Why haven't more research institutions expanded the roles of staff scientists? One reason is that they can be hard to pay for, especially by conventional means.

Why haven't more research institutions expanded the roles of staff scientists? One reason is that they can be hard to pay for, especially by conventional means. Some funding agencies look askance at supporting this class of professionals; after all, graduate students and postdocs are paid much less. It's refreshing, in an article about needing more technical workers, to see at least some glimmer of a nod to the realities of supply and demand. I can't say this article quite recognizes this reality, but in its defense, we are talking about science, were people openly state they are motivated by the opportunity to do good work rather than salary alone. So, this is different from a startup founder looking to get rich complaining about a lack of engineers to hire, without mentioning pay. But not completely different, only a little different. "Biology needs more staff scientists." You sure you don't mean more programmers at low pay? Much of the work requires increasingly sophisticated programming ability, a skillset that is not really taught in or rewarded in an academic career path. It sounds like biology needs more people who will work for half of what they could make in industry, in a field structured to ensure they will never rise to leadership positions. I might as well say that biology needs more disposable young programmers who are willing to work for $5 an hour. I might as well say there is high unemployment among biology staff scientists who won't work for less than $250k a year. At a low salary, the market will demand a lot of a service, but there is little incentive to supply it. At a very high salary, the market will demand much less, but there will be. much higher incentive to supply it. There's also an elephant in the room here - university positions are often exempt from H1B caps, which means they can bring in programmers who aren't free to participate in free labor markets. As long as that is the case, don't expect supply and demand curves to meet. Markets only work if people are broadly free (not just to take another programmer position at a similar institution, but to leave the field, start a business, become an artist, install dry wall, sell real estate... you know, free, as in, well... free. I'm not sure there's any other way to put this). This is a strange thing, but here it goes - if you ever read an article about a "shortage" of workers in a field, be very careful about going into that field. It may mean that employers are looking for ways to gain coercive control over their workers lives, and to create a captive workforce that is not free to go into other fields. And that sort of control often spreads into abusive work relationships, poor working conditions, and other very ugly situations.