Quarterly Summary: Guest bloggers and the road to solutions

Posted July 4th 2010 at 3:59 pm by Dave

Over the first six months of this site’s existence, a lot of virtual ink has been dedicated to highlighting the major concerns about the way we train scientists and how scientific information is communicated to the public and government. The next six months will continue to present this type of information, but will also focus on how to move forward while embracing the current trends within the system.

Importantly, we’ve now started our guest blogger section with two excellent entries from Carl Wonders and Marianne Stanford. We are certainly keen to expand this section as we go forward, using it to represent the diverse views in an attempt to build consensus and devise solutions moving forward – if you are interested email us here.

These two entries commented on the Canada Revenue Agency’s response to the CAPS letter of January 2009 and engage the major issue of Post Docs: Trainees or Employees? – this is a critical issue moving forward and the work of CAPS is beginning to gain clarity of how the post doctoral fellow is (and should be) classified. If Canada wishes to recruit and retain this class of researchers, major changes have to take place as the international reputation of Canada as a place to do a post doc is faltering and this uncertain status is a major contributor to such feelings. A personal take on it – Nobody in my current Institute complains about salary or vacation days… this might be because they are employees with standard incremental pay raises based on experience, have access to staff pension plans, and have 31 days of vacation.

While we’ve been very lucky to have such stellar guest bloggers, Beth and I have also continued writing on a multitude of issues:

Beth started the quarter with an entry on communicating science to non-scientists alerting readers to the metric of the “fog index” which approximates how difficult your writing is to understand. Many scientists would be shocked to know how difficult their writing is to interpret and should take note when trying to write for, or communicate to, a non-academic audience.

She also pulled on the heart strings of many PhDs and post doc prospective and current parents with her musings on having a family while undertaking academic science careers. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation showed that childcare at UBC would cost 38% of a post doc’s salary if they were being paid $35,000 (which is the situation of nearly 20% of post docs in Canada according to the November 2009 CAPS survey). The comment box was very active – Post Docs are often not paying into EI (and can’t get parental leave), contract working post docs often have to take a break in their contract and/or risk not getting it renewed, and my personal favourite:

My university’s policy on the matter is: “We don’t have a policy, talk to your supervisor.” What is this, the 1950s?

Most recently, Beth has taken a Q/A type approach, posing very open ended questions that have attracted a good deal of attention from our readers:
• Why does anyone think science is a good job?
• Why Do Scientists Blog?
• What Does A Graduate Degree Mean?

I started to spill over into the stuff that Beth normally writes about, starting off this quarter wondering: “If 80% of PhD holders do not become tenure track academics, what do they become and are universities helping them get there?” Looking at the Canadian numbers, we graduated nearly 5000 doctoral students in 2007 and 4000 of them will not become tenure track professors. Assuming we continue this trend (in fact it’s likely to increase as it has been doing), this equates to 40,000 workers over a ten year period who will have PhDs but will not be tenure track professors. The entry basically asked what resources were available to this large sector of workers to find this job while they were being trained and the answer was highly variable depending on the university you attended? Some great resources do exist though and I tried to highlight them in that entry.

Next, I touched on one of the things that I find most challenging about new groups with great ideas and mission statements. The Council of Canadian Academies has much to uplift one’s spirits in this way, but I am really concerned that this effort will not retain the support of the Government when its 10 year funding expires and has yet to convince me that they can sustain themselves on a cost recovery basis, so the hunt for new funds must begin. Why is it that such necessary programs (like an arms length scientific advisory panel) find it so difficult to cultivate support in Canada?

Finally, I wrote three entries that underscore some major themes of this site and the issues that are most pressing for science trainees in Canada:

1. Facilitating career mobility for senior lab based scientists – to become advisers, politicians, entrepreneurs, etc without being severely detrimental to the trainees?
2. Addressing the gap between policy makers and scientists
3. Focusing the training of PhDs on thinking and innovating rather than generating requisite amounts of information or data.

That’s it for this summary, stay tuned for a summer filled with ramblings from Beth and I as we try to bring new and exciting developments to the front page of the Black Hole site. Thanks, as always, for reading and spreading the word.

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Dave, July 4th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in General

Let the Discussions Begin!

Posted May 12th 2010 at 11:38 am by Marianne

—
Quick Hit:
A big welcome to our second guest blogger Marianne Stanford, current chair of the CAPS group. As a follow up to Carl’s excellent article on the CRA’s response to the CAPS letter on Post Doc status. This is exactly the type of discussion that needs to be had and The Black Hole site is happy to be able to give it some e-presence. Please weigh in and let us know what you think and look forward to summaries each quarter that will synthesize the ideas in these articles and your comments!
—

