An opinion piece in SCIENCE discusses ways to make research careers more stable, in part by limiting PhD production (1). I agree with their analysis. Steps to limit PhD production
and to introduce stable research career pathways for ‘non-PI’ scientists are
clearly needed. But we have known this for some time. The problem is that both
senior faculty members and their institutions have a strong self interest in
maintaining the current situation. An ample supply of cheap and expendable labor
is just too good to pass up. We have commented on this several times in this blog.
(1) http://www.sciencemag.org/content/346/6215/1422.full