More on postdoc problems

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

 

http://scienceforthefuture.blogspot.com/2010/02/why-are-there-still-too-many-graduate_10.html

http://scienceforthefuture.blogspot.com/2014/05/finally-some-sound-thoughts-about-phd.html