The challenges of being a non-university researcher: recruiting students

Tags

altac, funding, graduate students, recruitment

I’ve written before about how the UK’s system of funding research puts too much emphasis on students (and also doesn’t work particularly well). And as someone who’s never worked directly in a university (hooray for government, NGO, and museum science!) student recruitment has been a particular frustration of late.

As an undergrad, I was fortunate enough to have someone take a chance on an unproven wannabe scientist, and grateful that someone did again when I started my PhD (for the record, I looked at my CV this morning when I sent it in to my PhD program: no research experience before my 2-year masters, no publications, 1 conference presentation, no grants/awards. Goodness me those were the days). I recognized early on that the traditional metrics by which we often assess and recruit graduate students are biased. And I see this now, nearly 2 decades (!) later now that I am what might be called a “Principle Investigator”.

Early on, I told myself I would do my best to pay things forward, as they had been done for me as a grad student, and one of the areas this includes is in student recruitment. The problem, though, is that being not based at a university, the opportunities for ANY student recruitment are limited and hampered, let alone when one is trying to subvert the very system one relies on.

The Natural History Museum is a research institution (so we can hold grants from bodies like UKRI and ERC, for example), but does not have degree-awarding powers, so we have to rely on finding a university co-supervisor who either a) aligns with the project, and has capacity/interest to take on another student, or b) is happy to be totally uninvolved save for the university admin and box ticking that a graduate degree requires. Neither is terribly abundant or preferable, in my experience.

And this is before we hit on funding. Many universities have their own funding (through teaching assistantships, a central graduate studies pot of money) which can take some of the financial burden off the supervisor for funding the whole cost (a PhD student in the UK has total costs of ca. £25,000/year, including salary and some basic research costs). I’m purposefully ignoring DTP-esque funding here because a) it’s an awful system, b) it rewards the same biases I first noticed decades ago, and c) it still relies on finding that university-based (co)supervisor, who will be limited in the number of DTP applications they can be involved in.

I find this particularly frustrating because I know several amazing people who’ve approached me to join my “lab” (an entity that doesn’t really exist) and who I would take on in a heart-beat. I can’t chat about grad school meaningfully with prospective students at conferences because so much of the process is out of my hands and seemingly uninfluenceable. I can’t pay forward the chances folks gave me, and that’s gut-wrenching.

Don’t get me wrong – there’s lots about being a non-academic scientist that I adore, and I wouldn’t change my current job (much) for the world. But when we think about how the next generation of scientists is being recruited, trained, and funded, and by whom, I wonder if we should be thinking a little bit differently.

Prioritizing the flood of ideas

Tags

#NewPI, funding, languishing projects, students

If you’ve been involved in research for more than a couple of years, chances are you quite quickly start to accumulate a list, even if only in your mind, of Things It Would Be Neat To Do. These could be things that you identify as gaps while pursuing your main research theme, or ideas that spark out of a paper you happened to leaf through while waiting for a meeting to start.

And typically starting around the later years of a PhD, and through postdocs and early career positions, the flood of ideas for things to do keeps, well, flooding. You see gaps, methods that need improving, sites that need investigating, and questions that need answering. And very quickly you realize that you do not have time to do it all.

And so it begins: the search for minions!

Or rather, students, collaborators, or others upon whom you can foist your ideas, your existing data, your passion, in the hopes that they will take the torch and run. At some stage, the list becomes too large for your head, and perhaps like me you make a nice text document on your desktop called “Project Ideas.txt”, and just keep adding to it as the ideas pop in, with the hopes that when a prospective minion comes along, you’ll have just the project for them.

But good heavens is that ever difficult. Perhaps I’ve had a skewed view, having never actually worked in a university, but I have tried several mechanisms to try and get homes for existing datasets, or convince others that the project ideas I’ve had are worth pursuing and met with exceptionally low success.

A few years ago, I tried setting up a page here called Languishing Projects, and every 6 months or so I would update it, send around some tweets or emails, and I might get one or two queries. Usually, though, the query didn’t go anywhere because the querier wasn’t at the right career stage (I had several emails from first or second year undergrads – and not to say that those cohorts aren’t suitable for research, but as they would have been in different cities than I, I couldn’t provide them with the mentorship and guidance needed for projects done at that career stage).

It seems ironic, but I just couldn’t give away data.

Now, some of you would surely suggest simply posting the data somewhere like figshare and someone, somewhere would use it. This wasn’t practical because I wasn’t the sole owner of these data, and in many cases, the data would have needed some significant attention before I would want them released into the wild.

