December 16, 2010 Talk about a couple really tough acts to follow. CJ, Leigh and Paul set a really high standard with their posts, and reader response has been phenomenal. As CJ put it so eloquently in Monday’s post: “we are the grist”. PIs advance their own careers by taking on as many students as they can. They do this to maximize the amount of papers they can publish, which they need in order to get that next grant. Rinse. Spit. Repeat. Collectively, we produce PhDs while neglecting to even take into consideration what we’re going to do with them once they have their degrees. But really, research money is what all PIs are after. It is the way we advance our careers. (We’re having a discussion right now in my department about tenure and promotion. The biggest point of contention is over research funds. It is the single most important thing.) Shouldn’t the most important things be the quality of your scholarship and your ability to educate? Achieving research grants only partially reflects these aspects. When I finish with my career, I don’t want the first thing that someone thinks about me to be, “That Matt Hartings. He could sure write one mean grant!” That being said, we do need some funding to push our research forward. Successful grantsmanship, however, shouldn’t be as hyper-competitive as it is now. The NIH and NSF are the collective bodies that have a big share of this negligence. And, by addressing a few important concerns, they can change the way we collectively do business. A simplistic understanding of how science works along with a progressive agenda is all it really takes. In the words of Rocky Balboa, “I guess what I’m trying to say is, if I can change, and you can change, everybody can change.” So how do we change the way that our funding agencies do business such that we address these problems. (What do we fund? How do we fund it?) I think there are 5 tenets that we need to keep in mind when developing a new funding policy. 1. It should be a national priority that we start making things again. 2. We cannot predict what science is going to be important for long-term future innovation. 3. The public needs to be involved in research decisions. 4. Funding bodies need to be agile in order to address pressing short-term issues 5. Manufacturing/R&D jobs need to be kept in the US Making Stuff. One of the most uplifting things I’ve read in a long time came from Jeffrey Immelt, G.E.’s CEO, in a New York Times article. Paraphrasing: Mr. Immelt insists that G.E. must rely more on making physical products and less on financial engineering – a path he sees as vital for the American economy as a whole. The value of innovation is illustrated in the graph below. The sentiment from Mr. Immelt is echoed in a quote from Michael Boskin (as related in an article by ScienceProgress): “In terms of innovation capacity, there is a huge difference between a computer chip and a potato chip. Economic policy needs to start reflecting this.” What he’s getting at here is that you can compare the cash flow brought about by the sale of potato chips and computer chips. Computer chips far outpace potato chips in the ability to create spin off technologies and potential for new product development. Predicting Science. I think that it has become patently clear that we really can’t predict what research is going to play a role in future, long-term innovation. The internet (no description necessary), PCR (when you need to find out who the Daddy is), and palladium cross-coupling reactions (ubiquitous in modern industrial chemistry) are all examples of basic science-turned-huge players in industry and sources of vast amounts of income. Who predicted that? How many of the researchers who worked on these projects could have possibly predicted the worth of their studies? Why should we expect current scientists or even grant reviewers to be able to do that today? In fact, there is research (here and here) that shows that biases in the review process remove or suppress cognitive diversity (summarized nicely, here). So, for long term investment in science, we want as broad a research base as possible. Public Involvement. Have you all seen this (YouCut)? Have you read this (There should be more Republican Scientists) or this (Scientists have a HUUGE image problem)? Misguided? Yes. Ill informed? Sure. Contextually wrong? Why not. Frightening? YES! While I certainly don’t agree with the point of view of these examples, there is a certain kernel of truth in each of them. That truth is this: science is part of society and society is part of science. You cannot divorce the two. As a scientist, you cannot say that we’re just going to let the results play out and society can figure out the rest. You (and your science) cannot be completely removed from the world at large. The best way to keep science as a national priority is to keep the citizenry on board with the goals of science. There are a number of different thoughts on public involvement and engagement. But one thing is certain, it is best for everyone involved (scientists and citizens) when the two interact. Agility. Research needs are frequently driven by immediate crises. The one currently smacking chemists in the face is the search for economically viable renewable energy sources. The cry for these sources hasn’t been around for the past 20 years. (Oh wait … it has … Well, let’s just say that we are currently in position where we can leverage public sentiment and political will to develop such sources.) There will be (and should be) a large influx of money to attack this problem through programs like the DOE Innovation Hubs. We have an immediate need. And, we need to be flexible enough to meet that need. The goals of this science are direct and