3 ms·

Very interesting, could you tell me where that is? At least in the US, tenure is a really big thing. But there are plenty of people who are paid employees at

by cbanek 6y ago

Very interesting, could you tell me where that is? At least in the US, tenure is a really big thing. But there are plenty of people who are paid employees at the university and aren't teaching, and I'd also consider that academia.

jacobr1 6y ago
And I'd love to work assisting cutting-edge research, but I also am not willing to cut my salary that severely. I wonder if there is a way to do this that doesn't presume near-grad-student rates.
- analog31 6y ago
  My spouse works at the nearby public university as a non tenure track scientist. The work certainly pays better than a grad student stipend. I'm not sure how it compares to entry level "science" jobs that are basically manual factory work such as transferring liquids from one tray to another using a pipette. The good thing is that public universities tend to post jobs with salary ranges, so you can get an idea of what labs are looking for what, at what pay rate. The pay tends to follow the expectation of having a somewhat less competitive and intensive work environment, more flexible hours, etc.
mattkrause 6y ago
The US and Canada tend to "squeeze" non-tenure-track people out a few years after they receive their PhD. A huge number of postdoc fellowships[0] cut off at 12 months (NIH DP-1, various NSF postdocs) to 4-5 years (NIH K99, Simons Foundation BTI, Burroughs Wellcome Career/CASI Awards). You can, of course, hang on for longer by being paid from research grants. However, even that is tricky because the size of a "standard" modular NIH grant hasn't gone up in ages and even a modest salary ($60k + benefits) will now eat up a substantial chunk of it, so you'll spend a lot of time looking for money. Frustratingly, you often can't be the PI on grants either, so it devolves into ghost-writing. It also makes it hard to settle down if you are piecing together a string of 1-2 year contracts. This is, IMO, stupid. It's not good for doing science and a few studies have shown that not good for training scientists either. A system that funded a few more staff scientists would likely produce more and better research and training. [0] It's even worse, as many awards for tenure-track profs are ALSO gated on time-since-degree.
- Kalium 6y ago
  I suspect this is what a solution might look like if someone was designing a system to produce tenured professors and attached minimal value to other things.
andi999 6y ago
It is Germany. Yes there are a lot of paid employees at the university that arent teaching, but almost all of them in admin or maintenance/workshop. Historically there was a problem that there were way too many people who were not professors but working as a scientist at university (well it was called a problem, who knows why it was a problem); now it swung the other way.

by cbanek 6y ago

jacobr1 6y ago

And I'd love to work assisting cutting-edge research, but I also am not willing to cut my salary that severely. I wonder if there is a way to do this that doesn't presume near-grad-student rates.

analog31 6y ago
My spouse works at the nearby public university as a non tenure track scientist. The work certainly pays better than a grad student stipend. I'm not sure how it compares to entry level "science" jobs that are basically manual factory work such as transferring liquids from one tray to another using a pipette. The good thing is that public universities tend to post jobs with salary ranges, so you can get an idea of what labs are looking for what, at what pay rate. The pay tends to follow the expectation of having a somewhat less competitive and intensive work environment, more flexible hours, etc.

mattkrause 6y ago

The US and Canada tend to "squeeze" non-tenure-track people out a few years after they receive their PhD. A huge number of postdoc fellowships[0] cut off at 12 months (NIH DP-1, various NSF postdocs) to 4-5 years (NIH K99, Simons Foundation BTI, Burroughs Wellcome Career/CASI Awards). You can, of course, hang on for longer by being paid from research grants. However, even that is tricky because the size of a "standard" modular NIH grant hasn't gone up in ages and even a modest salary ($60k + benefits) will now eat up a substantial chunk of it, so you'll spend a lot of time looking for money. Frustratingly, you often can't be the PI on grants either, so it devolves into ghost-writing. It also makes it hard to settle down if you are piecing together a string of 1-2 year contracts. This is, IMO, stupid. It's not good for doing science and a few studies have shown that not good for training scientists either. A system that funded a few more staff scientists would likely produce more and better research and training. [0] It's even worse, as many awards for tenure-track profs are ALSO gated on time-since-degree.

Kalium 6y ago
I suspect this is what a solution might look like if someone was designing a system to produce tenured professors and attached minimal value to other things.

andi999 6y ago

It is Germany. Yes there are a lot of paid employees at the university that arent teaching, but almost all of them in admin or maintenance/workshop. Historically there was a problem that there were way too many people who were not professors but working as a scientist at university (well it was called a problem, who knows why it was a problem); now it swung the other way.