So, you want to be a Program Evaluator when you grow up…

Posted July 22nd 2010 at 5:54 am by Beth

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:

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:

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:

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 [↩]

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Beth, July 22nd 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Jobs

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

Posted July 15th 2010 at 4:06 pm by Dave

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:

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!

        2 Comments

        Dave, July 15th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
        Posted in General, Jobs, Science Communcation

        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

        Doctors of Philosophy? I fear not…

        Posted June 30th 2010 at 11:03 am by Dave

        Quick Hit:
        I now write for the Stem Cell Network’s blog and have published two entries for them. The first is on stem cell resources and organizations in the UK, and the second is of broader interest regarding a New Scientist article that did a network analysis of peer reviewed publication with some rather severe implications surrounding the process.

        —

        I haven’t done research at a University since 2003.
        While my CV suggests that I obtained a doctorate at UBC and I am currently at Cambridge University for post doctoral training, I have lived and worked at least 30 minutes from the central university campus for almost my entire research career. I am a product of “hospital” or “institute” based research operations – where millions get spent on scientific research. No large university in Canada is without them these days – the BC Cancer Agency, Sick Kids Hospital, and the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal are some examples that spring to mind.

        The reasons for such an approach by universities are plentiful:

          Access to Clinical Samples – medical doctors who see patients are next door and sometimes affiliated directly with particular research labs.

          Interactions with Doctors – scientists meet medics and medics meet scientists… this allows an understanding and appreciation for the various stresses and operations of each career while also building strong collegial relationships.

          Concentration of Resources – Medical research often requires expensive machines and resources. Sometimes these even get organized into core facilities that many labs can take advantage of which would not be possible without close proximity to one another.

          All campuses have a limited amount of physical space to house research laboratories. Moving or creating certain theme based centres (Cancer, Engineering, etc) can definitely free up valuable real estate on the main campus.

        It seems like such a simple no-brainer – put all the biomedical people together and they will do great things.

        However, in this blog entry I will contend that while this silo based approach is effective at producing lots of data, it is having severe and lasting negative consequences on the well rounded training of scientists and we need to adapt training programs to deal with this sooner rather than later.

        Location, Location, Location
        The BC Cancer Agency in Vancouver is located at least 30 minutes by transit/bicycle to UBC. This means that any UBC campus service that is provided (counseling, recreation facilities, professional development workshops, university wide lectures, etc) cost the campus based trainee 5-10 minutes in travel and the off-campus trainee 1.0-1.5 hours. When coupled with the length of the event, this often results in a huge chunk of the day and typically results in most off campus students declining participation.

        Workers, not Students
        It was never more clear to me than the day I told my friend Graeme that I couldn’t stay out too late because I had to go into “work” early the following morning. He asked “but aren’t you a student?” and I replied “well yes, but…” and then trailed off realizing that most on campus students would have said “I have to go into the lab” or simply “start early”. It really is like a workplace routine – you go into a physical workplace every day, wouldn’t dream of staying home to read or research with giving prior notification, and you often have standard vacation days and reasonable compensation. This is a far cry from the English Literature doctoral student who is often isolated, completely flexible with their timetable, and critically under-compensated. The on campus lab based student finds themselves somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.

        Too specialized?
        I can imagine that many senior professors simply cannot relate to the degree of specialization that today’s trainees are forced to undertake in order to be at the cutting edge of their field. We do not get general science or even general biology degrees anymore, many do not know the names Karl Popper or Thomas Kuhn, and the divide between geneticists and biochemists is even widening to the point of not understanding each other. It is extremely frustrating to witness the complete lack of trainee enthusiasm to attend lectures and events that aren’t directly relevant to their exact field of research – I believe this is a product of their training and the increasing pressure to produce data and publications as opposed to being trained to think up the next big advances.

        Pressure from Above
        Professors at these institutes are not inculpable, though it can be argued that the tenure track pressures that they feel may lead them to cut corners in training as it is difficult to assign a metric to outside of “numbers of trainees” so is deemed less valuable. PhDs are often given cookie cutter projects pre-designed and pre-assessed for likely success.

        Silo Mentality
        The off campus situation reinforces the silo mentality and further fractionates scientists and this is beginning to bite us already. A great example is the increasing amount of engineering technology that is utilized in medical research – how many hospitals have on staff chemical or materials engineering professors? The systems biology approaches that are emerging from the reductionist single protein/molecule days of the 1980s and 90s risk being under-developed because the inter-disciplinary teams that need to be formed are often found outside of comfortable “informal coffee/chat” distance.

