I have written before about how scientific information gets (poorly) communicated to the Government in entries about the routes of information acquisition and about getting scientists to understand how policy works.  In my mind, one of the best ways of improving things is to have members of the public service who have a good baseline understanding of, and appreciation for, scientific research.

Typically, when one thinks about the public service, they think of people who “work for the government” and they often think that Canada has too many people in such positions.  In researching for this article I was actually quite surprised to find that the federal civil service of Canada only comprised 0.8% of the total Canadian population standing at just over 260,000 public servants in 2008.  As each province also has a public service this is clearly an underestimate, but even in the provinces, the numbers are lower than what I expected (e.g.: 0.67% of British Columbians).  This aside, the fact remains that there are  hundreds of thousands of jobs in the public sector – but very few scientists that I have encountered consider it a reasonable place to look for employment and I would love to see this change.

First of all, get it out of your mind that the public service is simply the Canada Revenue Agency, Royal Canadian Mint, RCMP, and Canadian Armed Forces.  Start by looking at the career explorer page on the Public Service Commission of Canada site – you’ll be met with a whole host of organizations, many of whom need highly trained scientists to do research (e.g.: Fisheries and Oceans, Environment Canada, etc) and many others who would benefit from senior and junior employees with strong scientific backgrounds (e.g.: Health Canada, Atomic Energy of Canada, National Research Council, etc).

Imagining possibilities, however, appears to be the easy part and asking the question of how to get such a job to someone in the middle of a science based graduate program  would be met with many blank faces and shrugging shoulders.

Those who would consider this path should be on the lookout this autumn for the Post Secondary Recruitment and the Recruitment of Policy Leaders programs that the federal Government will be running in September and October respectively.  Importantly, you’ll want to consider which type of position to apply for with self-assessment questions like: do you want to research in a lab or the field?  do you want to study and design policy? do you want to leave science completely?

Also, each province has their own series of listings and it would be important to check back regularly to see new postings in provinces that you would be willing to live and work in:

Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

An example of an interesting job that might appeal to readers of this site is that of senior scientist at the Ontario Science Centre.

Critical to those who do choose this type of career though, is the understanding of the need to go backwards in order to go forward.  What I mean by this is something that Carolyn Steele at University Affairs wrote about earlier this year in her (sadly!) now-retired blog Career Sense and this is the recognition that changing fields and career by taking a non-academic job will often result in a dark period for graduate students where it may “feel more like a demotion than an opportunity” and perhaps even something you could have gotten straight out of undergrad.  While it might hurt in the short term, this is a reality for anyone that will make a dramatic shift in career path – do not let this get in the way.

My next entry to the “So you want to be a ____” series will be the final one – do let us know if this has been a useful series and we’ll try to do something similar in the future as the site continues to evolve.

QUICK HITS:

1.  If you were interested in previous posts of mine about how well science information is distributed and received in the UK, then you might also want to have a gander at a recent post that I made on the Stem Cell Network Blog entitled Science, Science, everywhere…

2.  The Council of Canadian Academies has released their annual report.  A good read if you have not yet heard of them and what they do, but it still leaves large question marks regarding its future which I’ve written about before.

So, you want to be a Researcher in Industry…

I think it’s a real shame that a research career in industry is black-listed as “selling your soul” or “giving up” at almost every juncture in academic training.  Yes, there are compromises that you will make with respect to research independence, daily schedule, and potential removal from the sharpest part of the cutting edge of research¹, but the enormous benefits that derive from industry involvement in the research enterprise are not to be scoffed at – not to mention its benefit to the Canadian economy.

Make no mistake, I am a huge fan of academic research, blue sky thinking, and avoiding cookie-cutter PhDs and I am not a fan of tying economic outcomes or “deliverables” to all academic research.  I am also, however, not impressed by the villainization of working for money while doing research – in fact I see it as one of the very real faces of future scientific research, especially in medical science.  Underpinning this transition is the human resources shift that is resulting in far more graduates with highly specialised knowledge and the presumption from many trainees that this leads to an academic career.  While the percentages of successful bids for professorship have not shifted so pointedly over time, the absolute number of PhD graduates has dramatically increased and they are flooding into the workforce.

