Correspondence
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-023-01924-3

Tenure time loopers

Say, “I’m tenured,” and most people think you have a lifelong job
guarantee. It is a rare luxury; youwould be hard-pressed to findthe security that tenure promises beyond academic walls. However, as a
mid-career (N.Y.) and junior professor (N.S.)
in biotechnology, we challenge academic
institutions to rethink the existing tenure
model. In short, we are ready to leave the perceived safety of tenure to become ‘tenure timeloopers’ who instead undergo tenure renewal
every five years throughout their career. This
proposed model would focus more on thelong-term evolution of research programs
and include peer reviewers at all career stages.
In many institutions in academia, tenuretrack junior scientists who start their
independent research groups as principal
investigators are typically evaluated for tenure
several years after they start. Tenure is said tosecure their lifelong research vision and contributions to science. In most universities, faculty usually begin as assistant professors, andtenure accompanies promotion to associate
professorship. However, if a tenure request isdenied, that faculty member generally leaves
the institution. In some European research
institutions, the tenure model is different: junior principal investigators may be expected
to leave after a certain period of time, but aregenerally secure in finding a tenured position
elsewhere—a community-level tenure track
system. Regardless of the tenure model, thisfirst career stage is not easy. Junior scientists
must develop vital research programs, acquire
grants, produce research papers, train personnel and build collaborative networks, which
will then be collectively evaluated to determine whether they can continue their science.
In the 1980s, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer
Center implemented the tenure time looping
model soon after it was launched as a small,free-standing institute to keep departmental
affairs and the environment open, transparent and collegial. Forty years later, given theproblems and systemic frictions catalyzed by
the current tenure track model, we believethat it is time to explore the possibility ofexpanding the tenure time looping model
to alleviate these issues and encourage thescientific community to value the long-term
development of a research program more thannature biotechnology

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its short-term output. This would also provide
an opportunity to formulate a modern interpretation of academic freedom, meritocraticmodels and the societal responsibilities ofscientists. While the migration from the existing tenure track system to the time-looping
model presents a challenge, there are several
proposed scenarios to achieve this. Our view,
outlined below, is mainly rooted in our experience in the field of biotechnology, but similar ideas might also apply to other academic
disciplines.

Reconsidering the protection ofacademic freedom
Tenure has been touted as a protector ofacademic freedom, allowing researchers
to pursue their desired lines of inquiry andheterodoxies. But the reality is that research
programs, especially in the life sciences, aresecured and propelled by funding rather thanby tenured positions. As scientists at all career
stages, we need to convince our peers that ourideas are valuable and feasible to gain funding. If academic tenure is a means to protect
academic freedom, the tenure track system isundermining the freedom of junior scientists,sowing inequality that does not encouragecollegiality.
Today’s world is more open than that of theearly twentieth century when modern tenurecame to be, and the idea of academic freedom
is now well entrenched in academia. If the danger of removing tenure is the loss of freedoms,
then we have lost trust in our fellow scientists’good will to protect it. Just as grant reviewers
are entrusted to fund our collective science,
so too can we review one another’s long-term
visions while removing tenure time loopers
who exhibit harmful or unethical behavior. It
is difficult to believe that we who define theboundaries of the tenure gate cannot exert theability to value the science of peers reasonably.

Pushing beyond academic hierarchies
Tenure review is predicated on a hierarchy:
senior colleagues are the gatekeepers whoreview junior ones. Five to seven years after
launching their laboratory, if senior colleagues
approve, tenure is granted to junior scientists,
and they are then awarded academic freedom
and job security. By this point, junior scientists have a well-established research program.

Next, these newly tenured scientists move tothe other side of the gate and help to guideand review the development of their juniorcolleagues, sometimes making difficult decisions to disqualify some from entry. In many
institutions, junior scientists are not invited
to engage in the review of peers until they
have passed the tenure gates themselves. The
tenure model at these institutions excludes
intergenerational perspectives. Not only
would inclusion of these individuals bringvaluable diversity to the peer review discussion, but it would help to mitigate the possibility of conflict of interest among seniorcolleagues. We propose that junior scientists
could match their senior colleagues by maintaining the dynamic competencies necessary
to evaluate emerging science throughout theircareers. The modern world moves rapidly, withhighly accessible intellectual resources on theinternet. We can easily look at the technology
world and the individuals who have seeded
new industries to realize that seniority is nota necessary ingredient for innovation.

