With tenure track positions harder to come by, many scientists are turning to alternative careers to make a living. Should a greater effort be made to keep them on track, or is life outside of academia good enough?

For more than a generation, the number of Ph.D.s training in the sciences has far outstripped  the number of academic positions available after graduation. The problem extends beyond academia, as three times as many Americans earn degrees in science and engineering each year as can find work in those fields, according to a 2008 publication of the National Science Board. Yet most doctoral and postdoctoral training in the biomedical sciences continues to prepare students for academic life, giving little or no preparation for jobs off campus such as those in industry, law, or science writing.

“Tenure track is the alternative career now,” said Paula Stephan, author of How Economics Shapes Science. Stephan, a professor of economics at Georgia State University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, has been analyzing data from NSF’s Survey of Earned Doctorates and Survey of Doctorate Recipients to gain a snapshot of the initial destinations and outcomes of Ph.D. trainees. “Winning has traditionally been defined as having a tenure track position in academia, and by that measure most people are going to lose. We need to redefine winning so our trainees are more likely to achieve success.”

Speaking at a meeting of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Board of Directors in October 2011, Stephan stated that a concerted effort needs to be directed toward making careers in science and engineering – both within and outside academia – more attractive. Her comments were followed by Roger Chalkley, senior associate dean at Vanderbilt University. Chalkley has recently chaired a study by the National Academies Board on Higher Education and Workforce on the national needs for biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research personnel.

Both speakers explained that the academic research system is built upon the hard work of temporary workers like students and postdocs, who spend some of their brightest and most energetic years training in laboratories. That model encourages universities to borrow money to build facilities and to staff them with “borrowed careers,” Stephan said, which makes sense when the biomedical enterprise is growing, but not when it isn’t. According to one statistic, a mere 20 percent of life sciences postdocs will find faculty positions within 4 to 6 years of their Ph.D. Not only are new positions not being created, but old positions are remaining occupied as established scientists put off retirement.

“People are living longer, no one wants to retire because their 401Ks all took a hit and the number of new lines has decreased, so a major source of employment is gone,” explained Chalkley. “Twenty-five years ago the number of faculty over the age of 65 who had RO1 grants was less than 1 percent. Today it’s 25 percent. The only thing that will change that is if the grim reaper gets going to open up new positions.”

He may have been joking, but Chalkley was serious when he said that any attempts to cut down on the number of people doing research at the graduate and post doc level -- simply because they’re not going to end up at a research institution -- is doomed to failure. Under the current funding system, most biomedical research is supported through R01 grants. Thus, the availability of R01 monies governs the size of the workforce, and the ultimate need for a specific number of highly trained individuals. In his position at Vanderbilt, Chalkley has suggested training everyone with the same degree of rigor, but then doing everything possible to keep the extraordinarily talented individuals for a longer period within the research workforce.

“One of the reasons why students don’t want to be faculty anymore is they look at the faculty and think they would hate that life,” said Chalkley. “The faculty spend all their time writing grant applications in their office and don’t get to work in the lab any more. They in essence become managers of science, they are no longer scientists.”

One way to get promising researchers to stick it out, he says, would be to award long term grants to individuals who have completed their postdocs and proven to be the most productive and successful of their peers. Chalkley’s approach would be unique because it wouldn’t be based on what the scientists proposed to do, but what they had accomplished thus far.

Stephan suggested a number of other ways to improve training and keep strong scientists in the lab, such as increasing the number of fellowships awarded directly to trainees, shortening the length of a graduate degree, creating staff positions that provide some degree of independence and job security, developing more family friendly policies in the work place, and providing career services for Ph.D.s throughout their careers.

In particular, Stephan stressed that institutions need to provide better career information for potential students so that their job aspirations are more realistic. Very little career information exists on the web pages of biomedical programs, especially when compared to programs in law, medicine and business, which all consistently convey what happens to students after graduation.  In addition, Stephan said that places of higher learning need to educate faculty in what jobs are likely to be available so they don’t see themselves as training students exclusively for academic jobs.

Michael Bishop, a BWF board member and director of the G.W. Hooper Research Foundation, echoed Stephans’ concerns. Bishop stated that he had witnessed first-hand the doors that an elitist faculty culture can close.

“Twenty years ago someone at our university became concerned that the medical school grads all were becoming specialists and not family practitioners,” he explained. “So they did a study of classes and found that students were hearing day in and day out that the bed side was not a distinguished career. Our students hear that going through school to teach or do something besides research is considered a failure. The biggest problem -- other than the job market -- is that we don’t make these alternative careers look attractive. We can change that. Our school of medicine took a serious education movement and, as of last year, 15 percent of graduates are going into family practice, up from virtually zero.”

Even without any direct mentoring on the subject, budding scientists have already started to look for an end game outside of academia. In a 2010 survey of 156 postdocs attending career fairs in Washington DC, 66 percent of postdocs indicated that their first or second choice for a career destination was industry; 56 percent chose academic research; 46 percent indicated the type of work thought of as “alternative” -- such as science writing, finance, or non-profit management; 25 percent ranked at the top other traditional PhD destinations -- teaching, government, and consulting; and 17 percent indicated entrepreneurship.

Some universities are developing new services to help students figure out which alternative career might be best for them. Bruce Alberts, a
BWF Board member and professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California at San Francisco, explained that his institution has created an “Individual Development Plan” or IDP, an online self-evaluation tool that helps trainees think about their career possibilities. The plan includes several components such as surveys and professional training, particularly a 3-month internship to expose grad students to the “real world” outside of academic research.

“The ultimate goal is to change advanced science education for students who are unsure of their career path,” he explained. “The whole point is that we still want them to have the very best going in, but also want them to have something when they come out, otherwise it’s pointless.”