        Possible solutions
        Now that Canada has built many of these research complexes, I can hardly suggest razing them in an effort to let graduate students get one or two professional development sessions a year or to meet engineers over tea. What I think is necessary, however, is something that some groups have worked toward and all groups should work toward – building capacity at these research institutes to host such events and to facilitate broader thinking in their current programming. Engaging with university partners to enable off campus trainees to have some level of access to things like counseling, recreation, lectures, etc will greatly enhance the university experience and encourage more blue sky research.

        As an example, I know that GrasPods (the trainee group at the CRC) has levied funds from the UBC Graduate Student Society to run off campus professional development workshops and networking events. This is exactly the type of thing that off campus research institutes need to create and support in an effort to compensate for the lack of a physical university campus.

        Importantly, there needs to be space and time given to exposing graduate students and post docs (and professors!) to new lines of thinking outside of their field. Are we satisfied with training a cohort of lab monkeys that know how to sequence genomes and run PCRs without having the slightest idea (or desire) to engage or understand the social and economic implications of their research? I for one am not, and urge off campus research institutes and hospitals to assess and improve the quality of training that they are giving the next generation of scientists.

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        Dave, June 30th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
        Posted in General

        What Does A Graduate Degree Mean?

        Posted June 22nd 2010 at 4:37 am by Beth

        I was at the recent Canadian Evaluation Society conference where they revealed the process for obtaining their new “credentialed evaluator (C.E.)” designation. In order to become a “C.E.,” one must demonstrate through education and experience that they are qualified as an evaluator.  Since there are few formal educational programs in “evaluation”1, most evaluators do not have a degree in “evaluation,” but rather are educated in some other field2.  Thus, the formal education requirement for the C.E. is that you hold a graduate level degree or certificate.  The reason given for this requirement was that by earning a graduate-level education, one has demonstrated that they are capable of critical thinking, analysis and research.  Despite my advanced skills in research3, I’ve been unable to locate any formal source that states what a graduate degree is meant to signifies, so I’m falling back on Wikipedia to give you this:

        “A master’s degree is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice. Within the area studied, graduates possess advanced knowledge of a specialized body of theoretical and applied topics; high order skills in analysis, critical evaluation and/or professional application; and the ability to solve complex problems and think rigorously and independently.” (Source. Emphasis mine)

        This got me thinking, yet again, about countless discussions I’ve had with other grad students about what it really should take to get a graduate-level degree.  There seems to be a lot of variation in what it takes to get that “MSc” or “PhD” behind your name.  I’ve seen some Masters students who conducted original research from the initial research idea through all the stages of study design, implementation, data analysis and writing; but I’ve also seen Masters students walk right into an already designed study and really only needed to implement a study protocol that their supervisor created 4.  Or those who sent their samples off to another lab for analysis (or have undergraduate minions who do it for them5 and never really learned the ins and outs of the techniques they were supposed to be an “expert” in.

        So, I’m curious, what has been your experience?  And if you were hiring someone with a Master’s degree or a PhD, what would you expected of them, based on their holding that degree?

        Footnotes:

        1. Claremont Graduate University in California seems to be one of the most prominent places to get a degree in evaluation, though more places are starting (or planning) to offer such a thing… but that’s the subject of another posting! [↩]
        2. e.g., my formal education is in Nutrition, and other evaluators I know have degrees in a wide variety of fields, including Social Work, Psychology, Kinesiology, Criminology, and History, just to name a few [↩]
        3. ;-) [↩]
        4. full disclosure: my Master’s program was a 12-month “coursework and a project” Master’s, not a thesis-based Master’s [↩]
        5. I never did figure out where one gets undergraduate minions… they would have made my life so much easier during my PhD! [↩]

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        Beth, June 22nd 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , ,
        Posted in General

        Devils of Details: Getting Scientists to Understand How Policy Making Works

        Posted June 16th 2010 at 5:15 am by Dave

        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?

