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I am likewise a staff scientist by choice. I'm confident that I have abilities and track record that would allow me to start my own lab if I wanted to, but I va

I am likewise a staff scientist by choice. I'm confident that I have abilities and track record that would allow me to start my own lab if I wanted to, but I value being able to do science instead of writing grants full time. Our current system excels at taking bright scientific minds and turning them into middle managers.

xaa 9y ago
Yeah. Although it is annoying that we both have to clarify "well, I could be a PI if I wanted to", because of this social norm that if you aren't a PI by the appropriate age, it means you weren't good enough. Because, obviously, everyone wants to be a middle manager. And we aren't talking to an academic crowd here, but a lot of academics would be skeptical when we say that. If enough people in our generation take this approach, I think it will be very good for science. It is a happy medium between the old system of "everyone gets tenure eventually" and "no-job-security eternal postdoc" of the last few decades. Science is inherently risky enough without also forcing everyone to essentially become an entrepreneur. That phenomenon is likely behind so much of the exaggerated findings that are getting published.
Fomite 9y ago
I think it's also important to recognize that hiring a staff scientist means that that the PI is further entrenching themselves in middle management. You need to write more grants in order to fund a staff scientist and give them the job security they expect. Most PIs I know would prefer to spend more time in their lab. "Hire me to do the things you wish you were doing, and in the process damn yourself not to be able to do them" is a steep ask for a lot of labs, especially small ones.
- hyperbovine 9y ago
  I thought the same thing -- given the choice, most PIs would just as soon hire a full-time "staff grant writer" and return to science themselves. Of course, you can't actually pay for such a position using government grants, and therein lies the rub.
  - Fomite 9y ago
    Yeah, if I had the money just swimming around, a grant writer or dedicated programmer would likely be higher on the list for me than someone to do work I'd rather be doing myself.
  - xaa 9y ago
    If we're talking about unicorns, a competent "staff grant writer" has to be the rarest of them all. To write a grant well, you have to deeply understand the specific science at hand and be a good writer. Someone who would voluntarily choose such a job would also be someone who enjoys the process of writing. So, in other words, someone perfectly suited to be a PI, a more prestigious and better-paying position with more freedom. Our institution has one you can ask to help write/review/correct grants. They are pretty useless because they cannot possibly understand the science each individual lab is engaged in at an adequate level. Usually they just offer superficial suggestions/corrections.
    - Fomite 9y ago
      I think I've met one person with a dedicated lab grant writer and yeah, I'm pretty sure the PI would take a bullet for them.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- xaa 9y ago
  I thought it would be this way too. But I do actually try to help out with funding as much as I can. Ultimately, though, I'm afraid I can't summon too much sympathy for a PI who thinks this way, because they knew exactly what they were getting into when they accepted that promotion. It is common knowledge that the tradeoff you make upon becoming PI is that you get the authority to direct the research aims while sacrificing the ability to do them yourself. Exaggerating somewhat, a PI gets 100% of the intellectual freedom and responsibility, and has 0% of the fun. A grad student or postdoc gets 0% and 100%. I was looking for something like 50%/50%.
  - Fomite 9y ago
    That is indeed the tradeoff - but the problem is your exaggerated example masks the actual problem. Right now, rather than being at 100/0, I'm actually at something like 100/50. Hiring a staff scientist will send me towards 100/0. Which means not only do I have to think "Can I afford you?" but "Do I want to afford you?"
    - xaa 9y ago
      Hmm, I can see how you got there, but I don't think it has worked out that way in my case. The amount of time you have to spend writing grants is a function of: 1) how much money you are burning, 2) how much help do you have writing, and 3) how good is your science (better science will be more successful). No doubt I hurt on #1. But I think I help enough on #2 and #3 to compensate, and therefore I don't think my PI spends a net larger percentage of time writing with me than he would without me. Anecdotally, over my time with him, I think has been a slow decrease in the fraction of his time he spends writing.
      - Fomite 9y ago
        I think the issue is the cost of #1 is non-linear. I think there's a space where yes, your impact on #1 is probably offset by gains in #2 and #3. But there's also a space, where I'm at right now (and I suspect many new investigators are) where your impact on #1 either moves a staff scientist outside the realm of possibility, or simply dramatically increases the likelihood of stochastic funding failure unless you're literally god's gift to the research world.