So, if you find yourself even moderately inclined to consider a career in industry, I offer some advice for places to look and strategies to take on your journey.  Again, if there is some specific help out there from Engineers, Physicists, Chemists, etc, please do leave a comment as most of my meagre help will be biotech/medical science related.

Know and Expand your Current Networks

First thing is first, look around you at people who are similarly inclined.  Perhaps a professor in your department owns a company on the side or a fellow trainee has a background in business or economics.  These are great places to start for grabbing some quick advice from someone who probably understands your particular perspective.  In British Columbia, there is a great resource called the Student Biotechnology Network which hosts numerous events in Vancouver that are directly aimed at giving trainees a glimpse into the sector.  It has strong support from long term and emerging companies in the region and offers the vast majority of its events free of charge. It was started by a former UBC student and has grown continuosly over the last decade.

Hands On?

I think one of the most critical questions that people have to ask themselves before embarking on a career search in industry is whether or not they want to physically do the research, direct the research, or simply understand the research.  Inevitably there are careers that will allow you to drift across these loose categories, but going in with your head up about your likes and dislikes for a career path is never a bad idea.  Physically doing the research should inspire job searches like “research or bench scientist”, “product development”, or “staff scientist” while directing the research would be more along the lines of “team leader” and “head or director of R/D” – though the latter would not necessarily be available without industry and research experience in the bigger companies.  The understanding of research is perhaps the most diverse and simply means putting your knowledge to use in a particular companies “other departments” like sales, marketing, technical writing, etc.

Stuck in the Middle with You (or not…)

Something that Canada has been rumoured to lack and I’ve not had reason to disagree yet is “mid level” biotech careers.  Essentially, what this means is that you either start/own a company or you are very junior in that company and there appears to be an extremely tiny middle ground of very good pay for very good work with moderate to low chances of moving higher unless your boss retires.  This stress is compounded by the situation to the south where a plethora of such positions exist in places like San Francisco and Boston, resulting in speedy depletion of talented middle managers and researchers if the wait for upward mobility begins to look lenghty.

Standardization of Tools and Reagents

One thing that industry can provide at a much higher level than the transient trainee body of graduate students and post doctoral fellows is standardization.  If a biological reagent is developed (i.e.: something that particular cell types like to grow in) in an academic lab, it often resides within that lab and its small networks.  If that reagent is of substantial interest to a wider community, a company can standardize the reagent and bring it to those markets (both academic and industrial).  The same goes for particular tools and technologies that are developed within academic settings, especially from engineering, chemistry, and medical science.

Money Matters

Quite literally… and this can be a huge problem in some companies where scruples are sacrificed for the sake of this quarter’s profits or for the survival of the company.  The consequences of such unscrupulous behaviour, particularly in medical sciences and the production + prescription of the wrong pharmaceutical, can be dire, and proper regulatory checks and balances need to be in place.  One of the best examples of such an initiative is the UBC Therapeutics Initiative where academics work with physicians and pharmacists to provide up-to-date, evidence-based, practical information on prescription drug therapy.

In medical science I believe these lines are blurring more and more, especially with the need for academic labs to generate heaps of data and the subsequent rise of cookie cutter PhDs.  No doubt, we need well trained researchers to do this kind of work, but in the end, if your research project is along the lines of optimizing a biological system/reagent, sequencing a genome (or several), or screening small molecule libraries for potential drug interactions – why not get paid well for it?

Resources to check out

BIOTECanada – A national non-profit association dedicated to building the bio-based economy in Canada.

NSERC Industrial Post Doc Fellowships – Funding opportunities that will make you substantially more attractive as an entry level candidate.

The 1998 Canadian Biotechnology Strategy – The Government of Canada’s last major policy paper outlining their strategy on Biotechnology.

1. Thanks Trev for directing this my way!

My first introduction to the world of project management as a field was in my previous job, when I took an intro to project management workshop offered.  After taking the workshop, I really wished I’d learn about this field during my PhD instead of after it, because the concepts and methods of project management are super useful!  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  First, some definitions:

“Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives. [...] The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals and objectives while honoring the preconceived project constraints (e.g., scope, time, budget)”

and

“A project is a temporary endeavor, having a defined beginning and end (usually constrained by date, but can be by funding or deliverables), undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, usually to bring about beneficial change or added value. The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast to business as usual (or operations), which are repetitive, permanent or semi-permanent functional work to produce products or services.”¹.