Firstly, I would like to commend Carl Wonders on a thoughtful and valid assessment of the potential implications of the CRA ‘clarification’ on postdoctoral fellow (PDF) taxation. I’d like to follow up on that discussion from examining the issue from a different angle. I personally have been a PDF for 6 years, at two different institutions in Ontario, a president of a postdoctoral association and more recently the Chair of the Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars (CAPS). My opinions are my own, not solicited or contributed to by CAPS, but certainly formed by my many discussions with that group. I personally in the past 6 years have been classified as the typical ‘no distinct status’ that most PDFs in Canada share, an ‘employee’ PDF of a research institute and most recently as a ‘trainee’ or academic PDF receiving tax exemption on my stipend. The ideal situation for a PDF in Canada has in the end little to do with exactly how they are paid or taxed, but requires that they are appropriately compensated for experience, extensive education and enormous contribution to the scientific endeavour. Indeed, considering that many graduate students and technical scientific employees bring home considerably more than the average PDF indicates that this needs to change. How that change is enacted must be carefully and thoughtfully done so as not to penalize the current PDFs nor prevent new PhDs from entering the Canadian PDF system.
Having PDFs treated akin to medical residents is a wonderful idea, but no matter how it appears to be stipulated by the CRA it isn’t feasible in the current system. Why? Frankly, it is due to how we are compensated. PDFs, by in large, are paid from public research fund budgets through granting agencies – either directly through fellowships or indirectly through competitive grants earned by our mentors. Residents, who perform clinical duties are paid from health care budgets, not academic research ones. In our case, the granting councils, particularly the Tri-council of NSERC, SSHRC and CIHR have a lot to say about the nature of our tenure. They have explicitly said that the postdoctoral period is one of extended training and not one of employment. Thus, this explains the modest stipend levels and why like graduate student scholarships, PDF fellowships should be tax exempt. Obviously this message did not reach the CRA or the government of Canada. So, assuming that they rather than granting agencies, provinces and academic institutions gets to decide who is a legitimate trainee, where do we go from here?
The obvious choice is employment. The problem with this is the assumption that a simple change in status will result in higher wages, extended health benefits, job stability and overall better conditions for PDFs. It will by its nature allow PDFs to contribute to EI, CPP, RRSPs, but I emphasize the word CONTRIBUTE. That does not necessarily mean a higher wage to cover those contributions. Indeed, in my personal experience, employment status in and of itself only resulted in a smaller paycheque. That may sound glib, because it did results in significant changes to the nature of my relationship as a PDF, and provided me a number of basic rights that I lacked prior to the change. However, I was in a good lab, with a great mentor and a clear career path. When we approached our institute with our new found ‘employee’ status looking for benefits we thought we were due, we were promptly informed that we were a ‘temporary, contract employee’ not entitled to the extended benefits of permanent research staff. By its very nature, a postdoctoral period is NOT a career, thus is temporary, even up to 6 years. Thus, access to anything other than basic employee deductions is likely to require significant negotiations and will depend on employee relations within the individual institutions. This is not something that will be mandated nationally, unless instituted by those who provide our funds – the funding agencies. Thus, before any PDF seeks employment status they need to be clear of its implications. Unless and until we can first lobby for reasonable and well earned compensation (closer to the $70,000/year the government suggests we receive than the $38,000/year average stipend that currently exists) than a change in status will likely hit the individual PDF very hard, in the pocketbook. On the other hand, for the first time in history, both the government and the CRA have provided us with solid evidence that the current system is not appropriate and requires significant change. They must now mandate the national community (particularly the publically funded research councils) to enact this change in a reasonable and proactive way.

2 Comments

Marianne, May 12th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Financial, General, Jobs

The CRA response to CAPS: Implications and where should we go from here?

Posted May 11th 2010 at 7:00 am by Carl

QUICK HIT:
The Black Hole team is thrilled to welcome its first guest blogger to the site. Carl Wonders is a post doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto and one of the founding members of the UofT Post Doc Association. We are always open to ideas for guest blog entries on a one time or regular basis, so please do not hesitate to get in touch with us. Great article Carl, we’ll look forward to our readers’ responses!

The CRA response to CAPS: Implications and where should we go from here?

Last year, in response to the growing controversy over the taxation of postdocs in Canada, the Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars (“CAPS”) submitted a formal letter to the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA). The letter specifically addressed the lack of uniformity over what a “postdoctoral fellow” is and how their income should be treated. On April 28, 2010, the CRA responded:

“The CRA has never [emphasis mine] accepted that Academic PDFs [postdoctoral fellows] are generally students with exempt scholarship income for purposes of income tax. We have written several letters to this effect, both prior to and after 2006, when most scholarship income became fully tax-exempt. The focus of the letters has varied between the nature of the income (as scholarship income, employment income, or research grants), and the role of postdoctoral fellows (as students, employees, or something else), however, the answer has generally been consistent.”

The CRA took things farther:

“Generally, the CRA does not consider Academic PDFs to be “students” as that term is used in the Act. Rather, the CRA views Academic PDFs to be the same as other individuals who are required to undertake a period of paid training after completing their studies prior to pursuing an independent professional career. In our view, Academic PDFs are most similar to apprentices, articling students, and medical residents.”

While the consistency of the CRA can certainly be debated, it is now clear that the CRA does not view postdocs as students for the purposes of taxation, at least as far as the scholarship exemption goes. Lumping us in with apprentices, articling students, and medical residents is curious, but probably done to put us in a category of individuals receiving training en route to an independent career. Unfortunately, this shared categorization is not recognized by most universities. Medical residents in Ontario (and I believe throughout Canada) particularly are in a far better position than postdocs at the same institution. To use the situation at the University of Toronto as an example (http://www.pgme.utoronto.ca/tax.htm), medical residents:
• Are paid on a T4
• Receive a T2202A (they’re not eligible for tax exemption as they aren’t on scholarship, but they do get tuition/education credits)
• Are eligible to receive a T2200 and thus claim employment expenses (something that only salaried or commission-based employees can do)
• Get full employee benefits (supplementary health insurance, life insurance, etc.)
• Get topped up to 75% salary when they go on maternity leave
• Have their salary scaled according to how many years they have worked (http://www.pairo.org/Content/Default.aspx?pg=1094)