applied, and the results will have a more immediate impact on society than most research. This kind of flexibility and agility (to rapidly change research focus) comes from central planning. (“Central” is not a bad word here. Every good company/organization is able to prioritize and set goals. We just need to do that while understanding the limitations of the funding agencies.) In fact, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology have suggested a quadrennial review (modeled after the Quadrennial Defense Review) in order to meet the looming challenges. We need to be able to efficiently meet scientific challenges as we are faced with them. Keep jobs here. From our conversation this week, the crisis seems to be pretty self-evident. It should be a national priority to keep the advancement of technologies that we develop in the States within the US economy! Tom Friedman has covered this topic many times (including here), and we have talked about it here. I suggest a two-fold strategy for funding. Index Investing. Analogous to the way you can invest on a broad-market index, trusting that it will increase in value over time, we should be investing in science to supply the basis for innovation over time. Because we don’t know what will emerge as the next big thing, the grants from this “index” would be plentiful and smaller (smaller than an RO1 or typical NSF grant) so that they could cover a broad range of research. Grants would still be reviewed the same way. The top 10% are chosen by committee and the poor proposals at the bottom are discarded. The top 10% are awarded funding. But, we’d have more grants to give away. What do we do with the applications that are in the middle? These middling applications have always been tricky for reviewers to accurately score. And, I think you’d be hard pressed to find many reviewers willing to spend more time on the review process. This is where we go to the general public for help. What better way for scientists to acknowledge the value of their contract with society than by letting society help to set the research agenda. I can imagine a scenario where 100 people – possibly more – (no scientific background required) are hired to choose which of the remaining proposals will be funded. This sort of thing would help to cultivate public interest in science (at very little cost). Also, there has been plenty of good discussion on-line recently trying to figure out how to give incentives for getting scientists to communicate better with the public (here and here). Knowing that a funding decision could come down to what a non-scientist thinks of your proposal is great incentive for a scientist to work on public communication. The other benefit to this approach is that there would be a constant supply of funding for many scientists. This would reduce the weight of funding decisions on tenure and increase the weight of quality science. And, in doing this, part of the incentive of taking on too many graduate students would be removed. Money for the Present.Every home owner has things that just come up. Wrecked car. Broken window. 70 inch LCD TV (yay chemistry). Science also needs funds to address current issues. Scientists applying for this sort of grant need to be able to communicate directly how their research immediately impacts a current societal need. This kind of research will be expected to spur short-term, quantifiable innovation (in a mode similar to what was suggested by Daniel Sarawitz). There would be several ways to apply for these higher levels of funding. 1) Show that your research has the potential to immediately provide products/technologies of interest. 2) Apply for a joint research/small business (start-up) grant. The commitment to developing new products and new jobs would be especially welcome in an environment where we are facing ~10% unemployment. These types of grants could also be leveraged with venture capital investments. After the market crash in 2008, capital dried up. It still hasn’t returned to pre-2008 levels. The commitment of the government to scientific innovation would spur private sector investment (same return on half the investment). 3) Create joint corporation-academic research ventures. This seems to be more of a European style (and I’d love to hear from some of our colleagues across the Atlantic – does this work?). In this scenario, the company would be vested in training the PhD students to also be future employees. After the training period, they would be less likely to let the person or the position go. These rapid innovation proposals are likely what would produce the most employable researchers. As such, any proposal like this should include one of the retraining grants discussed on CJ’s post from Monday. This sort of funding would necessitate good central planning. What are the immediate innovative priorities in the US? Who has the best ideas of how to address these issues? For example, I would say that our most pressing need is job creation. Therefore, any proposal that was accompanied by the creation of non-academic positions would be highly regarded. Also, our current push towards renewable energy resources would stress creating a workforce capable of driving this burgeoning industry. I think this approach addresses the realities of science (index investment) with a directed focus (money for today) along with fostering scientist citizen interactions. It does so in a fiscally responsible way (foster long and short term innovation) while directly addressing society’s most pressing innovation needs. That’s my idea. What do you think? Got anything better?! Let’s hear your ideas!!! We’re having a recap and some final thoughts on over at Chemjobber tomorrow. See you in the discussion!