Addressing inequities
It is no secret that the tenure pipeline has contributed to creating a two-tiered society: those
who have and those who have not. Women andother underrepresented groups are more likely
to have not1. In other words, these groups see
inequities in gaining tenure-level positions. We
propose to replace the two-tier system with aneven playing field where no scientist is forevertenured and all are tenure loopers.
With the belief that intergenerational perspectives bring valuable diversity to tenure
review, we propose that renewal evaluations
be conducted by peers of all career stages.
Most academic institutions have developed
equity, diversity and inclusion policies, which
are considered especially when hiring juniorscientists. At the same time, the current tenure system provides job security for seniorscientists who were hired before these policies
were implemented, and it is well documented
that the degree of diversity in faculty representation sharply declines by career stage2,3.
Including junior faculty in these committees
would increase the number of underrepresented groups in peer review, helping tobattle the biases that exclude minorities fromtenure without waiting for more members ofVolume 41 | October 2023 | 1375–1377 | 1375

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these groups to balance the pool of tenured
faculty over the next couple of decades. Those
who become complacent and lose track of
their long-term vision can also be weededout to make room for junior scientists, who
are spending increasingly long periods inthe training pipeline as they eagerly wait for
spots to open up at institutions. It is also hardto deny that younger members who belong
to particular demographic groups that are
dominated by senior scientists are unfairly
treated and given lower priority for opportunities. For example, in Canada, white male juniorscientists are not eligible to apply for certain
awards so as to balance out the diversity biasof the past and current awardee cohort, which
already has many senior white males. By making all generations tenure time loopers, wechallenge junior and senior faculty alike tobe responsible for describing the evolutionof their research program and their contributions to inclusive, impactful science.

Valuing long-term vision
The tenure track system urges junior scientists
to showcase their independent ability to conduct science and build their track records ina short period of time. These scientists enter
their institutes brimming with talent, freshenergy and ambition. However, the lead-up
to tenure, like some grant review committees, often discourages these scientists fromembarking on high-risk challenges or pioneering new research fields that demand amulti-decade vision and instead rewards themfor short-term, incremental discoveries. Sometalented junior scientists may understand therules of this game and pursue grand visions
while securing milestones to demonstrate scientific output, but this strategy only applies tosome types of research. The pressure of tenureis also a common issue for young scientists
who postpone time-sensitive life decisions,such as growing their families, until the sprint
to tenure is over3.
Building a short-term track record is important for any generation of scientists, but so isbuilding a foundation of long-term research.
The tenure time looping model replaces a
one-time tenure assessment of a short sprint
with a system to encourage the continuous
development of a research program with scientific vision and progress. At each evaluation
checkpoint, every scientist is evaluated fortheir proposed research program, vision, academic and educational achievements, and university and community service by peers, who
also undergo the same evaluation process.
The pressure of review is therefore distributed

nature biotechnology

along a scientist’s career, with room to takerisks and experience natural ebbs and flows in
research productivity between reviews.
Practically, tenure time looping would notaffect the ability of most scientists to continue
their academic careers, but it would encourage them to take societal responsibility for
their past and future contributions. This will
also give committees an opportunity to provide constructive feedback to guide theirpeers between tenure time loops, providing
the ingredients and opportunity to evolve
their research programs.