In other words, medical residents are employees who are also receiving training. Thus, U of T, and indeed the majority of universities throughout Canada, is treating two groups of “training professionals” (medical residents and postdocs) completely differently, despite the fact that the CRA is now on record as considering them to be in the same category! I would suggest using this fact as Argument 1 as to why postdocs should be considered employees. Consider that employee status would provide:
• The ability to pay into CPP and EI. This is especially important for postdocs looking to take parental leave, as you must work 13 consecutive weeks at an insurable (EI-paying) job to be eligible.
• The ability to contribute to RRSPs. Fellowship income does not count as “earned income” for the calculation of RRSP deduction room (although, see quotation below)
• Improved benefits including supplementary health insurance. While some universities do have a plan to buy into (e.g. U of T), it’s certainly not ideal. Some institutions have begun to remedy this situation, as the University of British Columbia in April 2010, started to allow postdocs to buy into the staff plan. Hopefully other universities will follow this example in the future.
• The potential for scheduled wage increases. Unless you receive a higher-paying fellowship, chances are you haven’t received much of a raise since starting. I know I’m making the same amount of money as when I started three years ago. Employee status would go a long way towards preventing this from happening, and open the door to potential unionization. In the UK, postdoc wages are scaled based on experience, and this scaling is also included in the NIH guidelines for postdoc salaries in the US.

One final point. The CRA makes a curious statement towards the end of their letter, which may prove somewhat useful (emphasis mine):

“…Academic PDFs often asked for amounts to be classified as research grants, rather than employment income or scholarship income, as research grants were allowed deductions for certain expenses (unlike employment income), while still qualifying as eared income for purposes of contributions to registered retirement savings plans (“RRSPs”) (unlike scholarship income)….In some cases, the income received by an Academic PDF could be properly included in income under paragraph 56(1)(n); in most cases, we would expect either section 5 (for employment income) or paragraph 56(1)(0) (for research grants) to apply.”

My interpretation of this is that the CRA is saying that postdocs have the option of treating their income, which is reported as a scholarship/fellowship (T4A, Code 05) as a research grant (Code 04) even if it is not reported that way on the postdoc’s own T4A. Indeed, the tax code does include a provision that would allow someone receiving a fellowship to report it as a research grant if the money was received “solely for the purpose of conducting research.” This is something that I had advocated two years ago to the University of Toronto Postdoctoral Association. At the time, the concern was that, should the CRA rule in our favor regarding the tax exemption, switching back to a scholarship might be problematic. Now that that door is officially closed, I see no reason to not re-classify fellowships as research grants in the future and perhaps to go back and do the same for prior years.

In summary, I feel that the best course of action to take is to begin lobbying for employment status for postdoctoral fellows across Canada. The fact that the 2010 Budget says in no uncertain terms that postdoctoral fellowships are not tax exempt should put to rest any ideas of fighting for classification as students for tax purposes. Furthermore, I believe that the long-term benefit to employee status (EI, scaled salary, better benefit packages, etc.) far outweigh the shorter-term benefits of tax exemption. I would strongly urge CAPS and the rest of the postdoctoral community to consider this as they continue to move forward.

4 Comments

Carl, May 11th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Financial, General, Jobs

Old Debate, More Participants: What do 80% of PhD holders do for a career?

Posted April 12th 2010 at 12:59 pm by Dave

I received a pamphlet the other day entitled: Careers Support for Life Science Post Docs
Page-2Page-3Page-4
(thanks to Anne and Lynn for letting me post this!)

This got me thinking and building on the momentum from Beth’s Why do PhDs leave and What Types of Jobs are out there entries along with the heated discussion around my Say No to the Second Post Doc entry I decided to have a look around Canadian universities to see if programs were present for the 80% of PhD holders who will pursue an alternative career.

Through that search, I identified great variability, with some universities having good institutional support (e.g.: University of Alberta) and others doing an impressive job on their own as concerned post docs (e.g.: University of Toronto). Many still lag far behind though… so I’ve selected highlights that are generally applicable and worth a visit:

University of Calgary
A newsletter that looks sharp, is generally relevant to post docs and could easily serve as a model for other post doc (or research institute) newsletters. One of the themes that I see here and recurring throughout the country is a lack of role models for PhD holders – hence the interview approach… find a handful of people who have PhDs and ask them where they are and how they got there. I’ll look forward to reading future issues.

University of Toronto
If you’re going to have a post doc association… follow this lead and have a Career Development Coordinator. The majority of your members will not be going down the professor route, it makes absolute sense to have someone who knows what resources are available at your university and in the city for them to speak with.

University of Alberta
Institutional Support… for real. It looks like there was Killam money put into establishing something permanent for post docs – this is a great way to ensure the long term stability of information/resources and avoid the problem that many trainee groups cannot get their heads around – how to do succession planning. There are many organizations that get started with the energy of a handful of interested people and then fade into oblivion. Institutional support (i.e.: an office, a contact in senior admin who is permanent, a mailing address, etc) is critical to the long term success of these organizations.

McGill University
Has emphatically stated that Post Docs are trainees… in fact, they are all mandatory members of the Post-Graduate Students’ Society at McGill. This comes with a good array of career services, though it does seem that they are mostly tailored for graduate students. Not all post docs would want this status, but it is certainly a way of handling things like group benefits and access to facilities.

University Affairs
A great set of resources for post academic career planning in Canada including great articles, podcasts, blogs (Career Sense and Margin Notes), and news/events pages.

The best set…
There are many great examples in Canada that Universities can mimic in their own institutes, but the best set of alternative career resources to be found for PhD holders seems to be on the American Association for the Advancement of Science website under the Careers Section. These booklets are a MUST READ for PhDs looking for a non-tenure track career path. The other sections of the AAAS careers page are also quite extensive (again, why does Canada have no equivalent to the AAAS for its scientists?). Granted, this is US-centric, but it still far outweighs the type of resources available in Canada and offers great advice for those struggling with the decision between 80 and 20.