Chemistry Jobs Roundtable. Day 4
Introduction
Policy Guidelines
A graph put together by the Boston Consulting Group illustrating the causes of economic growth over the past 50 years. Source: Article in the EconomistSo what’s your plan, Mr. Smartypants? Well, I’m glad you asked.
Cheers
-mrh
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I really like the idea of QDR-like review of Big Science; doubtless, there are heterodox defense policy types who will tell you that the QDR is counterproductive.
Also like the ‘index investing’ idea as a Vanguard fella myself; that being said, it’d be interesting to see if there are critics of the idea, like there are critics of the weak EMH. Also, what’s your S&P 500?
Finally, I’m skeptical about attempts to keep jobs here. Don’t know how you go about doing that.
@CJ
That was my biggest critique of my post. I have no idea, within the realm of funding, how to keep jobs in the States. I hope that we hear from the European contingent on the lab-industry relationship and the likelihood of those jobs being retained. But, overall, I think that this proposal starts to remove some of the incentives (certainly not all or most) to hire scads of people. I’d love to hear if others have any ideas on how to do this better. I really struggled trying to come up with a reasonable answer for this.
Interesting to know if European industry has tried for overproduction of trained workers to lower wages; they don’t seem to go for that sort of thing.
In other news, President Obama asked CEOs to spend some of the 2T they have in cash yesterday to hire workers: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704828104576021880879094162.html?wpisrc=nl_wonk
Gotta say, the CJ household is holding onto its cash reserves.
Also, a lot of this has to do with always interesting, always heterodox Curt F. on In The Pipeline:
“I have no interest in building up the middle class of China.
I have huge interest in building up the middle class of China, and here’s why: every Chinese that joins the middle class is entering a “flat”, globalized, connected world, where they can leverage their intellect to help solve not just their own local problems, but also the problems of the world markets. When more smart Chinese people gain access to sanitation, energy, and education, more technologies get invented (and we can use those inventions here!), stuff at my Walmart gets cheaper, and one more Chinese person gains income to buy products from us. That benefits not just them but also me.”
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/12/14/too_many_phds_revisited.php#466757
@CJ
I did read that on In The Pipeline earlier today. And, if the Chinese are buying products for us, I’m all for it. It remains to be seen whether that will happen (will be allowed to happen).
We’re holding money close right now too. But when lots of people are doing that, no money is being passed around. And, since our economy has been based mainly on finance lately (service economy) this is an additive thing. So, who should be spending the money? It is in everyone’s interests for CEOs (corporations) to be spending money. If CEOs are spending. People are getting jobs and those purse strings will start to loosen a little bit. But none of these guys wants to be the first to move on any spending even though it would seem to be in their interest to do so.
I don’t think the importance of maintaining a healthy manufacturing industry in the US can be emphasized enough. If we end up going to war with China, it’s going to be rough if all of our factories have been outsourced.
Regarding policy and science funding: There appears to be evidence that bigger, long term grants (like those from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute) promote more innovative science compared to the current NIH system. This is due to incentives: shorter term NIH grants incentivize low-risk incremental research; the HHMI system incentivizes innovation.