Project managers, then, are responsible for “planning, organizing, and managing resources” of “temporary endeavors” with specific goals (like, say, a research project). I’m definitely no expert on the topic, but it seems that project managers traditionally worked in areas like construction and engineering, but are starting to become more common in science.  I mean, I certainly was the “project manager” for my own thesis, but I managed things based on my best guesses/following along with what I saw scientists doing, not based on any “project management” methods.  Project managers in research institutes, as I understand it, separate out the planning, monitoring and execution of tasks towards the deliverables, from the science per se.  They are the ones making sure you have access to the people and materials you need, when you need them, to conduct your research; making sure you stay within the intended scope of the project; and making sure you get the job done, to the necessary level of quality by the needed date (or identifying at the start that it won’t be possible to do what you want to do by the time you want to do it!).  Which frees up the scientist to do their science. So if you don’t want to run your own lab, but still enjoy working in the research field, a job as a project manager might be up your alley.

If you are interested in finding out more about project management, I’d suggest checking out the Project Management Institute. They are the people who produce  “A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge” (the bible of PM) and offer a slew of credentials in PM.  You may also want to check out this open source Project Management handbook, because, you know, it’s open source, so you can check it out without having to buy it.

Like I said, I’m not an expert on this topic, so if there are any project managers in the audience, please let us know your thoughts or tips!

Image credit: From Wikimedia Commons, in the public domain.

1. The source of both these quotations is the Wikipedia page on project management

If you’re in graduate school or beyond, you have a wealth of experience to draw upon when it comes to assessing quality of educators.  Some were engaging, inspiring, and really understood how to teach, others were boring, incomprehensible or simply not qualified, while still others were clearly unimpressed that they had not yet retired.

Along the way, you’ve almost certainly been involved in educating as well as learning.  Whether this was formal (e.g.: university teaching assistant, MCAT preparation courses, etc) or informal (e.g.: training the new person in the lab, tutoring a friend in mathematics) you can probably answer the following set of questions based on experience:

1)  Do others understand you?  (i.e.: do you have to explain yourself multiple times or do people just “get it” when you are the teacher)

2)  Are you satisfied when someone learns from you?

3)  Do you take pride in the success of others?

4)  Have others commented on how well they learned from you?

If you have answered yes to all four, then maybe a career as an educator is something you could consider.  Importantly though, this process of consideration should not just be primary and secondary school teaching (great career choices in themselves, but not the only option for those with a passion for educating).  Below I’ve tried to catalogue some of these options, not meant as a comprehensive list, but merely to stimulate some ideas for people that may not have explored all of these options to satisfy their desire to educate.

Primary/Secondary School Teacher

The highest proportion of formal educators would still find themselves employed as schoolteachers.  If you’ve finished your Masters or PhD, you certainly would not be the only one who has tried.  It is becoming more and more common to have M.Sc. and PhD grads teaching at both the secondary and primary levels.  Additional training before you can apply is almost a given and education degrees at various levels (Bachelors, Masters, PhD) are plentiful across Canada.

Education Research

As I mentioned above, alongside the acquisition of your highly specialised training, you have been exposed to a number of educators and teaching methods.  Were they all useful to you?  Probably not.  Did you ever ask why they didn’t just teach it “this way” or “that way”?  Perhaps…  if so, then education research is worth a shot.  At its core, it tries to understand and then improve upon methods in education a task for which you certainly need to have a good understanding of the material being taught.  Physics departments appear to be at the leading edge in this type of research and much effort has gone into figuring out how to better assist high school and undergraduate learners in their understanding of basic physics principles.  A great example of innovative teaching ideas in Canada is through the work of Nobel laureate Carl Weiman  who has spearheaded projects such as PhET (which are online “interactive, research-based simulations of physical phenomena”) and more recently at UBC Carl Weiman Science Education Initiative.

If you like such projects, then you should read this great article from Science Careers on Education Research.  I think anybody exploring a science-based career outside of bench research would be foolish not to visit the Science Careers site.

Organization/Program Development

Many organizations require top level scientists to help develop their programs.  In this category I am talking about either doing science education or helping to transmit complicated scientific information to others for organizations like the AAAS, the Society for Science and the Public, Let’s Talk Science, or Youth Science Canada

There are also a huge number of non-governmental organizations that require scientists to do a lot of heavy lifting in building up background research and then finding effective ways of transmitting that information to the public.  Think about careers with the Pembina Institute, the Fraser Institute, the Manning Centre, or the Suzuki Foundation depending on your political leanings.