Here in Cambridge, they’ve really put a lot of effort into ensuring the success of their academic trainees. It makes so much sense too, because every person that comes through your university is a reflection on your university.

Canadian Universities need to learn this and invest in their people.

Some great examples from a post doc’s point of view:

First – a dedicated full time office for life science post docs (another for physical sciences and another for social sciences/humanities)

Second – a vibrant post doc society that provides numerous guides (finding a post doc, finding accommodation, how to supervise, etc), hosts social events, and organizes professional development seminars.

Third – an idea I’d never heard of, but again makes a whole lot of sense… they have a database of Cambridge alumni who have agreed to be contacted for advice/questions about where they ended up with their PhDs. It’s a free service called GradLink – I’ve browsed it and it covers hundreds of different disciplines from across the world.

Another interesting follow up question that I’ll certainly blog about on another occasion:

Are Canadian Institutions training Post Docs to have the core competencies suggested by the National Post Doc Association?
1. Discipline-specific conceptual knowledge
2. Research skill development
3. Communication skills
4. Professionalism
5. Leadership and management skills
6. Responsible conduct of research

Admittedly, most of these depend on a good supervisor who cares more about training the next generation of scientists rather than getting the next paper out. It seems so short sighted (and a little self-centred) to think that a single lab’s productivity with respect to “knowledge learned” could outweigh that of multiple labs run by well trained scientists…. but like I said – another time perhaps.

3 Comments

Dave, April 12th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Financial, General, Jobs

Quarterly Summary: “CAP”ital Action and Effective Communication

Posted April 1st 2010 at 5:38 pm by Dave

This quarter has been a very active one for the Black Hole site, marked most notably by a tripling of site traffic in the month of March. Admittedly, most of this increased traffic was due to Budget 2010 and the sheer panic it invoked in the post doc community. Fortunately, the momentum that I hoped would continue has certainly done just that. Two prime examples of this forward movement over the last quarter have been:

1. The Canada Foundation for Innovation model of autonomy and flexibility was named “world’s best practice” and the contribution to developing both the quality and quantity of research infrastructure was highlighted. The matching investment in people needs to be the focus going forward, let’s hope the policymakers realize this. They have built it… will the scientists come?

If you are a prospective post doctoral research fellow, the answer right now is “probably not” as a flurry of bad press surrounds Canada as a place to complete this part of one’s training. It’s curious because Canada definitely has excellent core components in place for research success with great equipment and buildings, internationally heralded expertise, access to other scientists and patient samples, etc etc. So what’s wrong with the picture? The answer lies in the second burst of momentum from this quarter

2. What exactly is a post doctoral fellow? – in Canada there is certainly no easy answer and it seems that they are classified as trainees, students, or employees depending on which status benefits them the least. In Britain and Australia, a post doc certainly leans toward the employee side of the coin with good wages (often 25-35% higher than Canadian post docs), benefits similar to other employees at the institute, pay taxes, etc etc. In Canada, however, post doctoral fellows often get terrible wages (78% earn less than $40,000 after 10+ years of university training), benefits are inconsistent at best and often absent (though UBC just made an impressive announcement about PDF benefits), and Budget 2010 proposes to make post doctoral fellowships taxable.

The momentum from the Canadian Association of Post-Doctoral Scholars in recent weeks has produced the following:
- An FAQ entitled “What is a post doctoral fellow?”
- An online petition to maintain the competitiveness of a postdoctoral research career in Canada
- A campaign that has gotten recognition for post doctoral fellows in Parliament

Great to see this kind of effort being put forth to improve the trainee environment in Canada. Let’s hope we get some results!

This quarter also saw The Black Hole become even more connected as exemplified by our growing toolbar of excellent links to check out including recent additions of:

Canadian Programs
CIHR Science to Business Program – Program to encourage and enable individuals who have obtained a recent health-related PhD to pursue an MBA
The Science Creative Quarterly – UBC based online collection of scientific articles that are spiced up for a general audience

Excellent organizations/resources for Canada to learn from
The Royal Society – The UK’s national academy of science which is leaps and bounds ahead of the Royal Society of Canada when it comes to public and governmental interaction
The Society of Biology– A whopping 80,000 members who support the strong presence of biology in academia, industry, education and research

Other blogs of interest
Margin Notes – University Affairs blogger Leo Charbonneau tackles many of the institutional issues that are discussed heavily on this site – great insights and wonderfully in touch with the hottest topics.
rENNISance Woman – Self described Cancer Research grant wrangler Cath Ennis and her thoughts form a frequently updated Nature Network blog worth reading!

As for blog entries, Beth has been squirreling away on entries related to the theoretical (What is Science? and Evaluation vs. Research) and the very practical (Talking Science to Non-Scientists and Community Collaboration) sides of science. She also introduced us to the CIHRs Science to Business program which aims to equip PhDs in the medical sciences with MBAs.

I’ve been (again!) a little less focused and was certainly side-tracked in Budget season with entries related to taxes, moving forward from the budget, and the CAPS campaign.

The story of how DNA and genetics became buzz words on everyone’s lips is one that I often share with people about the importance and long term impact that public outreach can have (especially when it comes to a general willingness to support research in the area) – this tipped off two entries ( >The Least Work Principle and
Getting Involved in Science and Society) and was followed up with an entry on my current pet peeve in Britain which is going to consistently underwhelming climate change related talks.

