The paucity of grants among young scientists.

A recent News Focus article (“NIH grantees: where have all the young ones gone?”, E. Goldman and E. Marshall, 4 Oct., p. [40][1]) and Editorial (“Getting older,” D. Kennedy, 11 Oct., p. [323][2]) document and decry the dramatic decline in NIH grant support to scientists below the age of 35 during the past two decades. Let me raise some anecdotal evidence for another concurrent phenomenon that may have contributed to the problem. I believe that some academic research groups in the top 20 U.S. research universities have grown disproportionately during the past 20 years. In my own discipline, chemistry, in the 1970s, a research group of 20 under a single P.I. would have been considered very large. Now plenty of “superstars” are the sole P.I.'s for groups ranging from 35 to 50 graduate students and postdocs. Universities and grant-giving institutions have tolerated or even promoted this tendency, while ignoring the heavy associated nonfinancial penalty. Converting this personal impression into hard figures could be accomplished quickly with little cost by requiring the top 20 research universities to determine the current size of the largest five research groups (responsible to a single P.I.) in each department of relevance to the NIH. If my impression is substantiated, then imposing an upper limit of 20 to 25 members per single P.I. might liberate several million dollars annually. To provide a true incentive, allow the “savings” to remain within the university by diverting them exclusively to peer-approved grant applications by young faculty members or for initial start-up funds for new junior faculty members. The benefit of such a step goes beyond the financial “spread the wealth” factor to the impact it would have on the conduct of academic research in those universities that represent the pool from which the future superstars are generally drawn. Every P.I. will testify that the raising of funds, the writing of grant proposals, accounting requirements, and the myriad new bureaucratic burdens of the past 20 years have eaten into the productive time of senior investigators. Add to this the time dedicated by these superstars to increasing involvement with industry; the time demands of the many outside lectures, consultations, and travels in addition to the standard teaching and committee requirements of the university; and 5 to 6 hours of daily sleep and perhaps half a Sunday for weekly downtime: Barely 2 hours per day would be left for proper mentoring by senior investigators. For a research group of 30 graduate students and postdocs, this would leave 4 minutes per day per person. If the top 20 research universities could be persuaded to carry out the suggested survey, why not go a step further and ask the members of the five largest research groups in each relevant department to estimate the weekly time available for one-on-one meetings with their P.I.'s? Indeed, why not attempt an experiment I have proposed twice before ([1][3], [2][4])? Most American universities now require detailed evaluations by undergraduates of their teachers. Why not institute the same procedure for graduate students and postdocs in terms of the mentoring qualities of their preceptors? I have outlined ([1][3]) a brief questionnaire that could be answered in a few minutes. After having done this experiment myself, I suggested it to the chairs of some major chemistry departments, who felt that opening such a Pandora's box (their words) would be undesirable. Given our increased attention to ethical and behavioral practices of the scientific community, perhaps the time has come to realize that this box is already wide open. 1. [↵][5]1. C. Djerassi , Chem Eng. News (25 Nov. 1991), pp. 30–33. 2. [↵][6]1. C. Djerassi , Nature 397, 291 (1999). [OpenUrl][7][CrossRef][8][PubMed][9][Web of Science][10] # {#article-title-2} I noted with interest Donald Kennedy's Editorial “Getting older” (11 Oct., p. [323][2]), as it is high time that someone recognized that today's postdoctoral fellows are not the twenty-somethings of the 1960s. However, I fear that the figures Kennedy quotes—7 years to earn a doctorate in the life sciences and 2 to 3 years as a postdoc—tend to downplay the investment of time that today's junior scientists put into the pursuit of a scientific career. First, although the average of 7 years sounds correct, this number hides a tremendous variance. I have met people whose doctorates were completed in 3 years and others who spent 20 years as registered full-time doctoral students, with no correlation whatsoever between the duration of the doctorate and the quality of the work. As for the figure of 2 to 3 years as a postdoc, that is almost certainly an underestimate. Ten years as a postdoc is not unheard of, and 5 years appears closer to the norm. Finally, Kennedy omits a significant contributor to the aging of junior researchers, that is, the time that today's students spend pursuing the Master's degree. The Master's has become a de facto prerequisite for entry into doctoral programs, and students often spend 3 or even 4 years obtaining a Master's. It is not unusual today to find postdocs in their late thirties who move on to become research associates in their early forties on their hopeful path to academic seniority. We must face the fact that the ultimate goal of most doctoral students is to attain tenure. This is a feat that cannot even be mandated by law, thanks to Supreme Court decisions that prevent the forcible retirement of college faculty. Grants or no grants, what we have here is an academic “lost generation” who will be a lot older by the time things get any better. # {#article-title-3} As a recent postdoctoral fellow, I am not surprised by the decline in new NIH awards to applicants 35 years old and under (“NIH grantees: where have all the young ones gone?”, E. Goldman and E. Marshall, New Focus, 4 Oct., p. [40][1]; “Getting older,” D. Kennedy, Editorial, 11 Oct., p. [323][2]). All postdocs currently in the biomedical sciences have experienced this phenomenon first-hand; indeed, the general expectation among scientists in my age group is that when it comes to getting an NIH award the first time you apply, basically you can “fahgetaboutit!” Several factors that might partially explain this trend have been identified; however, I'm surprised that the most obvious and human one has not been mentioned. NIH award committees are made up of older scientists who have already proven themselves and tend to give awards to other scientists who have already proven themselves on the basis of past performance, i.e., older scientists. Young scientists are an unproven commodity, and no matter how many papers they may have generated during their increasingly long postdoctoral periods, they are still considered “riskier” when it comes to granting awards. There is a need for postdoctoral representatives on NIH award committees or, more properly, separate awards for first time applicants. This decline in awards to young applicants has had a marked and depressing effect, with many young scientists frustrated in their career paths and stuck in a postdoctoral limbo. In the end, many abandon academic research altogether and move into the corporate sector. # {#article-title-4} In his Editorial “Getting older,” Donald Kennedy (11 Oct., p. [323][2]) states that the average amount of time to earn an Ph.D. in the life sciences in the United States is 7 years. In the UK, the average time is 4 years. Although some might say that this is too short a time, it is surely an advantage to give scientists the opportunity to demonstrate their originality at an early age. If the Ph.D. training is prolonged, it may well take the edge off enthusiasm for original research. A shorter period of study would not solve the problem described in the Editorial, but it might help. 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