The world is mired in a recession, the US biomedical research budgets are stagnant and could slip, and senior faculty stick around campus instead of retiring. But despite the gloomy situation in employment for future academic researchers, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) should maintain or even increase the number of students and postdocs it supports graduates.
This is the conclusion of a new report from the National Research Council (NRC) which examined the main program of the NIH training, the National Prize Research Service (NRSA), which supports about 20% more than 60,000 students and postdocs American graduates in biomedical research. (The rest is mainly funded by research grants R01 NIH, but the NRSA program sets standards for these positions.) It is the 13th such report in accordance with a request of Congress when it created the NRSA program in 1973 program review every few years NRC.
The latest report notes that prospects for academic positions has not improved since the crisis first struck in late 190. "The situation of the already tight job for postdocs seeking positions university teaching or research is probably worse, "concluded the report, published just before Christmas. But it points to a silver lining that justifies the current size of the program. the system has been" incredibly successful "in providing" the dynamism, creativity and absolute leading biomedical research effort, "the report said, while urging students to" be creative "and find alternative careers in fields such as industry, law and the 'secondary education.
Young scientists "are looking for other positions, get-go," said the president of Roger Chalkley committee of the School of Medicine of Vanderbilt University in Nashville. He told Science Insider that he disagrees with the recent suggestions that there is an "excess" of postdocs. "I do not like using the word glut," he said. However, he stressed that "NIH needs to be creative in providing [postdocs] with the support of developing various careers."
the report predicts "substantial growth" opportunities for biomedical scientists, although the two models, it is used to assess the projected demand does not agree. at the same time, the Committee fears that the flow foreign postdocs from China, India and other countries, now more than 50% of workforce- postdoc "could well dry up." If this happens, the report warns, the impact on research US "could be profound."
So what should NIH do? the report recommends keeping the number of NRSA posts for basic biomedical research at the 08 level or more. he said a cut "would also be appropriate" if the budget for extramural NIH down.
Other key recommendations:
- NIH should increase from allowances for postdocs to $ 45,000 ($ 37,740 they are now) and then keep pace with the cost of life and give comparable increases for graduate students;
- NIH should expand its medical scientist training program that introduces physicians to research, at least 20%;
- The number of NRSA courses in the behavioral sciences, which have fallen about 30% since 04, should return to that level;
- NIH should consider increasing the overhead rate of 8% in training grants now paid for research grants, now about 40% to 50%. It would cost more than $ 500 million.
Chalkley stresses that the overall offer of trainees is determined not by size but by the NRSA program budget for extramural NIH. But Howard Garrison of Experimental Biology Federation of American Societies (FASEB) in Bethesda, Maryland, (noting that he worked on previous reports as a member of the NRC staff) said that some of the recommendations "will be incremental to adjust the system. "
For example, Garrison said, if NIH follows allowances that amount, which could increase the salaries of trainees on R01 grants and thus push the lead researchers to hire fewer interns and rely more on scientific and technical personnel. Furthermore, Garrison said FASEB opposes an increase in indirect cost rate because the money would have to come out of research programs.
The report can not be the final word on the matter. Last month, the NIH director Francis Collins asked Princeton University president Shirley Tilghman, Collins member of the advisory board, headed another look at the future needs biomedical workforce. Tilghman chaired a report from the NRC in 1998, urged universities to train fewer graduate students in the life sciences. But the report appeared at the beginning of the doubling of the budget for 5 years from the NIH, and the advice was mostly ignored.
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