Other entries on the lack of science policy in Canada and the importance of scholarships and networking to one’s future career generated good buzz, but also resulted in a strong criticism of our blog and other blogs for being far too focused on complaining about the situation. While politely disagreeing with this being the case for the Black Hole site, I have made a mental note (and followed up with physical entries!) to give credit where credit is due on the many great things happening in the country and continue to keep an extremely open mind to future solutions.

Hope you’ll all continue to read and contribute, it’s been a fun six months so far!

PS: If you’re interested in writing a guest blog entry or a regular blog column, please do get in touch.

2 Comments

Dave, April 1st 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Financial, General, Jobs, Science Communcation

CAPS Getting Progress in Parliament

Posted March 24th 2010 at 7:40 pm by Dave

I just thought I would quickly bring it to people’s attention that the Canadian House of Commons has been hopping with activity regarding post doctoral fellows and the repercussions of Budget 2010. A quick scan of the comments in March can be found here and if you want to keep track on your own, check out the Hansard records.

The Canadian Association of Post Doctoral Scholars has spearheaded this charge by contacting ~20 relevant Members of Parliament, two of whom have directly brought up the taxation of post doctoral fellowships matter in the House as an area of grave concern for promoting research in Canada.

What do these early comments tell us:

1. There is massive confusion as to the status of post docs – are they students? employees? trainees?

- Responding to a question of why a particular Post Doc in Quebec should have to deal with a $4000 tax increase, the Hon. Diane Finley responded by saying that the Conservaties have done a lot for students and then listed off several benefits, none of which post docs can benefit from.

- Numerous other MPs referred to post docs as “post doctoral students”

2. There is also confusion as to how much of the scientific workforce post docs represent and how well they are compensated:

- There are ~5700 post doctoral fellows in Canada
- According to a 2009 survey, over 50% of post docs make $40,000 or less and nearly 80% make less than $45,000 before taxes
- Prior to beginning a post doctoral fellowship, the vast majority of PDFs will have just emerged from 8-12 years of university and student loans are extremely common

The Hon. Mr Flaherty’s statement about “pure scholarships” is quite confusing. What exactly is a “pure scholarship” – is it the kind of thing that is merit-based, awarded by an external organization, and awarded to an individual? If so… please explain to me how a CIHR, NSERC, or SSHRC post doctoral fellowship award does not belong in this category?

Or perhaps he would argue that PhD students are training for a degree while post docs are graduated and therefore no longer training (i.e.: “part of the workforce”) – if this is the case, then that’s fine… but again I beg to ask as I did in a previous post:

What other career path recognizes more training and more experience with less pay and little to no benefits?

This lack of defined status is exactly what causes the problem because the powers-that-be will always decide to classify post docs as students when it suits them and as employees when it suits them. If all PDFs are to be classed as employees and tax paying citizens, then their wages and benefits need to reflect that.

- Make fellowships worth more (and not the $70,000 kind – something civilized like $45,000 or $50,000 would be fine and clearly distinguish them from the majority of graduate student stipends)
- Establish minimum salaries for post docs paid from a grant
- Scale the wages based on research experience

Funnily enough, it would almost certainly be less expensive for the Government to simply grant the scholarship exemption to post docs.

Until then, please consider writing Jim Flaherty and/or your MP to explain your story. You can also sign the petition if you haven’t already.

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Dave, March 24th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Financial, General

Perception, Power and Principles: Human induced climate change and why people have trouble accepting the science

Posted March 22nd 2010 at 11:12 pm by Dave

***Quick Hit: The CAPS petition to maintain the competitiveness of a postdoctoral research career in Canada is up to 1750 signatures. For more information on why this petition has been written, read my last post and visit the CAPS website.

Perception, Power and Principles: Human induced climate change and why people have trouble accepting the science

Over the last three months in Cambridge, we have been treated to a large number of free public lectures – there is definitely something special about this place and I think that Canada has a lot to learn about engaging the public to be interested in science and its role/impact on society. My next blog entry will focus on public lectures, but for now, I want to tell you about two lectures specifically and how they made me understand why people are so divided on the issue of climate science. (and yes, this is one of the reasons that public lectures outside of one’s field are an excellent thing to attend)

Talk #1 – Nigel Lawson, British Politician, Climate Change Skeptic

Aside from general musings about how many holes there are in the data and how lots of things are ignored or exaggerated, a couple of themes struck home:

Indoctrination
Lawson made a very good point: The vast majority of people who are trained in the climate science field are told “climate change is happening and it’s man-made” and are then set onto the task of researching its effects in area/situation X. In some respects this is true, as an entire generation of climate science trainees did not partake in the original global warming discussions. We’ve all heard the line “the scientists have agreed on this for decades now”, but how many of them actually know why?

Of course, this is common in academia (I had to accept the theory of stem cells before I could learn about them, but only part way through my PhD could I argue confidently and cite why stem cells were real and important) – perhaps it is particularly bad in climate change related fields? I don’t know the answer to that, but even I’ve read a large portion of the IPCC report, and I hope that every climate scientist has at least taken down the executive summary.

Misdirected Passion and Politics
In the question/answer session, three junior climate scientists were so offended by Lawson’s diatribe that they not only asked questions like “How can you believe this?” but spent 20 minutes following the session harassing Lawson for his views.

Lawson, the seasoned politician, deflected all questions, raising general points that cast some doubt on elements of climate change and well outside the field of expertise of each individual scientist, giving Lawson’s indoctrination argument some serious merit. In many ways, as sick as it makes me feel, the climate critic came out looking pretty darn good.

But clearly… this is the politics of science, and scientists themselves have a HUGE amount to learn if there is to be any progress in policy. Some quick advice if you are making an argument in public – keep things simple, inside your area of expertise, and be direct. If you’re asking a politician a question, make it a yes or no question – people like Nigel Lawson are experts at saying what they want to say no matter what you ask, try boxing them in with logic and simplicity.