Museum Scientist / Educator

We often only think of museums as those places you go when you have no idea about the city you’re visiting or a place to kill a few hours on a rainy day.  While I could go on for days about how fascinating and inspiring museums can be, this article is about educators and make no mistake that museum staff members from across the globe are often gifted at educating.  Clearly a science background helps out at science-based museums like the Science Museum and Science World, but you might be happy to know that many “regular” museums also have scientists and educators on permanent staff.  For example, the British Museum has many scientists and educators who run excellent programs like Young Explorers.  If you think you’d like a research/education combination, read this article on the position of museum scientist.

College Instructor

Yet another excellent article on the Science Careers site that  chronicles the life of a community college instructor and his passion for teaching – a necessity for career satisfaction in the Instructor position.  When I was in Ontario between 1999 and 2003, it seemed that colleges were given a bit of a hard time (this may or may not still be true), whereas in Vancouver it seemed like a much more vibrant and engaging option for recent high school graduates – a place that a few of my graduate school colleagues decided was the type of place for them to build a career.  Some examples “out west” where instructor positions are to be had are the British Columbia Institute of Technology, Langara College, and the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology.  Permanent instructor positions are also available at some Canadian universities, though the numbers are not high and the arguments are plentiful about the impact and reasons behind such positions.  We’ll have a blog entry on the “university instructor” position in the coming months that will directly discuss these issues.

Popular Media

Educating people that you cannot see and don’t often hear back from.  This is perhaps one of the most difficult forms of educating in my mind and it’s done extremely well by television and radio shows like the Daily Planet and Quirks and Quarks.  You could try and work with one of these excellent teams of people or become a science writer with a specific slant on getting high quality scientific information into mainstream media.  I think the limit is your own creativity when it comes to finding a role in society that allows you to embrace your passion for educating – don’t restrict your thinking!

Since Dave has started us off on the “So you want to be a blank when you grow up” series, I’m going to take the lowest of the low hanging fruit and tell you all about what I’ve learned since becoming a program evaluator!  But first I’d like to mention two things:

• If there is a type of career you are particularly interested in, let us know and we’ll see what we can dig up.
• If you are a PhD who hasn’t followed the tenure track and would like to share your experiences with our readers in this series, please let us know. We’d love more guest posters!

— Now, onto the exciting world of program evaluation! So, you want to be a Program Evaluator when you grow up… Evaluation is a great career for a PhD, because it allows you to use the skills you developed in your training – research skills, problem solving, critical thinking, project management, and more. Though I’d not heard of evaluation as a field per se during my education, it actually is quite established as a profession.  If you want to get a good sense of what evaluation is all about, I’d suggest checking out:

• Canadian Evaluation Society
• American Evaluation Association
• European Evaluation Society

Each of these societies’ websites have a wealth of information about evaluation, including things like evaluation standards of practice, literature, conferences and workshops, and, importantly, job postings and requests for applications for contracts.  Which brings us to the question:

In-House Evaluator or Independent Consultant?

There are pros and cons to both, of course.  Working in house (like I do) offers things that are appealing both personally (like a stable income and benefits) and professionally (like the ability to have a thorough understanding of the programs you evaluate, the opportunity to work with programs over the long-term and see them flourish, and a chance to build evaluation capacity in your sector¹.  Working as an independent consultant offers benefits like flexibility of when and where and on what you work and the chance to make a lot more money than you will in-house.  Apparently there is a tendency for evaluators to flip between in house and independent throughout their careers (as one colleague described it to me, you get sick of the bureaucracy of working in-house, so you go out on your own for about 5 years, then you get lonely from working on your own for so long, so join an organization. And repeat).  You can, of course, combine the two – for example, having an in-house job and do small evaluation projects on contract on the side).  And working for an evaluation firm – where you have some security, benefits, etc., but some of the flexibility of working on your own – is a possibility as well.