A particular challenge I’ve found is funding and recruiting to studentships. I do marvel at PIs who seemingly receive countless emails asking about being a student in their lab – I can’t remember the last time I had one, let alone one that was in my field (again, though, I’m not at a degree-granting institution). And in the few cases where I’ve been able to find a partnering faculty member, the number of applicants, despite quite broad advertising, has been quite low. And university faculty also have their own flood of ideas, so why would they want to take on yet more?

And then there’s the funding. The way the UK funds postgraduate research is, in my view, quite silly. Students don’t apply to PIs, but to thematic or regional Doctoral Training Partnerships, and those admitted to these DTPs then must be wooed by PIs with projects in the hopes that the student will finally settle on theirs. There’s nothing wrong with a little competition, but it means that if a prospective student contacts me, and I think they might be a great fit for a project I have, they can be rejected by the DTP and that’s the end of that. The success rate, particularly for some (like the London DTP) is more akin to a major NERC or NSF grant, <7% last year.

To say nothing of funding for postdocs.

I think that part of the difficulty is that while I work on seabirds and islands, many of the project ideas are desk- or collections-based. This is advantageous on one hand because they involve very little cost, but at the same time, most students in ecology & conservation are in it (largely) for the field work. Which costs money. Sigh.

So as I often, too, I took to Twitter to ask folks how they dealt with the flood of project ideas. The response were basically to prioritize those that had either students or money associated with them. Not great for me, since mine had neither. And without either of those, partnering with a university PI becomes increasingly difficult (because, well, students and money are hard to find, it seems).

But rather than have this a whinging tirade, my question, dear reader, is what do you do with the projects for which you have no time? The bits of data that could be something if they just had some time put into them (time that none of us have)? Are you resigned to letting them slide off this mortal coil?

And lastly, many of my languishing projects or Ideas That Have Little Chance Of Being Realized are perfectly suitable for honours or UK/Australian MSc/MRes degrees, and some could be bundled up into a nice PhD. So if you fancy collaborating, or have a steady stream of students in need of projects, let’s chat!

The high price of scientific conferences

Tags

conferences, funding

As a student, I quite enjoyed going to conferences. My first was the Society of Canadian Ornithologists in 2005 in Halifax, a gathering of about 100 people from universities, government, and the private sector in one hotel conference room for 2 days. If memory serves, I think I paid $50 (or rather my supervisor did), and we all drove the 5 hours from Fredericton. I met lots of great folks there, and learned a lot.

But lately, I’ve become rather frustrated with conferences. It seems to me that conferences are increasingly becoming less about the science, and more about the conference. As someone who’s spent many years producing local theatrical productions, I recognize many of the same things: promotion, venue, sound/lights (AV equipment), catering, … all of which can be had on a sliding scale of cost, but which are increasingly costing more and more. And then there are the conference add-ons that really have little to do with the actual science: the often-accompanying tote bag/swag from various sponsors, and the bar service (often during the poster session evenings).

Now, some of these costs are imposed by the venue. If you want alcohol served, there’s usually a minimum purchase, and you’ll also pay for serving staff, for example. But there are some steps that people organizing conferences can take to reduce what is becoming a burdensome cost. Do we really need those posh biscuits at the 10am tea break? Swanky tapas during the poster session? I’d argue not.

Here’s a quick spin through some of the ornithological conferences just to see how much they currently cost (assuming early-bird registration for a non-student, and not counting travel & accommodation):

British Ornithologists Union 2016: £235 members / £440 non-members

American Ornithologists Union/Cooper Ornithological Society 2015: $320 USD members / $395 USD non-members

North American Ornithological Congress 2016: $499 USD

Pacific Seabird Group 2016: $285 USD / $330 USD

International Penguin Conference 2016: R4500 (roughly $300 USD)

And some general ecological ones thrown in to boot:

Ecological Society of America 2016: $342 / $510

British Ecological Society 2015: £350

International Marine Conservation Congress (2014; 2016 price not yet posted): $462 / $624 USD

 

And again, this is exclusive of any travel, accommodations, or food. The PSG meeting, for example, is in Turtle Bay, Hawaii (an hour’s drive from Honolulu at a $300/night resort… though more ’affordable’ accommodation is likely to be found within 15-30 minutes’ drive).

Given that we’re often asked, as scientists, to show value for money, and budgets are ever shrinking (or at the best, not increasing, which is a decrease in real terms), we need to start asking whether it’s good value for money (often public grant money) to attend these expensive meetings. Sure, they’re fun, and a good chance to catch up with friends and colleagues, but is that enough for 1-4 days’ of listening to others talk about their research? Or at best, spend 15 minutes talking about some recent work of our own?