Talk #2 – Bob Watson, Chief Scientific Adviser, British Dept. of Environment

Honestly, this talk was one of the most disappointing of the Darwin College lecture series on “Risk” (which was generally quite good). Bob Watson is one of the most engaged scientists when it comes to Government and I really thought he would have a sense of “who is your audience”. Instead, his first statement was something along the lines of “right, so we know this is happening and man-made” and then proceeded to tell us all about the models from the IPCC.

He was in front of a general audience, at least some of whom are in the Lawson camp of not being sold on the climate change debate, and was four months after the “climate-gate” scandal from Bob Watson’s University (though not his department to be fair)… and instead of clearing the air at all, he just played the doom and gloom cards of what could happen.

What climate scientists really need to do whenever they give a public lecture:

Show simple slides on why the scientific community is convinced
– What are the key pieces of data? What convinced you?

Things like:
- our world is not a ball of ice because of the greenhouse effect.
- greenhouse gases and clouds are part of this process and particular gases (carbon dioxide, water vapour, methane, etc) have more of an effect than others
- increases in these gases means more radiation heats the earth

What have we observed?
1. CO2 and methane are up and rising
2. Global temperature has and continues to rise

Why do you need to do this?
Because, while it might not be new to you… the world is not convinced and until they are, the scientific community has to drill home these messages (especially the experts in the field). Simple messages… we have high confidence in X because of Y. Don’t preach that scientists have it all figured out and you should now obey our demands… that is not appealing to anyone. Be a little more savvy about your message.

Clearing the air
I do not dispute the science that says our planet is warming. I also think that there is a reasonable chance (and lots of correlative data) that humans have played a role in pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (i.e.: we have chopped down a lot of forests and burning coal and flying airplanes are pretty effective at emitting the stuff) – so if the greenhouse effect is truly what keeps our planet from being a ball of ice (which seems to be the best theory running so far), then I’m pretty sold on the need to reduce our output of greenhouse gases.

Am I sold on all the models? To be honest, I don’t understand them, so it’s tough to say. What I do understand is that that if an entire community of academics – at least some of whom I trust are very critical of the data and models – are screaming to high heaven that we need to worry about this, so I’m keen to make some serious changes. Let’s just work on getting Joe Public on board

PS: Looks like Canada is doing a great job from over here in the UK…

5 Comments

Dave, March 22nd 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in General, Science Communcation

Budget 2010: Post Docs, be careful what you wish for…

Posted March 10th 2010 at 1:55 pm by Dave

Last week Canadians were treated to another Harper Government budget where the post doctoral stage of developing highly qualified researchers was finally recognized as an important part of the research enterprise. Post docs shared a grand “hurrah!” as this was a good thing, and long overdue.

Oddly enough, it was not just lip service as Jim Flaherty was “especially pleased to announce in the Budget, new funding for post-doctoral researchers” proposing to create a program for post docs akin to the Canada Graduate Scholarship (which recently gave select graduate students an excellent stipend over their studies at $35,000/yr) which would earmark $70,000 per year for select PDFs over the next five years.

BUT… look a little more deeply – say…somewhere around page 349 in Annex 5, it couldn’t be written more clearly:

post-doctoral fellowships will be taxable

We hear you, and thank you for the clarity. It’s been a long haul through the murky waters since 2006 when post docs were unsure whether or not their fellowships would fall under the scholarship exemption. See previous blog entries here and here to get a sense. Budget 2010 proposes to straighten this up.

So, yes – lots of post docs are upset as this represents an instantaneous $4000-$6000 pay cut. If you are getting a $38,000 fellowship from SSHRC, you get knocked down to ~$33,000 and if you get a $40,000 fellowship from NSERC/CIHR, you now take home ~$35,000. So, as of 2010, a fellowship funded PDF will take home the same or less than a PhD funded by a Canada Graduate Scholarship.

I ask you – What other career path recognizes more training and more experience with less pay and little to no benefits?

You say – what about these newly conceived $70,000/yr fellowships? I say – there aren’t enough of them to go around as there are 6000 PDFs in Canada and only 140 fellowships (2%). Also, Post docs don’t just last two years (in fact, some single experiments on their own last two years!), so after your glory years of funding, you take a 50% pay cut…sounds fun doesn’t it? Add all of that to the reality that just about every advertisement in medical science related faculties at McGill, Toronto, Alberta, and UBC amongst others has a requirement for 3-6 years of PDF experience. I had to ask my brother with the mathematics degree to figure this complicated stuff out for me.

Seriously… who thinks up these policies? Why not ask someone (oh I don’t know… maybe someone like the Canadian Association of Post Doctoral Scholars) about what a post doc actually does and would such a program work?

There are 6000 PDFs in Canada that are critical to the research enterprise and the human resource shift over the last 15 years is staggering. Will this program keep the best and brightest in Canada and attract new international fellows?

NO

The reasons are simple
1. The program is for 2% of PDFs
2. The funding lasts for two years only – the average PDF length is substantially longer
3. The wide discrepancy gives a major financial disincentive to stay longer than two years

And really… I don’t know what kind of hot shot junior scientists you think are out there, but picking post docs is not like a hockey draft where a selection like Sidney Crosby will change the fate of your entire lab. Research happens in incremental bits through the hard work and dedication of teams of scientists. Telling 98% of them to “suck it up” so 2% can enjoy an excellent salary is not sending the right message.