See:
http://www.mit.edu/~manso/agm.pdf
Interesting article on job creation in America by Andy Grove, of Intel fame:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_28/b4186048358596.htm
@Paul
But what do you do to stabilize that. Corporations are going to follow the money. There is no explicit reason for an industry to have an allegiance. Then we get back to the federal government. What can be done to make us competitive with China? I don’t see everyone OK’ing huge amounts of deflation. What’s to be done?
I don’t know, specifically. I guess what I’m saying is that I think the government should incentivize the maintenance of a prescence in manufacturing in areas vital to national security. How much and at what cost to the taxpayer are questions for bigger wonks than me.
It’s unclear to me why we need a positivist national policy to “make stuff”. I’d settle for just eliminating federal cash transfers to the financial sector and forcing financial institutions to take the haircuts they deserve from their ill-fated investment decisions. That would go a long way toward leveling the playing field between the manufacturing and finance sectors, without needing to have federal planners dictate the structure of our economy.
Also, along the lines of convincing the public to fund your research…every scientist should have an answer to the question, “why is what you’re working on interesting?”. If you find that your answer is weak or uncompelling, you might want to consider changing projects.
Does it have to be ‘interesting’ or can it be ‘important’?
@Brian Griffin
Sorry I had to approve your comment, the site get’s buggy when people put multiple links into a comment. Also, the stuff that HHMI is doing is fantastic. That gets into the whole tenure argument. If you have a long time to create without boundaries, you’re going to do better. But, wouldn’t that also be the case in a system where grants were “easier” to come by. They might not be the size of the NIH, but there would be continuity and stability in the system.
@Curt
I agree that the financial sector should have done a better job “learning” that their games got them nowhere. But, I think we’re past that point now. We need to get people working. How do we do that?
@Paul and CJ
Interesting/Important. It doesn’t matter. Either or. Esoteric research can be plugged in some really interesting ways to get people “into” it. Any way that researchers can make the public *think* (actively think) about science is a good thing. When the UK had their science is vital campaign, they were able to hit the ground running because the UK citizens have a generally favourable (british translation) and knowledgable view of science already. When the fit hits the shan here, we’re not going to be so lucky.
@Wonky Paul
Every good idea comes from somewhere. Why not from Paul Bracher? Why does it have to be a wonk?
GM’s failure was not because it could not make vehicles, but because it couldn’t make vehicles profitably. That was because of incompetence combined with failure to imagine. There’s no compelling evidence that lessons have been learnt by large US manufacturing and chemical corporations, so partnering such a bunch of losers may not be the best strategy for those with money and vision.
It doesn’t take much imagination to realise:-
1. Fungible energy is essential for current and imminent lifestyle choices and economic competitiveness.
2. High cost economies should not focus on production of low value products.
3. Competitive advantage derives from either unique knowledge or marketable resources.
4. Chemical educational institutions, and their funders, already respond to popular attitudes.
Part of the issue is that the public want:-
1. Cancer cures, vitality enhancers, and other medical advances… now.
2. Independent, low cost, convenient personal transport.
3. Enjoyable, high status, gadgets, and they want them all to be affordable and available now.
4. Rapid returns on all forms of investments, including research.
Obviously, funders prefer to invest in research that is most likely to produce a measurable outcome within the investment cycle, especially if they are accountable to the public. Many sucessful applications incrementally build on recent past achievements, as they rate higher than steps into the unknown. Even ” fundamental research ” that can show potential applications is favored, hence the continual stream of chemical reseach media releases, many recently touting potential uses of graphene, as well as various ailment cures.
Lack of imagination has caused the chemical research community to fall into a hole, and yet they still keep digging…
The funders of chemical researchers must identify medium-term investment strategies that will produce knowledge and solutions that will rebuild national productivity. Some obvious national ( and global ) priorities:-
- more efficient utilization of energy for home, industry and transport – such as chemical conversions, energy storage.
- improving agricultural practices – such as efficient and sustainable use of fertilizers.
- work with agriculture and biotech to develop efficient, products of chemicals for food, pharmaceuticals, polymers, such as low energy defined-media fermentations.