Yes, it costs money to run a conference. As a former producer, I’m only too aware of how much it costs to rent a venue, host a website (let alone one with online registration/payment), and coordinate a herd of cats group of scientists. But could we not all bring a brown-bag lunch one day? Plan meetings in more affordable cities near major airports? Forego the complementary drinks at the bar?

While most conferences offer a discount for students, the number doing so for postdocs or scientists who haven’t been visited by the magical funding fairy is much lower. To say nothing of scientists who spend money from their own pocket to go these shindigs.

There are of course also the ethical arguments about the potentially large carbon footprint of flying all over the place (and as an aside, we also have a carbon budget here at the RSPB).

I’m not arguing that we do away with conferences. I think they provide valuable time to interact with colleagues, network, and I very much enjoy attending them. But we need to make scientific conferences more affordable, or worth the ever-increasing prices.

On trainees, money, and diversity

Tags

diversity, funding, hiring, SciSpend

Money — it’s the crux of just about everything we do in science.  Want to bring in a new student or staff member? Money.  Want to do field or lab work? Money. Want to go to a conference? Money. It’s one of the things we expect scientists to be good at (and which is also a full-time profession in and of itself).

I get particularly cranky when I see money used as a barrier to diversity.  I’ll explain with two examples that have recently piqued my interest.

The first is something I’ve discussed before – paying staff. I highly recommend Auriel Fournier’s post on the same topic.  For me, it boils down to a simple axiom: no money = no staff.  You’ll note this is similar to the currently accepted adages “No money = no gas”, “No money = no lab analyses”, and “No money = no milk for the tea room”.  As we approach the (northern) field season’s peak time for hiring, I find it particularly frustrating when I see “opportunities” that are entirely volunteer, or even pay-to-work junkets.  That just ain’t right.

The second is something that’s come up on Twitter recently – spending one’s own money “for science”, by which I mean incurring expenses for one’s research/job and not being reimbursed.  This post by Edd Hind lays out the terrible logic, and the damning evidence.

In both cases the result is the same – science becomes only possible for those who have financial means. And that typically means white men. We need more diversity in science.

I don’t think the ideas I’m advocating are all that radical (we should pay people a decent wage for their work, and they should not have to pay for work-related expenses). And while they alone won’t solve the problem of under-represented groups in science, they’ll go a long way to making it a slightly more even playing field.

If you’re a PI – budget for your staff just as you would your lab ethanol or conference travel. Give your trainees travel advances if they’re going to incur large bills over a short period (e.g., a field season). Learn about central pools of money from the department, faculty, or graduate student union to cover conference travel, training, etc.

If you’re a trainee – discuss funding for staff and supplies with your supervisor. Seek reimbursement for costs incurred, and advocate for advances rather than reimbursement (or direct purchasing by the department/university). And know your department’s/university’s financial regs for reimbursement (or pots of money for conferences); your PI may not be up to speed on these.

If you’re an administrator – push for appropriate financial measures so that trainees aren’t out of pocket. Look at having a central pool of funding for things like conference travel (as a grad student, I got 1 conference/year covered this way).

And don’t just assume that because you could cover the cost that others could as well.

Women are underrepresented in big NSERC awards

Tags

funding, gender, NSERC, Women in Science

Back in April, as I was knee-deep in a trans-Atlantic move, Meg Duffy wrote a post at Dynamic Ecology on the US National Science Foundation’s Waterman Award (a prize for an under-35 scientist/engineer of $1 million), and lamented that the last 11 recipients were men.  The comments on that piece were particularly excellent, and included a response from NSF highlighting some of the broader issues of why women tend to be underrepresented in such awards.

Women are also underrepresented at conferences, on editorial boards, face biases when submitting to journals (PDF) and receive smaller grants.  In terms of “big awards”, one hurdle is that fewer women tend to be nominated (PDF – $$).  So it is with a heavy heart that I add to this mounting evidence the following:

Women have been awarded only 17% of major NSERC awards since 2004.

NSERC, Canada’s national granting body for natural sciences engineering, has six prizes that I would include as “big awards” (which includes both large-value, and low-number/high-exclusivity prizes). Let’s break them down.

 

André Hamer Postgraduate Prizes

From 2004-2010, there were two awards annually, and from 2011-2013, this was increased to five. They’re relatively low at $10,000 each, and “are awarded to the most outstanding candidates in NSERC’s master’s and doctoral scholarship competitions“.  Of the 29 prizes awarded since 2004, women received 13 (45%), which isn’t that bad. Until we realize that this accounts for nearly half the women award winners that I’ll cover in this post.  Since the number of prizes was increased in 2011 (n = 15 prizes at 5/year), only 3 women received them (including none in 2013, the last year for which data are available).