What the government really needs to do is improve the entire trainee environment and cultivate Canada’s international reputation as a great place to do scientific research, full stop. Stop grabbing headlines with superstar scholarships… it does very little practical good, especially at the graduate student and post doc levels.

So, in the end, the real problem is not whether or not PDFs should be scholarship exempt it’s whether or not they take home a fair wage. So the solution could be a tax exemption, but it could also be a national raise in PDF salaries.

The latter would be reasonably easy (and not so expensive) to achieve by doing three things:

1. Making fellowships worth more (and not the $70,000 kind – something civilized like $45,000 or $50,000 would be fine and clearly distinguish them from the majority of graduate student stipends)
2. Establishing minimum salaries for PDFs paid from a grant
3. Scaling the wages based on research experience (as the National Cancer Institute of Canada already does successfully with both its fellowships and for PDFs paid off NCIC program grants)

Funnily enough, this type of change would not cost the Government much more than the $45 million promised for the superstar fellowships – but of course it wouldn’t be nearly as sexy to release in a Budget, it would merely make sense.

What I hope you’ll do to push this issue:
1. Sign the online petition to maintain the competitiveness of a postdoctoral research career in Canada
2. Write your MP using the template on the CAPS site
3. Tell all your research friends to do the same and if you know a sympathetic person in politics or the media, put them in touch with CAPS.
4. Join the Facebook Group

18 Comments

Dave, March 10th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Financial, General, Jobs

2010 Canadian Taxes: Did you get your T2202 and T4a?

Posted February 7th 2010 at 1:31 pm by Dave

IMPORTANT – As of March 4 and the 2010 budget, the Government of Canada has made the statement that post doctoral fellowships ARE taxable as they do not lead to a degree. See pages 348 and 349 here

As I outlined in one of my very first blog entries, the waters are quite muddied when it comes to understanding the tax benefit regarding scholarships outlined in the 2006 budget:

Budget 2006 takes action in support of a more skilled and educated workforce by proposing:

• A new tax credit for the cost of textbooks, which will provide a tax reduction of about $80 per year for a typical full-time post-secondary student

• The elimination of the current $3,000 limit on the amount of scholarship, bursary and fellowship income a post-secondary student can receive without paying federal income tax

• Expanded eligibility for Canada Student Loans through a reduction in the expected parental contribution, starting in August 2007

~ 2006 Federal Budget

The middle statement is the one that provoked the most interest as it meant that all scholarship, bursary, and fellowship income could be received as non-taxable income. It became quickly apparent that things were a little more complicated though, especially when it came to post docs on fellowship or trainees paid from their supervisor’s grant. If you get the right forms (T2202 and T4a Code 05) you’re sailing… but even though people are in the exact same position (e.g.: graduate student at an off campus research hospital), the same forms are not always being issued.

Four years later and the waters are no clearer than they were for those first brave few who fought to claim this tax benefit in 2006. No ruling from the Canada Revenue Agency on the tax status of a post doctoral fellow, no consistency (even within the same university) with respect to tax forms issued to graduate students and/or PDFs, and no idea whether or not you should be saving some pretty sizeable chunks of money to ensure you’re in the black with the federal government.

In my Money, Money, Money… entry from October, I tried to outline the possibile situations that grad students or post docs might find themselves in and have some loose templates available for anyone who would be interested in filing a reassessment for previous years of miscalculated taxes or for the 2009 tax year. Feel free to email us to get these sent to you.

My own current situation is that of an international post doc on a Canadian merit based fellowship for which my funding agency will (in theory) be issuing a T4a Code 05. I have obtained a letter from my supervisor detailing the training/education nature of my current position and have drafted a letter in lieu of a T2202 based on the excellent work done by the UofT Post Doc Association some years back. Their site is certainly worth a visit when considering how you should proceed. Together, this has worked for others… my fingers are crossed.

Remember though… if you do successfully obtain get your scholarship/fellowship marked as non-taxable, the Canada Revenue Agency can reassess you and decide that you/they were wrong and in fact you owe them a pile of money. The lack of clarity makes PDF fellowships and positions filled from supervisor grants particularly subject to this possibility, so go in with your eyes open before making these tax filing choices.

The real problems with all of this lay in the long trail of inconsistencies… three examples:

1. Fellowship funded post doc (~$40,000)
University/Institute A issues the appropriate forms and no taxes are paid
University/Institue B refuses a T4A Code 05 and income is taxed – (~$6000-7000)
Result: PDF takes home several thousand dollars less strictly because they are working at a particular institute.

2. Graduate student funded off supervisor’s research grant
University/Institute A issues a T4A Code 05 to all graduate students irrespective of whether or not they get an external scholarship or are paid a stipend from the lab
University/Institute B issues a T4A Code 05 to those who get external scholarships and issues a T4A Code 04 to those who are paid off a grant.
Result: Graduate students in some labs get tax free status, others in exactly the same situation (i.e.: paid off the supervisor’s grant) do not.

3. The double whammy: Winning a fellowship decreases your income – HUH?
This just doesn’t make sense… but there it is, happening to the lucky folks who win a fellowship. Many institutes have benefits packages for “employee-like” post docs who are paid off grants (a $2000-3000 value usually), but as soon as you become a scholarship paid trainee, these benefits are revoked because you no longer “work for” the institute. If you then do not receive a T2202 or get the wrong coding on your T4a (or both), you get the privilege of having the income taxed and losing your benefits for nothing… the things one can suffer to get a tick box on the old CV!!

It is easy to see how this type of inconsistency could influence a student or post doc’s decision to enter a particular lab or university. So… if you happen to be in charge of such a place – wouldn’t it make sense to have clear procedures in place that maximally take advantange of this very progressive tax policy? In some cases it’s like giving your trainees a 15% raise without having to pay for it – how perfect is that?