xaa 9y ago

Yeah. Although it is annoying that we both have to clarify "well, I could be a PI if I wanted to", because of this social norm that if you aren't a PI by the appropriate age, it means you weren't good enough. Because, obviously, everyone wants to be a middle manager. And we aren't talking to an academic crowd here, but a lot of academics would be skeptical when we say that. If enough people in our generation take this approach, I think it will be very good for science. It is a happy medium between the old system of "everyone gets tenure eventually" and "no-job-security eternal postdoc" of the last few decades. Science is inherently risky enough without also forcing everyone to essentially become an entrepreneur. That phenomenon is likely behind so much of the exaggerated findings that are getting published.

Fomite 9y ago

I think it's also important to recognize that hiring a staff scientist means that that the PI is further entrenching themselves in middle management. You need to write more grants in order to fund a staff scientist and give them the job security they expect. Most PIs I know would prefer to spend more time in their lab. "Hire me to do the things you wish you were doing, and in the process damn yourself not to be able to do them" is a steep ask for a lot of labs, especially small ones.

hyperbovine 9y ago
I thought the same thing -- given the choice, most PIs would just as soon hire a full-time "staff grant writer" and return to science themselves. Of course, you can't actually pay for such a position using government grants, and therein lies the rub.
- Fomite 9y ago
  Yeah, if I had the money just swimming around, a grant writer or dedicated programmer would likely be higher on the list for me than someone to do work I'd rather be doing myself.
- xaa 9y ago
  If we're talking about unicorns, a competent "staff grant writer" has to be the rarest of them all. To write a grant well, you have to deeply understand the specific science at hand and be a good writer. Someone who would voluntarily choose such a job would also be someone who enjoys the process of writing. So, in other words, someone perfectly suited to be a PI, a more prestigious and better-paying position with more freedom. Our institution has one you can ask to help write/review/correct grants. They are pretty useless because they cannot possibly understand the science each individual lab is engaged in at an adequate level. Usually they just offer superficial suggestions/corrections.
  - Fomite 9y ago
    I think I've met one person with a dedicated lab grant writer and yeah, I'm pretty sure the PI would take a bullet for them.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
xaa 9y ago
I thought it would be this way too. But I do actually try to help out with funding as much as I can. Ultimately, though, I'm afraid I can't summon too much sympathy for a PI who thinks this way, because they knew exactly what they were getting into when they accepted that promotion. It is common knowledge that the tradeoff you make upon becoming PI is that you get the authority to direct the research aims while sacrificing the ability to do them yourself. Exaggerating somewhat, a PI gets 100% of the intellectual freedom and responsibility, and has 0% of the fun. A grad student or postdoc gets 0% and 100%. I was looking for something like 50%/50%.
- Fomite 9y ago
  That is indeed the tradeoff - but the problem is your exaggerated example masks the actual problem. Right now, rather than being at 100/0, I'm actually at something like 100/50. Hiring a staff scientist will send me towards 100/0. Which means not only do I have to think "Can I afford you?" but "Do I want to afford you?"
  - xaa 9y ago
    Hmm, I can see how you got there, but I don't think it has worked out that way in my case. The amount of time you have to spend writing grants is a function of: 1) how much money you are burning, 2) how much help do you have writing, and 3) how good is your science (better science will be more successful). No doubt I hurt on #1. But I think I help enough on #2 and #3 to compensate, and therefore I don't think my PI spends a net larger percentage of time writing with me than he would without me. Anecdotally, over my time with him, I think has been a slow decrease in the fraction of his time he spends writing.
    - Fomite 9y ago
      I think the issue is the cost of #1 is non-linear. I think there's a space where yes, your impact on #1 is probably offset by gains in #2 and #3. But there's also a space, where I'm at right now (and I suspect many new investigators are) where your impact on #1 either moves a staff scientist outside the realm of possibility, or simply dramatically increases the likelihood of stochastic funding failure unless you're literally god's gift to the research world.