 

Brockhouse Canada Prize for Interdisciplinary Research

This is usually one award made to multiple people (anywhere from 2-11 in a given year), and there was no 2007 award.  The Brockhouse Prize “recognizes outstanding Canadian teams of researchers from different disciplines who came together to engage in research drawing on their combined knowledge and skills, and produced a record of excellent achievements in the natural sciences and engineering in the last six years.”.  We can look at these data in two ways: based on the number of awards (1/year), and based on the number of recipients, but as we’ll see it doesn’t make any difference.  Of the 9 years from 2004-2013 with an award, women received awards in 2006 and 2012 (2/9 = 11%).  Over the same period, 39 people were part of the award-winning teams, 4 of which were women (10%).

 

EWR Steacie Memorial Fellowships

The Steacie Fellowships are “awarded annually to enhance the career development of outstanding and highly promising scientists and engineers who are faculty members of Canadian universities“, and up to 6 are awarded annually.  From 2004-2013, there were 59 recipients, 9 of which were women (15%).  Parity occurred only in 2009 (3 women, 3 men), and no women received a Steacie Fellowship in 2004, 2007, or 2012.

 

Gerhard Herzberg Canada Medal

This is NSERC’s premiere award, often touted in the media as Canada’s “top science prize“, and is for “both the sustained excellence and overall influence of research work conducted in Canada in the natural sciences or engineering“.  Of the 10 recipients from 2004-2013, there were no women recipients.  In fact, since the award was established in 1991, it has never been awarded to a woman.

 

John C. Polyani Award

The Polyani Award is a bit trickier, since it can be awarded to groups or consortia for “an individual or team whose Canadian-based research has led to a recent outstanding advance in the natural sciences or engineering“.  It’s also only been around since 2006, and in that time, two groups have won the award (with no indication of the gender make-up of the teams), so the analysis is restricted to the 6 years where I could find details on the actual recipients.  In that time, there have been 9 recipients, 1 of which was a woman (in 2010).

 

Synergy Awards for Innovation

Lastly, these prizes are for “examples of collaboration that stand as a model of effective partnership between industry and colleges or universities“, and began in 2009.  Between 3-14 people have received this prize annually, and out of 33 recipients from 2009-2013, there have been 3 women, and none since 2010.

 

Of NSERC’s 185 “big award/prize” recipients from 2004-2013, only 31 (17%) were women.

 

Year	Hamer	Brockhouse	Steacie	Herzberg	Polyani	Synergy
2013	0/5	0/2	0/6	0/1	Group award	0/3
2012	2/5	3/11	1/5	0/1	0/1	0/7
2011	1/5	0/5	1/6	0/1	0/1	0/4
2010	2/2	0/2	3/6	0/1	1/1	1/5
2009	2/2	0/4	1/6	0/1	0/3	2/14
2008	1/2	0/2	0/6	0/1	0/1
2007	1/2	No award	1/6	0/1	0/2
2006	2/2	1/8	1/6	0/1	Group award
2005	0/2	0/3	0/6	0/1
2004	2/2	0/2	1/6	0/1
Total	13/29	4/39	10/65	0/10	1/9	3/33
Percent	44.83%	10.26%	15.38%	0.00%	11.11%	9.09%

 

And as you can see from the table, no women were recognized in any of these categories by NSERC in 2013. W.T.F.

 

I. like others, think the solutions to rectifying this ridiculousness must come from the scientific community, and from NSERC.  Community members need to nominate more women, as the comments in Meg’s post point out.  But in turn, the groups that receive the nominations should scrutinize the list of nominees and ask why there are fewer women, and what can be done to change that. When underrepresented groups see themselves in those selected for these awards, it increases the visibility of the group as a whole, gives others role models with whom they can identify, and neither of these should be discounted as not important for science.

Does the fact that no women have been awarded Canada’s top science prize, ever, mean there are no deserving women recipients for such a prestigious award? Heck no. It just means they’ve not been recognized because of systemic biases (whether those biases are recognized or not).  I highly recommend you scroll through the “Women in Science” category at Dynamic Ecology, as Meg Duffy has written extensively on stereotype threat, and was to improve the current gender imbalance.

But whether it’s major scientific prizes, or your own local seminar series, make the effort to balance the recognition of men and women in science. It shouldn’t be hard to do given how many fantastic women scientists there are.