It isn't like that at all. The funding picture has changed dramatically in the last few years. Back in 2003 the NIH success rate was around 30 %, if your idea wasn't too stupid you could count on your getting funded for the next five years. Now it's less than 10 %. If you are not at MIT or Caltech you might consider not even applying. Folks, we are looking at the end of an empire.
Hey, you know, I hear that [0] http://report.nih.gov/success_rates/ [1] http://report.nih.gov/DisplayRePORT.aspx?rid=601
Researchers start out as grad-students, and even American-born grad-students now despair of ever finding real research jobs in the USA.
That's common in most countries these days with very few exceptions. What few post-doc positions exist are viewed as a transitory positions and aren't very well paid (considering the qualifications required). If you want to do pure research without moving around the world constantly you can just forget about it! Either you get on the tenure-track or you go into industry and figure out how to steal money on the stock-…
Technocrat in the sense that I want to abolish democracy and have the government run by smart science people in the interest of smart science people?
No, I'm not. Bad Things start happening when you take self-governance away from people.
EDIT: But that dodges the point! How can people have the balls to complain about too little science being done while making life a miserable shlep for those of us who actually choose to do science?
> I think it's easier to not be alarmed about foreign-born PhDs returning home (if that is indeed where they go when they leave the us) than if it were US natives leaving, but I'm not sure that it's really that much less worrisome. It is a very different situation, and the meaningfulness is likewise different. For a foreign-born PhD holder, they have family back there, they'll become bigger fish in a smaller pond, th…
When you hear of a lot of American scientists leaving America permanently, then it's time to start panicking. I got the hell out of the USA to go to grad school. One thing that really helped is that when I visited one of my two grad-school options, the one inside the USA, the current grad-students told me there was no hope of ever getting a permanent research position, and that we could all expect to just drift from…
Story time? I'm a graduate studentat a US college. I study quantum computing, and have for the past year. I went into quantum computing despite the primary investigator being unsure of HHS funding situation, because it was something I had wanted to study for a very long time and I liked the opportunity too much to pass it up. In July, my advisor told me that our funding had been retroactively taken by the sequester.…
Sequestration has been a particularly blunt trauma. Because of the sudden-ness of it, it hurt some areas particularly badly. Also, it was a particularly stupid action, like a tantrum on the part of the Congress. Sorry about what happened to you.
Economics -> Research priorities "Because of science - not religion or politics - even people like you and me can have possessions that only a hundred years ago kings would have gone to war to own. Scientific method should not be take lightly. The walls of the ivory tower of science collapsed when bureaucrats realized that there were jobs to be had and money to be made in the administration and promotion of science.…
What are you trying to say about the linked story?
Research allocations by discipline are politically motivated.
> I think it's easier to not be alarmed about foreign-born PhDs returning home (if that is indeed where they go when they leave the us) than if it were US natives leaving, but I'm not sure that it's really that much less worrisome. It is a very different situation, and the meaningfulness is likewise different. For a foreign-born PhD holder, they have family back there, they'll become bigger fish in a smaller pond, th…
When you hear of a lot of American scientists leaving America permanently, then it's time to start panicking. I got the hell out of the USA to go to grad school. One thing that really helped is that when I visited one of my two grad-school options, the one inside the USA, the current grad-students told me there was no hope of ever getting a permanent research position, and that we could all expect to just drift from…
You're not an American leaving the US, so your comment is irrelevant. And if the graduate school opportunity was at UMass, I assure you, it was not a very good department.
When you hear of a lot of American scientists leaving America permanently, then it's time to start panicking. I got the hell out of the USA to go to grad school. One thing that really helped is that when I visited one of my two grad-school options, the one inside the USA, the current grad-students told me there was no hope of ever getting a permanent research position, and that we could all expect to just drift from…
Did you have to serve, though?
You mean in Tzahal? I haven't been drafted yet, but I will be. It's really not that much trouble.
I agree with the idea that we should invest more in scientific research in this country. But the 18% considering leaving the country metric is insane. This is like the percentage of people who claimed they were moving to Canada when Bush was reelected, and the percentage of people who said they were leaving the country when Obama was (re)elected. People talk big all the time when they're unhappy about something. EDIT…
I think it's easier to not be alarmed about foreign-born PhDs returning home (if that is indeed where they go when they leave the us) than if it were US natives leaving, but I'm not sure that it's really that much less worrisome. Either way, smart people are deciding that they can earn a better life with their skills in a different country. If it's foreign-born PhDs returning home, it really only says that the native…
> I think it's easier to not be alarmed about foreign-born PhDs returning home (if that is indeed where they go when they leave the us) than if it were US natives leaving, but I'm not sure that it's really that much less worrisome. It is a very different situation, and the meaningfulness is likewise different. For a foreign-born PhD holder, they have family back there, they'll become bigger fish in a smaller pond, th…
Foreign-borns returning home seems like an oversimplification. It's true Americans aren't leaving in droves yet, but it doesn't surprise me that a lot of young researchers are willing to do whatever it takes to stay in science when competition for grants is fiercer than ever in the US. It doesn't help that most institutions are top-heavy with old faculty working far beyond the average retirement age who refuse to retire and make room for young blood. I personally know several American-born students from Caltech who've taken post-docs in France and Germany, and some European-born ones who took very cush faculty offers in Singapore when nothing good turned up in the "west". It's not ideal, but when you're ~30ish and heavily invested in your science career you do what's necessary to stay in the game and hope that later you can leverage yourself into a more preferred location when American universities undergo some needed demographic turnover.
Story time? I'm a graduate studentat a US college. I study quantum computing, and have for the past year. I went into quantum computing despite the primary investigator being unsure of HHS funding situation, because it was something I had wanted to study for a very long time and I liked the opportunity too much to pass it up. In July, my advisor told me that our funding had been retroactively taken by the sequester.…
Yeah. My old department at Caltech cut 15% of the support staff, including some who'd been on staff for decades and nearing retirement. They barely took any new students this year. So it's being felt at even the highest levels. Sorry you're having a rough time.