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Goodbye Academia

anothersb.blogspot.co.uk

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Re: Goodbye Academia

#11

Post by parkaboy »

gjuggler wrote: post #6

This is a really thoughtful post highlighting many of the deeply-rooted problems in securing funding as an early-stage academic. It's depressing for bright young scientists to be looking forward to lives as assistant professors submitting grant after grant with an expected ~10% success rate. But what surprised me most was that at the end of the essay, after having described his fear of facing such uncertainty in NIH…

At least with a start-up your fate is much much, much, more in your own hands. It's really pretty astounding nowadays how many grants get rejected over the the tiniest things. I just had an application rejected (with high marks) due to it (1) focusing too heavily on what the call for applications primarily asked for, and (2) not numbering the pages.

Re: Goodbye Academia

#12

Post by Create »

"How should we make it attractive for them [young people] to spend 5,6,7 years in our field, be satisfied, learn about excitement, but finally be qualified to find other possibilities?" -- H. Schopper

Indeed, even while giving complete satisfaction, they have no forward vision about the possibility of pursuing a career at CERN.

This lack of an element of social responsibility in the contract policy is unacceptable. Rather than serve as a cushion of laziness for supervisors, who often have only a limited and utilitarian view when defining the opening of an IC post, the contract policy must ensure the inclusion of an element of social justice, which is cruelly absent today.

http://staff-association.web.cern.ch/content/unsatisfactory-...

In my three years of operation, I have unfortunately witnessed cases where CERN duties and educational training became contradictory and even conflicting. This has particularly been the case when the requirements of the CERN supervisor conflict with the expected time dedicated to a doctoral student’s thesis.

http://cds.cern.ch/journal/CERNBulletin/2013/27/News%20Artic...

Re: Goodbye Academia

#13

Post by k2enemy »

It isn't just that research funds are drying up. There's also a growing number of Ph.D.s fighting over the shrinking pot of money [0]. I usually advise students not to pursue a Ph.D. because the life of the median academic is pretty awful. But at the same time the general job market for new grads (in most fields) isn't all that great either, meaning that in relative terms the Ph.D. route hasn't fallen too far in the rankings of post-graduate plans.

[0] http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/sed/2012/data_table.cfm

Re: Goodbye Academia

#14

Post by ivanca »

gjuggler wrote: post #6

This is a really thoughtful post highlighting many of the deeply-rooted problems in securing funding as an early-stage academic. It's depressing for bright young scientists to be looking forward to lives as assistant professors submitting grant after grant with an expected ~10% success rate. But what surprised me most was that at the end of the essay, after having described his fear of facing such uncertainty in NIH…

Is about time required to iterate and the -related- abundance of VCs on the field.

Re: Goodbye Academia

#15

Post by 6cxs2hd6 »

Not to sound like some crazy person with the word SOCIALIST written on the inside of my forehead in neon colors, but:

It should be possible for WhatsApp to get "only" $18 billion and scientific research gets the remaining $1 billion. About a 5% tax.

That way, venture capitalists could claim to fund innovation and would actually be truth-tellers.

Re: Goodbye Academia

#17

Post by doktrin »

zenbowman wrote: post #7

On the one hand, it is sad that good, forward-looking academics are being denied funding. On the other hand, during my time as a PhD student doing research for a top tier university, I saw quite a few projects where I was disturbed by the fact that we were contributing any taxpayer dollars to the project at all. I think the existing academic model is unfair to both professors and especially to undergraduate student.…

> I saw quite a few projects where I was disturbed by the fact that we were contributing any taxpayer dollars to the project at all.

Research has to happen somewhere. Where research happens, there will always be bunk projects. Some will fail despite good intentions, some due to negligence.

Given that there will always be some waste, you can do a lot worse than putting the $ towards academia. The alternative being a research institution, where researchers are paid actual living wages.

There are pros and cons to both models, but academia is undeniably cheaper. Thus, the cost of failure is lower. I didn't mention the third alternative, which is to remove public funding from research altogether. I don't think this is a good idea.

Re: Goodbye Academia

#18

Post by 6cxs2hd6 »

6cxs2hd6 wrote: post #15

Not to sound like some crazy person with the word SOCIALIST written on the inside of my forehead in neon colors, but: It should be possible for WhatsApp to get "only" $18 billion and scientific research gets the remaining $1 billion. About a 5% tax. That way, venture capitalists could claim to fund innovation and would actually be truth-tellers.

Fastest. Downvote. Ever.

\o/

Re: Goodbye Academia

#20

Post by a3voices »

6cxs2hd6 wrote: post #15

Not to sound like some crazy person with the word SOCIALIST written on the inside of my forehead in neon colors, but: It should be possible for WhatsApp to get "only" $18 billion and scientific research gets the remaining $1 billion. About a 5% tax. That way, venture capitalists could claim to fund innovation and would actually be truth-tellers.

I didn't downvote you, but WhatsApp affects more people than obscure scientific research.
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