Training in Program Evaluation

There are a number of training opportunities to learn more about program evaluation and to build particular skills.  The above-named societies offer a variety of training workshops, as does the Evaluators’ Institute. As well, if you are interested in doing more schooling, you can get graduate-level training in program evaluation at:

• University of Victoria
• University of the Fraser Valley
• Claremont Graduate University

As well, the CES has recently launched a credentialing program, and though it’s still early days, I think it will be well worth working towards obtaining that credential, especially if you plan to work as an independent consultant. And a few resources worth checking out: In addition to the wealth of resources on the CES, AEA, EES websites, here are a few things that I would recommend reading:

• Michael Patton’s Utilization-focused Evaluation²
• Kellogg Foundation Logic Model Development Guide
• Consulting and evaluation with nonprofit and community-based organizations by Judah J. Viola, Susan Dvorak McMahon.

Final words: Like Dave said about science writing, it’s worth starting to build your portfolio of evaluation projects early. You can certainly use aspects of your graduate research as a demonstration of your skills, but picking up some small evaluation projects while you are in school – perhaps even working under a more established evaluator as a mentor – would be good way to start off your portfolio.

1. if such a thing appeals to you, like it does for me.
2. Patton has also recently published a book called Developmental Evaluation – I haven’t read it yet, but it’s probably worth checking out

QUICK HIT:

Exciting news from the fight for global access to medicines and health technology development – a new organization called Mind the Health Gap is working to bring researchers, developers, and advocates together to tackle the problems of technology development, effective delivery, and funding.  No small goal for sure, but an exciting workshop is taking place this September and more information on the group can be found here.

—

In chatting with Beth over the last few months about future topics for the Black Hole site, we identified a need to push out some information that might begin to alleviate some of the stresses on the science trainee environment in Canada.  The low hanging fruit in this category seems to be one that affects most current and prospective PhD holders and is underscored in past entries here and here.

We thought we could help fill the career guidance gap left by many trainee programs by launching a series of entries entitled “So you want to be a blank when you grow up”, the first of which is below…

So, you want to be a Science Writer when you grow up…

Throughout the course of my own training, I have encountered a number of fellow trainees that have a passion for science writing and they live amongst a sea of those that do not.  For those considering a career shift toward this passion, I think the first critical step is to figure out what kind of science writing you are interested in…  loosely I’ve broken it up into three categories:

Popular
Feeding the brains of the public

Technical
Accurately explaining scientific protocols and/or information

Editorial
Consolidating or shifting a scientific field, making policy, designing programs, lobbying for change

I would guess that all forms of writing are not equally appealing to everyone, but also that the wonderful heterogeneity in our population produces people that have a passion for all three types.  Trying your hand at these styles of writing should not wait until you’re two months before graduation and in panic mode about “what do I do next?” and it really is up to you to figure out what type of career you might want to pursue.  Some advice on how to test out these different styles while still in your degree program is below:

Popular:

• Submit to the Science Creative Quarterly or McSweeney’s
• Submit to your university’s magazine(s) or newspaper(s)

Technical:

• Write up a protocol for a book chapter (i.e.: current protocols)
• Write up protocols for internal lab databases and get feedback from lab members
• Read and improve Wikipedia entries around techniques or machines that you utilise every day

Editorial:

• Write a review on a topic in your field (this doubles as a great start on your thesis introduction)
• Write a letter to the editor or freelance article on a science based issue of public concern
• Start a journal club in your institute to identify key experiments that are missing from research papers and how the papers do or do not move the field forward (i.e.: start thinking like a journal editor)

Once you have figured out the type of writing you like, it’s time to consider the types of jobs that are out there for such styles of writing.  I’ve listed a few examples below, but they are here as a guide so you can get a sense of the type of thing to look for:

Popular

1. Science Journalism (Newspapers, Magazines, Television, Radio, etc)
   1. Print based, online, or backroom script writing/research for radio/tv
   2. Extra training (i.e.: journalism programs) might be considered and a great resource is J-Source.ca which appears to have a pretty comprehensive list of options
2. Non-Profits/Charities/Societies
   1. Making science exciting for particular groups (kids, patient groups, etc)
   2. Examples: Let’s Talk Science and Hospital for Sick Children

Technical

1. Industry brochures, manuals, etc (Job Example 1, 2, and 3)

Editorial

1. Science Journal Editor – remember that all editors are not specifically for reading/reviewing research articles.  Examples include here, here, and here.
2. Policy Analyst for organizations like the Suzuki Foundation or Fraser Institute
3. Report writing for organizations like the Council of Canadian Academies or Health Canada

—

If you’re really serious about science writing, I would suggest a look at the following resources as well:

The Canadian Science Writers’ Association
Get in while you’re still a student – $35/yr vs. $75!

