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Tingley is one of many young scientists who are deeply frustrated with life in research. In September, Nature put a post on Facebook asking scientists who were starting their first independent position to tell us about the challenges that they faced. What followed was a major outpouring of grief. Within a week, nearly 300 scientists from around the world had responded with a candid catalogue of concerns. "I see many colleagues divorcing, getting burnt out, moving out of science, and I am so tired now," wrote one biomedical researcher from Belgium (see 'Suffering in science'). Nature selected three young investigators who voiced the most common frustrations; here, we tell their stories.
But are young scientists whining — or drowning? Our interviewees acknowledge that they are extremely fortunate to have an opportunity to direct their own creative, stimulating careers, and they are hardly the only professionals who are expected to work hard. It's easy for each generation to imagine that things are more difficult for them than they were in the past.
But some data and anecdotal evidence suggest that scientists do face more hurdles in starting research groups now than did many of their senior colleagues 20–30 years ago. Chief among those challenges is the unprecedented number competing for funding pools that have remained stagnant or shrunk in the past decade. "The number of people is at an all-time high, but the number of awards hasn't changed," says Jon Lorsch, director of the US National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) in Bethesda, Maryland. "A lot of people with influence on the system recognize this is a serious problem and are trying to fix it."
It seems we can spend trillions of dollars on wars, or on science, but not both.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @11:04AM
Yes, I could have stood the problems mentioned in that article. It was that no one seemed to know wtf they were doing and for me to produce anything of value I needed to redo the jobs of 100 people or so (who had previously half-assed their work; to be fair they probably had no choice). At some point I just could not take it anymore, it is too depressing to see that level of waste being held up as a paragon.
(Score: 2) by SubiculumHammer on Friday October 28 2016, @02:11PM
says the Anom
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @03:47PM
All you have to do is read the papers in a skeptical manner (eg that astronaut spinal cord one). If these problems were limited to the particular area related to my project, it would be a different story. It is the same issues, over and over, everywhere you look in biomed.