3 ms·

1) I think the idea of funding "people, not projects" (the Howard Hughes Research Institute's byline; I'm not affiliated with them in any way) is a great one. I

1) I think the idea of funding "people, not projects" (the Howard Hughes Research Institute's byline; I'm not affiliated with them in any way) is a great one. It would probably involve changing the structure of research programs in other fundamental ways, such as by 2) Limiting the number of graduate students. The current relatively-low barrier of entry into grad school provides cheap, motivated labor for PIs who are trying to stretch their research dollars to the limit. The outcome today is far more PhD graduates than jobs, and for those who get jobs, far too many of them for the research funds that are available. The overall quality of research drops when PIs focus what is fundable, rather than what is important. 3) Shifting the burden of the bulk of research work from trainees to salaried research associates/assistants/lab techs. 4) Change the focus of research output from novelty and volume (of papers published) to quality and significance of work done. Good research is often slow and careful, and doesn't fit well with the demands of grant funding agencies. Fewer grad students means more resources available for their training, and better career prospects. Shifting the bulk of the research benchwork to salaried professionals removes the incentive to commit fraud. None of this has to come at the expense of research quality; as an example, the NIH/HHMI already have approaches to vetting research programs for quality, even if the PIs aren't competing for grant funding.

an_opabinia 6y ago
> Limiting the number of graduate students. Isn't a lot of the graduate school product providing a way for people to immigrate to the United States? The economy around it is pretty complicated and definitely there's way more pressure to supply more, not fewer, spots.
- vkou 6y ago
  No, the problem is a bit more structural then that. A single professor trains dozens of grad students over the course of their career. Even if you remove every single foreigner, and every single person who does not want to pursue a career in academia, you still end up with dozens of graduates - per professor. The number of jobs available for those graduates? One - that professor's - when he or she retires. And until then, they get to burn the midnight oil, doing grunt work on their projects, in the hopes of competing their dozen collegaues for a shot at that one spot.
  - nl 6y ago
    > The number of jobs available for those graduates? One - that professor's - when he or she retires. This simply isn't true. Remaining in academia is only one of many career paths for graduate students, and many are financially compensated much better. Some examples of these include physics and math grad students being recruited by hedge funds, comp sci grad students being recruited by tech companies and geology grad students being recruited by oil, gas and resource companies. Even within academia the size of the market isn't static. New and emerging universities are hungry for qualified research professors and many come from these programs.
    - vkou 6y ago
      I already excluded the people who are getting a degree because they want to go to industry with it. Of the 'stay-in-academia' camp, the ratio is hideously stacked against the graduates. New and emerging universities aren't doubling the academic jobs pool every five years... Which is what it would take to keep up with the graduates being churned out. (And incidentally, they are also contributing to the oversupply, because their professors will also be churning out even more new graduates.)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
voxl 6y ago
Your second and third suggestions will literally kill all research at anything but the most prestigious universities. It is elitism. Graduate students are not always RAs, they're usually not. They often teach, so you're not giving an accurate depiction of the incentives placed on them. Becoming a graduate student is not easy, the bar is not relatively low, and making it through the program is even harder. It's true that academic positions are not large enough but you're ignoring the private sector. Research scientists could not possibly be paid enough by universities. These would be graduate students minus the mentorship. A worse of all worlds.

an_opabinia 6y ago

> Limiting the number of graduate students. Isn't a lot of the graduate school product providing a way for people to immigrate to the United States? The economy around it is pretty complicated and definitely there's way more pressure to supply more, not fewer, spots.

vkou 6y ago
No, the problem is a bit more structural then that. A single professor trains dozens of grad students over the course of their career. Even if you remove every single foreigner, and every single person who does not want to pursue a career in academia, you still end up with dozens of graduates - per professor. The number of jobs available for those graduates? One - that professor's - when he or she retires. And until then, they get to burn the midnight oil, doing grunt work on their projects, in the hopes of competing their dozen collegaues for a shot at that one spot.
- nl 6y ago
  > The number of jobs available for those graduates? One - that professor's - when he or she retires. This simply isn't true. Remaining in academia is only one of many career paths for graduate students, and many are financially compensated much better. Some examples of these include physics and math grad students being recruited by hedge funds, comp sci grad students being recruited by tech companies and geology grad students being recruited by oil, gas and resource companies. Even within academia the size of the market isn't static. New and emerging universities are hungry for qualified research professors and many come from these programs.
  - vkou 6y ago
    I already excluded the people who are getting a degree because they want to go to industry with it. Of the 'stay-in-academia' camp, the ratio is hideously stacked against the graduates. New and emerging universities aren't doubling the academic jobs pool every five years... Which is what it would take to keep up with the graduates being churned out. (And incidentally, they are also contributing to the oversupply, because their professors will also be churning out even more new graduates.)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

voxl 6y ago

Your second and third suggestions will literally kill all research at anything but the most prestigious universities. It is elitism. Graduate students are not always RAs, they're usually not. They often teach, so you're not giving an accurate depiction of the incentives placed on them. Becoming a graduate student is not easy, the bar is not relatively low, and making it through the program is even harder. It's true that academic positions are not large enough but you're ignoring the private sector. Research scientists could not possibly be paid enough by universities. These would be graduate students minus the mentorship. A worse of all worlds.