I’d be very wary of partnering existing large corporations, as their management and promotion systems are inimical to imagination, so I’d put together loose consortia of small industrial, research, and academic institutions.
It’s not too hard to define broad requirments, and to fund consortia for a couple of decades with 2 and 5 yearly external reviews to ensure focus.
@Bruce
Wow! Thanks for joining in. You put some thought into that on.
I appreciate your arguments for targeting the types of firms that you suggest. CJ, what is the recent history for smaller firms outsourcing work? Is more done in house? This also might be a really good way to actually raise employment.
We need to get people working. How do we do that?
Is the goal to get people working or to get Ph.D. chemists to get working as chemists? I thought we were talking about the second one.
If we’re talking about the first one, one easy answer is, (1) find a job or found a business for yourself. (2) hire someone with your salary or earnings.
The surfeit of some PhD skills is a global problem. One Organic Synthesis PhD position in New Zealand elicited 300 applications from around the world – the successful applicant apparently used Google’s “I feel lucky” option to find the position
.
I don’t see much merit in international collaborations solely between government research funding agencies, as they seldom produce tangible and valuable outcomes from the alleged investments.
Providing roles and IP ownership are clearly defined at the outset, I see some advantages in international consortia addressing some global chemical issues ( eg efficient fertilizers, environmental pollution ).
@Curt
Gee. What stunning insight. I’ll get right to work on that.
The immediate concern is getting employment for PhD chemists (as far as this roundtable is concerned). But can’t we be concerned with both. You seem to think that the two are mutually exclusive. They certainly don’t have to be and likely very much aren’t.
We’re putting money towards research goals. Is there a smart way to use that funding for something constructive?
@Paul
I wanted to say one more thing about your wonk comment. The people making policy don’t really have the answers either. They may have a little more sense of where they’re going while they grope in the dark. One thing is for sure. I do read a lot of science policy blogs and discussions. There are people out there with big ideas who are trying to build some clout. Change is coming. If we want the decisions about science/chemistry policy to be made on our terms, the only way to assure that happens is by pushing our own policy ideas.
We don’t want to be on the outside looking in while all of this is going on.
The point is that central planning is unlikely to be effective at predicting “what research is going to play a role in future, long-term innovation,” but a cornerstone of your proposal “would necessitate good central planning”, where both quotations are from your OP.
Crowd-sourcing or market-driven solutions are likely to be less sensitive to the inevitable failures of central planning. To that end, anything that helps improve the scientific flexibility of our technical workforce would be welcome. Maybe some kind of matching program given to companies who pay for employee retraining…
@Curt
We did talk about that (matching) in the discussion in Chemjobbers post (Monday) and didn’t really get back into it here. I think that this is a great idea, which may (???) work.
As for the planning, it doesn’t work long term for science. That’s why I suggest the index investment (broad-based investment in all fields of chemistry, because, who knows what’s going to work … we know that something will) and the immediate need investment. The immediate need is where the planning and strategy come in to play. (hope that might clear up some of the confusion … let me know if you disagree)
On second thought, my wonk comment is a little off base. The idea that I was trying to convey is that I recognize that I am ignorant of a lot of important pieces of the puzzle. That said, people like me shouldn’t just cop out completely, because that will leave people ignorant of science/other areas to make the decisions.
Teamwork, dissemination of knowledge, and the exchange of ideas among people of different areas of expertise have got to be fostered in order to make informed decisions.
I like what Obama tried to do in building the deficit commission. Unfortunately, it’s recommendations got shot to hell by the charged political climate. It just makes sense to me to raise some taxes and cut some spending, but that gives both parties something to hate.
Late to the discussion, but coming from a different tack:
Chemists desperately need to develop more business sense after they have mastered the necessary chemistry skills.
Successful business people have plenty of ideas and are really enthusiastic about them, they are “hungry”, and they DESIRE to make “products” that “everyone” will buy.
Chemists are now so weak on the last item, it is gruesome. Remember Willy Perkin making dyes?