The Science Media Centre of Canada
Keep apprised of the latest with what promises to be a critical tool for science journalists in Canada

Association of British Science Writers
A little more transparent than the CSWA with its job listings and quite a lot of great ideas and information

Final Words

The last piece of advice that I can think of is for you to start as soon as possible with building a portfolio.  Nobody will ever hire you on the basis of “everyone has always said I can write well” or “I had the best grades in my English class”.  Many of these portfolio items need not be completely unrelated to your field (e.g.: book chapters, reviews, press releases, protocols, etc) so be creative with how you get your writing experience.  Also, many universities have very active and engaging extra-curricular programs that might be worth exploring so don’t be afraid to start writing articles for these groups or to develop your writing skills at professional development workshops.

And last but certainly not least – I’m not a proper science writer and don’t have the wealth of experience that many proper science writers do, so don’t be afraid to ask questions to such people or even request information interviews if you’re very interested in what they do.  If any such writers are reading this, please offer up more suggestions as well in the comment box below!

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.

Yesterday I attended a panel discussion at Cambridge run by a group called the Centre for Science and Policy. It is part of a series of events designed to engage and unite those at the University who have an interest in the role of scientific information in government policy. This particular session was entitled Working on the inside and highlighted the roles of Cambridge academics that have pursued these sorts of roles in Government.

The panelists all had some role in bringing a scientific perspective to the parliamentarians at Whitehall. These roles, however, were distinct and spanned multiple career stages, areas of focus, and included different sets of responsibilities. The panelists were:

Dr Rob Doubleday (ESRC Policy Placement Fellow, Government Office for Science)
Professor Michael Kelly (former Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA), Dept. for Communities and Local Government)
Professor Frank Kelly (former CSA, Dept. for Transport)
Dr Eoin O’Sullivan (Senior Policy Fellow, Institute for Manufacturing)

It lasted just 2.5 hours and involved just 50 people – many of whom also had (or have) a major role in science and policy in the UK. Needless to say, I felt critically undereducated, overwhelmed, and had virtually nothing to contribute. But, there was much to learn from this meeting. Sadly, it was run under the Chatham House Rule which means I cannot thoroughly discuss the ideas presented or the information given, but a few things that I think Canadian universities, granting agencies, and the civil service would be foolish not to consider are:

Test Driving: Programs to engage, inform and train early career researchers

The ESRC Government Placement Fellowship scheme
sounded like the realization of an idea I first heard pitched by then National Science Adviser Art Carty – sabbaticals in Parliament – which I’ve written about before in another entry on getting science to Government. It seems that the UK has created a 3-12 month program for researchers to take leave from their university and become a pseudo-member of the civil service.

This is a real win-win as the researcher gets insight into how things work in “the real world” while also offering a fresh perspective to the civil service in terms of thinking as well as the actual information delivered. Importantly, bureaucrats involved in the program appeared to have no sense of performing an advanced form of babysitting. Furthermore, it helps researchers learn a little bit about how to manage people – principal investigators are often on their own when it comes to managing human resources, this type of experience can only help.

It’s already built, I don’t care anymore: Learning how the other team thinks
Scientists are a focused bunch – we specialize (to our detriment sometimes) and are often left very unsatisfied with loose ends. Politicians make big decisions daily and a scientist’s life’s work can be discussed and adopted (or dismissed) over an afternoon tea break. The loose ends are often plentiful, but there’s no time to tie them and other critically important items need to be discussed and decided. This distinction seems so straightforward, but can be the root of so many problems. If a scientist is going to step into the policy realm, they had best take a crash course in how to get their ideas into simple practical messages with real consequences on one side or the other.

Grade A for America: Learning from Washington and the AAAS
A lot of the funding and organizations that support improving the presence and role of science in Government comes from the National Science Foundation and the AAAS – organizations for which Canada has no equivalent. The programs and progress achieved by these groups are vast and something Canada should aspire toward.

This does, however, beg the question of who could support or design such a program in Canada? Perhaps this is a role that granting agencies, centres of excellence, the CFI, universities or the Royal Society could fill by inventing (read: copying from elsewhere) a program that would encourage scientists to undertake such roles.

