SEB Bulletin July 2006 - VOICE OF THE FUTURE 28 February 2006
by John Bothwell
Boudica has always seemed one of history’s more sensible leaders, having the good taste to burn London to the ground on her only recorded visit. Sadly, government has changed since the Warrior Queen’s day. To find out how much, we have to set our backs to her famous statue on Westminster Pier and turn to face Portcullis House. Standing directly above Westminster Pier and opposite the London Eye, Portcullis House is a famously expensive office block for MPs, complete with fig trees, water fountains and a number of conference suites named after post-war politicians. It’s the sort of place that scientists will need to understand a lot better in the 21st century because, like it or not, science is becoming big business and, consequently, big politics.
Now, like Boudica, I don’t care for London, but however bad I think the city is I know my career prospects are worse. In fact, they’re the reason why I’ve come to Portcullis House in the first place. As a postdoc, I feel like somebody is having a three year joke at my expense and I’d like to know why. Why are there no national guidelines for postdoctoral training or career development? Why do so few institutions see a postdoctoral position as anything other than a step to academia? Why is academic preferment based on publication rates if we’re told that teaching and engagement with the public are so important (http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page. asp?id=1140)? Why, in consequence, are new lecturers presented with a set of responsibilities which bear little resemblance to anything they’ve shown they’re good at? Outside of feeding porridge to a baby, I’ve never seen anything as wasteful and horribly haphazard as the academic career ladder, which simply shovels talent into science in the hope that some of it will stay down.
Still, it could be worse. At least I’m not female. Boudica’s revolt arose, in part, because the Romans didn’t believe women could think and modern science is currently making the same mistake. As a rough estimate, women make up around two-thirds of biological science undergraduates, one-third of postdocs and one-quarter of lecturers (http:// www2.shu.ac.uk/nrc/index.cfm). Don’t even bother asking about professors.
Where do all the women go? In fact, where do all the postdocs go? What, in short, does Government actually want from contract research staff and are they going to put their money where their mouth is? With these questions in mind, I wound up inside Portcullis House at the Royal Society of Chemistry’s ‘Voice of the Future 2006’, a biennial event designed to give around 200 young scientists a clearer idea of what Government and science can do for each other. Appropriately enough, the day before had seen the publication of the Women and Work Commission’s report entitled ‘Shaping a fairer future’, which specifically addresses the under-representation of women in the workplace. We were accordingly welcomed by the impressive Meg Munn, MP for Sheffield Heeley and Parliamentary Under- Secretary of State at the Dept. of Trade and Industry, who highlighted the importance of equality in the laboratory and whose introductory speech argued that ‘Compared with China, India, and South America, we are a small country. Unless we use wisely the abilities of all our people we will get left behind’.
But fine words, as they say, butter no parsnips. For advice on how, exactly, to ‘use wisely the abilities of all our people’, the floor cleared for the stars of the show - four members of the Commons Select Committee on Science & Technology, chaired by Phil Willis MP (Harrogate and Knaresborough). A Select Committee is a group charged with monitoring the activities of a particular Government Department and usually consists of around a dozen crossparty MPs. The Committee on Science & Technology keeps an eye on the Office of Science and Technology and, in the current session of Parliament, has grilled said Office on its response to, among other things, bird ‘flu, climate change and the legal problems raised by forensic science techniques. Hardened in that sort of environment, Select Committee members can take it as well as dish it out. For two hours they fieldedquestions on animal testing, nuclear power, public communication and short-term contracts. I’d assumed that scientists would know more about science than politicians, but was impressed by how good the Select Committee were. This really shouldn’t have surprised me; Evan Harris (Oxford West and Abingdon) is a qualified doctor, Des Turner (Brighton Kempdown) qualified as a research chemist and Brian Iddon (Bolton South East) is a visiting professor in the Department of Chemistry at Liverpool University. They know what they’re talking about and ran rhetorical rings around many of the questioners while expressing concern for the position of young scientists.
Which brings us back to what the Government wants from contract researchers. There is a simmering problem with short-term research contracts and I, for one, can’t wait for it to boil over. Briefly, the Government wants and needs scientists to venture out of the laboratory and talk to industry and the general public, but the much-loved Research Assessment Exercises effectively measure scientific productivity in terms of papers published. The Government is, therefore, getting the scientists which the RAEs ask for and that tends to mean people who publish at the expense of mentoring, teaching and public engagement.
This is a terrible waste; increasing scientific productivity and influence does not necessarily mean doing more research. In fact, I would argue that there are far too many sub-standard papers (and journals) as it is.
The growing problems which Science faces come not from a shortage of publications but from a shortage of consolidation and the lack of an infrastructure to train and retain young scientists. To their credit, the Government is slowly realizing this; in 2002 Sir Gareth Roberts’ focus group published what has become known as the ‘Roberts review’, which recommended ways in which young scientists could be encouraged to stay in research. Some of these measures have already been implemented - those of you applying for jobs may have noticed the new RCUK Fellowships and every institute now receives ‘Roberts money’ for contract researcher career development. However, the full impact of the Roberts review will take several years to be felt and will probably require a sea-change in the attitude towards young scientists.
And what, in their turn, are we voices of the future saying back to Government? Precious little, it turns out. We keep our heads down, agree with our seniors, try to work in a field which will give us a lot of publications, don’t try to inspire schoolchildren, don’t reach out to the general public, whine about lack of recognition and go on to replace the same mediocre lecturers we made such a fuss about when we were on contracts. Letting ourselves follow the herd, we lose the independence which drives the best science. In my own field of plant biology, a whole generation of botanists are being raised in the unshakeable belief that Arabidopsis is the only plant worth working on and this despite the fact that possibly the biggest biological phenomenon of the past decade - RNAi – was discovered by a group working on petunias.
So postdocs, make trouble. Don’t fool yourself that you can afford to wait until your next job before picking up good habits, because that’s what your PIs told themselves and look at them. Demand that Roberts money. Demand more responsibility. Worry about public communication of science. Work on petunias. And, just for once, don’t be bullied into thinking the same way everybody else does. After all, you’ve nothing to lose but your jobs.
John Bothwell Plymouth Marine Biological Association