Addressing the academic power gameThe issues in the current tenure track model
have also been accelerated by recent changes
in the publishing industry. High-throughput
experimental and computational technologies
have enabled us to test many hypotheses fromdifferent angles. While there are benefits, thistrend and the peer review system have createda capitalism-like, unstoppable cycle where
top-tier journals tend to accept data-richpapers4. Scientists who discover core phenomena or develop innovative technologies
rooted in creativity are required to spend time
accumulating data (even if it is unnecessary
for the main claim). The tenure track system
has rewarded a subset of scientists who havebecome skilled in satisfying the data-hungry
publishing process. The time-looping model
would instead require scientists to show in therenewal process that their research program
has remained on track with their growth vision,supporting the alignment of their scientificcontributions more than track records. Thismodel would encourage us to collectively shift
the resources we currently spend on publishing papers in high-profile journals towardpursuing research projects that are guided
by the intellectual curiosity of our teams.
We also urge high-profile journals to takethe lead in decoupling the requirement fordata-dense publications en route to selecting
high-quality works.

Transitioning to tenure time loops
Transitioning all current tenured scientists totenure time looping might seem like a herculean task. It may require each scientist to serve
on a renewal committee more times than in thecurrent tenure system. However, most institutions already conduct annual merit reviews,
and this committee could be leveraged to
conduct renewal assessments. Nevertheless,a gradual transition may be possible by reflecting on the allure of tenure in the first place. Tenure offers lifelong job security, incentivizing

researchers to stay in the academic realm in
exchange for lower pay than their industry
counterparts receive. In offering the option
to transition from the tenure system to timelooping, scientists could be compensated withhigher pay. Institutes would need to rethinktheir budgets and the number of scientists
in the pool. Additionally, equity-promoting
practices can be implemented to meet thediverse needs of scientists at different career
stages and incentivize them to transition to thenew system by offering benefits in the form ofrelief from teaching or service duties, as well as
bridge research funding during parental, eldercare or medical leave. By balancing economic
and socially oriented incentives that allow faculty to foster their competing priorities, therisk–benefit trade-off of the tenure time looping system can be tilted for the better. Afterall, the lifelong tenure model may not be as
risk-free as we think.
Life in academia is exciting and fast-paced.
We may be focusing too much of our collective
time on pushing the boundaries of science
while assuming that the academic system isrigid and settled. However, as academics, weneed to take responsibility for continually
evolving our systems to best serve us and thenext generations. Continuous recruitment,
education and training and the support ofcreative, motivated and talented scholars
underlie academia and societal growth. The
tenure time looping system is at least good
food for thought to reflect on aspects oftoday’s academia and to weigh our options
strategically and mindfully as we collectively
strive for high-impact, inclusive science.
Nozomu Yachie 1,2,3 & Nika Shakiba1
1School of Biomedical Engineering,
University of British Columbia, Vancouver,
British Columbia, Canada. 2Premium
Research Institute for Human Metaverse
Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Japan.
3
Research Center for Advanced Science andTechnology, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
e-mail: nozomu.yachie@ubc.ca;
nika.shakiba@ubc.ca

Published online: 25 August 2023
References

1. Rennane, S., Acheson-Field, H., Edwards, K. A., Gahlon, G.
& Zaber, M. A. PLoS One 17, e0267561 (2022).
2. Institute of Education Sciences National Center forEducation Statistics. Digest of Educational Statistics.
Full-time faculty in degree-granting postsecondary
institutions, by race/ethnicity, sex, and academic rank:
fall 2018, fall 2019, and fall 2020. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d21/tables/dt21_315.20.asp (2021).
3. Williams, W. M. & Ceci, S. J. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 112,5360–5365 (2015).

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4. Abdullaeva, M., Bromfield, J. J. & Sheldon, I. M. Preprint atbioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.05.06.490896 (2022)

Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank Carl de Boer, Anna Blakney, Samuel Kingand Carolina Tropini of the University of British Columbia,

nature biotechnology

Dayag Sheykhkarimli of the University of Toronto, andToshio Tsukiyama and Robert Eisenman of theFred Hutchinson Cancer Center for shaping our view.

by N.Y. and N.S. Both N.Y. and N.S. led the writing of thepiece, with edits and input from individuals listed in theAcknowledgements.

Author contributions

Competing interests

N.Y. conceived the idea of this piece, with content shaped

The authors declare no competing interests.

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