their input as review writers, referees (particularly when people are claiming to have a new drug or method for drug discovery), or general sources of information. And since there are so many people in industry, it would really broaden our options if we needed an expert in one particular field (where there might be only a couple of professors working on the topic) or if we just want a completely different point of view. Finally, from what I hear, it’s also valuable to many industrial people to serve in these writing and refereeing capacities in term of their internal evaluations.
So the question for the day is, how can we find these non-academic scientists?? Sadly, I have no suggestions to kick this one off, so please help!
Catherine (associate editor, Nature Chemical Biology)
I say this in the kindest way possible. You have to admit, though, it’s a little crazy at times…
*And, there’s no guarantee that the person you’re searching for is the corresponding author, and no one else’s contact information is given…
Social networking sites maybe? I’m thinking more of LinkedIn than Facebook…
Catherine while I might argue with implication that being in industry makes one disappear my thought is apply tools similar to a job search: Advertise and Network. The first involves posting notices in Journal(s) and/or web pages to ask for willing volunteers. Specific Areas or qualifications can be mentioned and do want to target more industry related interests. Of course a problem could be too many responses so would have to devise screening or selection process. The alternative or parallel method would be to ask current reviewers or selected people to seek out people in the field they know, directly or by reputation, as possible contacts. These ideas could perhaps provide a pool to draw from.
As to why situation appears the way you describe unfortunately there are few places in industry that actively promote, much less use to evaluate and compensate, having their employees perform such tasks because are considered the realm of academia. While I also do not think is discouraged at many places it can be tough to find time at work since not a normal duty and most peoples own time is devoted to other things (family or keeping up with journals). There is a different mindset too relative to publications as Industry focus is often on IP/Patents plus typically much more team with multidisciplines involved so individual accomplishment less evident.
Thanks CMC guy. I definitely agree that saying industrial people ‘disappear’ is an oversimplification. I have seen some great papers and talks by many. However, in those cases I still wonder how I would find out about those people if they hadn’t been introduced to me (via the literature or other people’s planning, etc.).
Perhaps, as you point out, this ‘building a pool’ is the most viable long term option – it would just be great if there was a magic fix of some kind!
“This is really frustrating for us because these great minds are basically disappearing into a black hole…”
The world has far too many great minds already. If it didn’t, we’d all be academic researchers, flush with funding, and bellyaching about teaching one class every two years. The great minds that go into industry sometimes develop things that make life better (and sometimes worse).
In my 40+ year career, I’ve been in all three domains: government, industry and academia. By far, industry was the most rewarding, in all respects: compensation, excitement, freedom, time spent directly on research, availability of trained help, etc. The only negative (if it was a negative) was being looked down on from the high tower by some academics. Seeing a product that I helped develop in everyday use (after 16 years) is quite a kick, professionally and personally.
I spent the last six years before retirement in academia, which I found to be the most frustrating and unrewarding environment of the lot. Most of my time was spent dealing with funding, departmental infighting, language barriers, and immigration tangles, until I almost forgot why I was there. Academia has come down a long way in almost every respect.
Unfortunately reviewing manuscripts is one of the most thankless tasks your typical industrial researcher is called upon to perform so I don’t think advertising for reviewers is going to help a whole lot. Even when industrial folk are not publishing in journals, they are still patenting. Sheer numbers of patents can be misleading and chemists tend to patent more than biologists. Look for the first patent in a project and find out who’s on that. As an aside it can be instructive to check the patenting activity of some of the better known industrial folk.
Hi, I’m a software engineer, I never cared for chemistry except for a few months ago, and now that I’m out of school I find it fascinating, in fact I’m studying organic chemistry on my own.
This post brings me to precisely why I came to this blog. I was wondering if there was such a thing like “Open Source Chemists”, the same way we software developers can still be on the commercial world and not dissapear from the map, in fact, we may have more exposure than those of us crazy enough to go into deep computer science and produce papers and get awards but never have any real success on the commercial world.
Is there such a thing as Open Chemists? Guys that are synthesizing chemicals and publishing to the world their every step to get help and collaborate with others via the internet? Are there computer simulation tools to help you on your experiments so that you don’t really have to be in a lab trying things over and over being the subject of human error (wrong temperature, wrong pressure, wrong proportions of a compound, etc)?
For now I just found this
https://usefulchem.wikispaces.com/
I know there are some academics/institutes going this route (check out OpenWetWare as one example, although in biology/biological engineering). I’m not overly familiar with it happening among chemists or at private companies, though. Can anyone chime in?