University centric approaches: Knowing who’s who and what they are doing
Oftentimes, the way an individual gets involved with science and policy is the result of a friend or colleague who either recommends or encourages them to partake. This leads to a general lack of awareness from the rest of the institution about these people and their positions. One of the action items that was agreed upon informally at the panel discussion was to establish a mechanism for members of Cambridge University to know who was involved at Whitehall and what they were doing, so these similarly engaged academics could learn from each other and pool resources. The CSaP events were agreed to be a great start to this and the overall feeling was that the university could contribute far more to the country’s policy than it was currently doing. Perhaps Canadian universities could run with this idea as well and ensure that they have a central resource for facilitating these types of interactions between their researchers and the government.

Overall, it appears that Canada suffers similarly to the UK and the gap between academic scientists and civil servants is not insignificant – probably more pronounced in Canada. The solution is not necessarily an increased science focused bureaucracy, but instead to simply have more cross-fertilization between universities and governments – put them in the same room at the same time and let them learn from each other. This can be achieved by fellowship/sabbatical type arrangements, by encouraging science trainees (and university professors) to pursue careers in the civil service, and by breaking down the barriers between styles of thinking.

There is a lot of lip service paid to the idea that Canada needs a knowledge-based, innovation economy. While an enormous portion of the personnel training takes place at universities, trainees appear to be given less and less freedom or encouragement to “innovate” and are producing more and more cookie cutter PhDs. The innovation culture line of thinking is not an inherently bad one (academics would agree that innovation is important and the bedrock of research), but the politicization of that message result in programs like business related SSHRCs and extreme skewing toward translational medicine which are not necessarily the academic’s version of innovation.

Getting more academics in the same room with policymakers will clear the muddy waters – which organization will step up to the challenge in Canada?

“A science researcher at Harvard now earns an annual salary that is only 1/50th the price of a family-sized house in Cambridge, a fact that may not be lost on an intelligent female Harvard undergraduate choosing a career.” (Source)

The announcement of the new Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC) – 19 scientists granted $10 million over 7 years to establish research program in Canada – has raised some eyebrows for its notable lack of women among the recipients.  We’ve talked a bit about this issue here before, notably about the mat leave issue and the disadvantage one faces in a career in academics should they choose to take time off to have kids.  But while reading some of the articles and blog postings about the CERCs, I came across this interesting article, which poses the question: “Why does anyone think science is a good job?”

From the article:

The average trajectory for a successful scientist is the following:

1. age 18-22: paying high tuition fees at an undergraduate college
2. age 22-30: graduate school, possibly with a bit of work, living on a stipend of $1800 per month
3. age 30-35: working as a post-doc for $30,000 to $35,000 per year
4. age 36-43: professor at a good, but not great, university for $65,000 per year
5. age 44: with (if lucky) young children at home, fired by the university (“denied tenure” is the more polite term for the folks that universities discard), begins searching for a job in a market where employers primarily wish to hire folks in their early 30s

Not to mention that academics who make the above salaries aren’t just putting in a 40-hour work week with four weeks paid vacation and stat holidays that aren’t spent working on the next grant application, as they would be in another, higher paying, career. Put like that, it’s not hard to see why I – and many people like me – have gotten off the academic career track, regardless of whether or not we have/plan to have kids.  In fact, when I see the fierce competition that recent PhD grads and post-docs face trying to land a tenure-track position, it makes me wonder why so many people are willing to fight so hard for what, in many ways, is a thankless job¹.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that no one should ever become an academic researcher.  In fact, I think that academic research is essential – we can’t leave science solely in the hands of industry, for example.  But I think we need to give some serious thought to the compensation and work-life of our academic scientists. So while we talk about the ways to advocate for appropriate compensation and benefits for postdocs to help keep good scientists in the game – a very important issue, to be sure – we also have to be thinking about what comes after that for those postdocs who are lucky enough (or is that “unlucky” enough?) to land a tenure-track gig.

1. Maybe in the comments section those of you who have chosen to stay on the academic career path can shed some light onto why you think being an academic scientist is a good job?