Such people can the see the forest, not just the trees.
Make something useful; discover some interesting chemistry along the way.
Academia should positively discrimminate against recruiting people who look like they will just develop a favored science speciality and churn out specialist papers forevermore. We can not longer afford the luxury of this type of academic research.
If you choose entrepreneur hungry champions for your professors, they will naturally create the jobs we need.
Too simplistic? OK, but suggest some other root cause starting points and solutions!
@cliff
I really like where you’re going here. It’s one of the reasons why I supported the idea of biasing funds towards supporting research as a collaborative effort with beginning a start-up. While I was snarky with Curt earlier, he is right that the best way out is for us to start developing business and products ourselves. I think it is wise to develop those inclinations by incentivizing them with funds we are ALREADY giving for research.
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I was directed here by a post at Terra Sigillata, where I have also posted a comment. I think that this series of posts is excellent! In my opinion, we need to focus on this not only as chemists, but as a matter of much needed comprehensive national policy. I believe that the NYT article on General Electric about “making stuff” cited in the post above is very significant. As is the interview with Andy Grove on job creation in America linked to by Brian Griffen in a comment above. I think that in Bruce Hamilton’s comment, his point #2 above: “High cost economies should not focus on production of low value products.’ is refuted by Andy Grove’s arguments on scaling, and by the example of China. Currently, we are not doing great at retaining our knowledge based jobs. I also don’t believe that “Lack of imagination has caused the chemical research community to fall into a hole” I think that the imagination is there, we just need a drive towards national goals that would support our creative forces. In this regard, I like ScienceGeist’s proposal for index investing.
Gaythia,
Thank you so much for your insight (and kind words) on this. (I just got through reading your comment on Terra Sigillata). Really, the whole conversation this week can be applied to all sciences (not just chemistry). The NYT article really hit home for me. Of course, I must admit, I’m a sucker for GE. They do great stuff. I’m really happy to see them moving out of the financial games (which sometimes are just legalized gambling with one fund betting against another). That is no way to support growth. That IS a zero-sum game. Creation of products and innovation has been shown over and over again to be anything but zero-sum.
Glad you decided to join in!
Matt
To CJ, Leigh, Paul and Matt,
I’m a few days late to this roundtable (I blame it on finals), but I wanted to say a few things. Thanks for putting this discussion together. Reading the articles and the comments was incredibly informative and fascinating.
I’m currently a first-year at an Ivy that is now considered one of the top ten programs in the country according to a recent NRC Survey (which probably doesn’t mean a lot, if anything). When I was applying for school, I knew how difficult getting a TT-position was. I also knew that the market wasn’t great, but I had no idea that it was this bad. I too was generally unaware of the complete gutting that industry was experiencing. I consider myself very lucky to have blogs/sites like this to keep me in check with reality. I can say first-hand that many of my classmates are starry-eyed.
Although I lack graduate-school, employment, and overall life experience, I know I want to earn the Ph.D rather than the Master’s or nothing at all. But I think I am beginning to recognize the employment challenges discussed here among upper-level students at my own school.
I noticed that many of the solutions proposed here for getting new Ph.Ds and, perhaps more importantly, experienced Ph.Ds jobs are out of the realm of power of the average Ph.D. It seems that, unless policy changes occur overnight, that the work required to earn the Ph.D. is fruitless, that dropping out is a wise choice.
What can current graduate students and especially those early in the journey do to improve their situation, other than quitting? Is it up to the graduate student alone to be aware of the market and to prepare extensively for the tough road to getting and maintaining a job? If you traveled back in time and became a first-year student, how would you prepare for the current job market (what would you have done differently)?
Again, thanks for your efforts. Because of you and the commenters, hopefully I can prepare for a solid and more stable career that I love, even if it is less paying.
There are some attention-grabbing closing dates on this article but I donít know if I see all of them heart to heart. There’s some validity but I’ll take hold opinion until I look into it further. Good article , thanks and we wish more! Added to FeedBurner as effectively