        3 Comments

        Dave, June 16th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
        Posted in General, Science Communcation

        Two heads are better than one: Making a case for jointly run labs

        Posted May 23rd 2010 at 10:05 pm by Dave

        While I was completing my doctorate, I was in a “big” lab. At its peak, the lab reached about 25 people (~8 each of graduate students and post doctoral fellows plus technicians and research students). Competing for time and attention with the boss was a definite reality – and my particular supervisor was not exactly working a 40 hour week either… the double all nighter before a conference trip was not an uncommon sight with trainee meetings often running well into the late evening and weekends. Clearly this model can work as numerous professors have been spun out from this lab and others just like it, but it takes a pretty special person to be able to train and direct the research of nearly 20 junior scientists. Additionally, it does not exactly work toward reducing the major stresses caused by the changing human resources of science.

        This blog entry is a pitch for the large scale adoption of an idea that could be used to put a major dent in the number of professor hopefuls that are currently drowning in a sea of competition that has more sharks added daily. The amount of physical lab infrastructure that has been added over the last 20 years (especially through the efforts of the Canada Foundation for Innovation and charities too numerous to name) has been exceptional in Canada – just look at the MaRS Discovery District in Toronto as a shining example. With this relative abundance of space compared to the 1990s, many more groups are growing to big lab status having major implications on the training and research workload thrust on a single lab head. What we have yet to embrace is a shift from the “top-down, one person runs this show” mentality and this blog entry details the benefits that might be gained from having jointly run laboratories.

        Hybrid Vigor: The tag team effect
        We all know professors who do some things brilliantly, and make a miserable mess of others. Some are excellent experimentalists but just can’t seem to nail that massive grant while others thrive on big picture blue sky thinking, but lack the ability to help their trainees troubleshoot the nitty gritty. In any case, finding the perfect combination is a rarity and it stands to reason that some of these deficiencies could be complemented by a joint lab head with those particular strengths. A nice analogy is found in something my brother used to throw at me whenever I thought a musical was entertaining – “good singers do opera, good dancers do ballet, a musical tries to combine them both and ends up wallowing in mediocrity”. While I still maintain that there are people who can do both quite effectively, I can also see that sometimes it’s a good idea to let the singers sing and the dancers dance.

        Reduced down-time
        Ask a new tenure track laboratory professor about their first two years of research productivity in the new lab. My guess is you’ll be hit with a barrage of “not much because it took a long time to set up _____, _____, and _____”. If a newly minted principal investigator were instead able to join a group that already has things running smoothly, the list of blanks would be cut down dramatically and they could get on with the research much more quickly.

        Mentoring
        If one of the joint lab heads is more senior than the other, there is a remarkable opportunity to benefit from close mentoring. Poor navigation of the institute, university or external politics and administration are the first things that come to mind for slowing down research for no good reason. If the senior professor derives direct benefit from a successful junior researcher, then the help from this end will flow much more rapidly. Additionally, the trainees in the lab would benefit from having multiple perspectives on their research projects.

        Possible Career Changes
        Why do very few experienced laboratory scientists enter politics, journalism, or industry? Because if they left their laboratory full of graduate students, post doctoral fellows, and current grants, they would never be able to come back. If you could take a year or two to try something out (something like what UBC based Nobel laureate Carl Weiman just accepted from the Obama team) and leave your lab and trainees in the trusted hands of your co-investigator, the decision would be made substantially easier. As it stands now, a 3-6 month sabbatical sometimes cripples a lab’s productivity or an individual’s aspirations to complete a thesis – in short… there is never a good time to leave the lab.

        In the end, the jointly run lab model would create more jobs without unreasonable strain on the overall laboratory research budget, would allow more time energy for alternative projects and teaching by the top tier of researchers, and would result in a more diverse training environment for graduate students and post docs. Importantly though – this cannot be made into a short term training post and needs to carry the same stability that a standard assistant professor position would carry and hold the same potential for career progression. It’s time to change the old model of “one person in charge” as team science becomes increasingly prevalent and good scientific training is often the first thing to get cut from busy professor’s schedules.

        Would love to hear your thoughts.

        PS: A huge thanks to Philip B, Mike O, and Lindsay G specifically for some great chats about this series of thoughts.

        No Comments

        Dave, May 23rd 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
        Posted in General, Jobs

        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 Council of Canadian Academies – Thriving, Surviving, or Doomed to Fail?

        Posted April 25th 2010 at 9:01 pm by Dave

        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

        1 Comment

        Dave, April 25th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
        Posted in General, Jobs, Science Communcation

        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
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