Quick hit:

1. The Stem Cell Foundation has been nominated for a Webby – the Oscars of the Internet – in the category of Best Activism Website. It’s quite impressive that they were nominated as these are a big deal, and what’s even more impressive is that when I cast my vote, they had a slim lead! It’s not often that support for medical research will hit the radar of activists so if, like me, you think they did an excellent job of communicating a positive and inspiring message about scientific research, vote in order to help them win the People’s Voice Award. Also, don’t forget to consider signing the stem cell charter if you haven’t already.

The Council of Canadian Academies – Thriving, Surviving, or Doomed to Fail?
Created in 2005, the Council of Canadian Academies is a not-for-profit corporation that supports science-based, expert assessments to inform public policy development in Canada. It was created with $30 million seed funding from Government which expires in 2015 and just underwent its midterm assessment last week. The report was generally positive and indeed to the casual reader it would appear the CCA has a lot to be proud of and not much to worry about. Digging a little deeper though, one gets the feeling that the CCA is facing a critical juncture in its existence and faces the very real possibility of becoming a heck of a lot less effective in 2015.

The panel, James Wilsdon (Britain’s Royal Society), E. William Colglazier (US National Academy of Sciences), Luc Vinet (Rector, of U de Montreal), and Margaret Bloodworth (former Canadian senior public servant) highlighted the council as a unique body within Canada with much opportunity to grow, was strong and credible in its membership, and covered a wide variety of topics. This is all too common in Canada – we build it, prove its quality, and then funding dries up because it’s not new and exciting anymore. Genome Canada barely escaped this fate after becoming one of the most effective networks of scientists in Canada with renewed funding in 2010 after being left out in 2009. The CCA will probably not be so lucky. Am I premature in assuming that the Canadian Government will not renew funding for the CCA? Perhaps, but I think the writing is on the wall with the way the organization has been treated in its first five years. Instead of being closely linked to the National Science Adviser and the Prime Minister’s Office as it was in 2005, the CCA was pushed into the Ministry of Industry and is now filtered through the Science, Technology and Innovation Council. I’ve ranted about this earlier but the important point for the CCA and Canadians who want to see it continue is that no matter how good a report is (which in the CCAs case is “very”) it is rendered completely useless if not actually read by policy makers, industry and community stakeholders.

The Council has had some major impacts on the Government sponsors that have requested reports. The mid-term assessment highlights the fact that 6 of the Council’s first 8 reports have had substantive impact on the sponsor’s thinking. A clear-cut example is when Natural Resources Canada asked for a feasibility report on gas hydrates as part of the long-term fuel supply and based on the CCA report, now funds two major gas hydrate programs. The CCA can also adapt reasonably quickly to short term policy demands as evidenced by the report that was generated for Indian and Northern Affairs to assess the scientific priorities of their May 2008 Visioning Workshop. This report was completed more quickly, involved fewer meetings, and demonstrated that the CCA could perform multiple functions depending on the depth of information required.

However, as the panel also pointed out, the CCA lacks visibility beyond their sponsors and has an almost exclusive dependence on Government sponsors. And these are the crucial issues that need resolution in order for Canada to retain an independent body of experts to provide advice on science policy.

In Britain and America, such bodies are much more established and much better funded (often through private philanthropy) and play a major role in policy making. The scientific community, and the members of the public who believe in evidence based policy making, needs to help ensure that the CCA is not disbanded in 2015 and we have a reasonable amount of time to get this momentum created.

So, I encourage you to read the reports, see the type of information that is being created, and then spread the word to your friends, family and colleagues to help build a support structure that will preserve this institution. And let’s not wait until 2015 to read the article about the removal of funding for the CCA – please Canada, don’t let another good institution fall by the wayside.

Reports from the Council of Canadian Academies

•Better Research for Better Business
•The Sustainable Management of Groundwater in Canada
•Innovation and Business Strategy: Why Canada Falls Short
•Vision for the Canadian Arctic Research Initiative: Assessing the Opportunities
•Energy from Gas Hydrates: Assessing the Opportunities and Challenges for Canada
•Small is Different: A Science Perspective on the Regulatory Challenges of the Nanoscale
•Influenza Transmission and the Role of Personal Protective Respiratory Equipment: An Assessment of the Evidence
•The State of Science and Technology in Canada

Assessments underway:

Approaches to Animal Health Risk Assessment
Integrated Testing of Pesticides
Research Integrity in the Canadian Context
State and Trends of Biodiversity Science in Canada