—
In the long run though, a yearly ritual of such rigamarole hardly seems ideal… so what can be done and how can you help out?

CHANGES NEEDED:
• A clear ruling from the CRA on the tax status of the post doctoral fellow.
• Clear rules from each educational institution about which income receives which tax form – preferably made clear to each individual upon starting their new position. Many research hospitals or off campus institutes are unable to issue T2202 forms (these come from the university and sometimes the payroll/human resources departments are not the same) or unwilling to issue T4a Code 05 (because everyone is on the same payroll system and classed as an employee irrespective of where the money originally came from). This sort of red tape is really hard to cut around, especially for post docs.

YOU CAN:
• Inform students and post docs at your university of the UofT website, the CAPS site, this blog, and other such resources for helping them out in the short term. This includes your university’s graduate student caucus and/or post doc association(s).
• Join CAPS and help them fight this battle with a unified voice for all post docs (lobbying government officials, the CRA, etc) and influencing good policy decisions at universities and research institutes.
• Inform your own human resources department of how other groups are handling these matters and working with them to get the correct forms issued each year.

Good luck with filing 2009 returns and post your comments on previous and current successes/failures with respect to navigating through tax time!

6 Comments

Dave, February 7th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Financial

Quarterly Summary – Trying to make sense of it all

Posted December 30th 2009 at 11:01 pm by Dave

So, in the wake of a very busy December, I realize that we only registered two blog entries this month – a noticeable drop from November’s eleven. But this is the realistic way forward if we want to tackle these issues with the time and energy they deserve, as these “issues affecting trainees” underpin many of the important decisions that are made in an academic career and give decision makers a sense of what trainees are thinking. It’s a lot of information though and in recognition of everyone else being busy as well, I thought a quarterly summary of highlights would be a good idea.

The latter parts of 2009 had four very exciting developments in the Canadian science community namely the launching of the Canadian Science Media Centre, the release of the first CAPS report detailing the plight of the Canadian post doctoral fellow, the creation of and 3000+ signatures on the Stem Cell Charter, and the first formal conference on science policy in Canada. Hopefully this kind of momentum continues into 2010…

In the interim, Beth has started by exploring “what to do with a PhD if I don’t want to be a professor” with blog entries on why PhDs leave the academy, what types of jobs are out there, and how your PhD helps prepare you and the communication of science information to the public with where people get their scientific information and what public science outreach groups are present in Canada.

I’ve been a little less focused, tackling scholarships ( tax information and tying to economic outcomes), trainee demographics, peer review, post-doctoral fellow training (saying NO to the 2nd post doc and the creation of more permanent “scientist” jobs), graduate training (cookie cutter PhDs and making the choice between degree types), and getting scientific information to government officials.

I’ve linked to all of the individual blog entries above if you want a more focused reading on a particular issue, below are what I think constitute the major trends, discussions, and highlights of our first 2.5 months:

Demographics

The trainee community is aging and, while not necessarily a bad thing, it requires us to think about its structure and function. This is critical if Canada wishes to attract and/or retain the best and brightest academics. Additionally, Nature magazine recently damned Canada as a location to do a PDF with this uninspiring blurb.

Comments from that blog entry stimulated some additional homework on top of the US stats reported initially and the numbers are not as bad in Canada as in the US with respect to degree length. The CAPS report released in November 2009 however, clearly shows that the PDF length, remuneration, and even its definition are major concerns moving forward.

Say NO to the Second PDF – good or bad?

Admittedly, I chose this title and wrote this article with the intention of stirring the pot. And stirred it was, both from personal emails that I received and from comments on the site. To be clear, I was definitely not saying that there are no good reasons for doing a second post doc (re-tooling, changing fields, wedded to a city, boss is awful, etc), but if you lack such a reason, I do strongly advocate querying whether or not another post doc will be good for you.

Most importantly though, is for senior decision makers to understand that this is a growing pool of people with a growing series of frustrations – check out the comments section from that post. Another key point in there that was made more explicitly in my first entry and flushed out in that comments section is that the answer to a shortage of jobs cannot be longer post docs, this just puts even more pressure on the system.

The numbers are not lying… the significant majority of PDFs will NOT become professors – you might not like the reality, but you have to ask if academics are not for you and start planning sooner rather than later.

Jobs you can do if you pull the plug

Beth has shared her own story about finding a job after exiting the long dark tunnel and has also compiled a list of jobs that you might consider after you complete the ol’ PhD… please do feel free to add to the list as well or comment with your story or advice to others looking for the first time.

Skills you have acquired while plugged in

Beth also did a great job identifying the skills acquired during a PhD and good ways of thinking about them when writing up your CV and doing interviews for non-academic jobs.

Cookie Cutter PhDs

I tried to encapsulate/define the sinking feeling I get when I compare medical science to a factory where the goal is to generate the data/papers instead of training the individual to be able to run a group that can generate data/papers. Much discussion was generated and there tended to be reasonable agreement that more effort needs to go into developing critical thinking skills and nurturing the curiosity that probably brought people there in the first place.

In sum, the first quarter has definitely encouraged Beth and I to continue sharing the research, ideas and thoughts of our small group of colleagues on this site and we’ll look forward to commenting on new developments as they arise. Thanks for all of the great discussion so far and the encouragement on the blog’s content. I hope 2010 brings you many good things – including an Olympic Gold for the men’s and women’s hockey teams.

3 Comments

Dave, December 30th 2009 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Financial, General, Jobs, Science Communcation
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