Advocating proper career structures for researchers

Getting a proper career structure for science researchers is a major goal for Hugh Brady. He is concerned that despite all the money pouring into research these days, a lot of young scientists are forced into a professional limbo. Thanks to the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI) unprecedented millions are being spent on third-level research in Ireland. "There's a tremendous `can do' feeling within the research community," Brady says. "Many of our star graduates abroad suddenly see Ireland as a potentially attractive career option. "However, our third-level research system is still dominated by trainees or relatively junior researchers on short-term contracts who have very little prospects of advancement." Over 80 per cent of Irish researchers are relatively junior - working at PhD or post-doctoral level, he says. In the US, meanwhile, young researchers on three- to five-year contracts know that if they produce innovative and productive research, funding will be made available for them to move up the academic ladder. In the US, too, senior staff can be brought in to boost research programmes at any stage. "You could have 20 or 30 professors in one department," Brady says. "They bring in their own experienced staff and quickly attract external funding." In Irish universities most of the academic recruitment is done at junior-lecturer level. The appointees tend to be young and inexperienced, Brady says. Because of this lack of experience and the huge teaching loads they are required to undertake, they fail to maintain their international research competitiveness. "If we are to attract the best and the brightest researchers to Ireland, we need to ensure that they can pursue their careers in a protected environment, where they have real prospects of permanent jobs, Brady argues.

If the situation for science researchers is bad - it is even worse for academic medical graduates. "Besides the occasional professorship or senior lecturer position, there are no career opportunities for clinicians who wish to spend a major proportion of their time in research," Brady says. "In a British teaching hospital you will find 10 times as many university-affiliated clinicians as you will in an Irish teaching hospital." A graduate of UCD, Brady is an exception that proves the rule. He returned to his alma mater as professor of medicine and therapeutics, in 1996. He'd spent the late 1980s and half of the 1990s at Harvard University Medical School, where he'd risen from fellow to associate professor. Ask Hugh Brady where home was and he'll tell you he grew up all over the place - his father was a bank manager. He spent his schooldays, though, at Newbridge College, Co Kildare. He was 14 when he decided on his future career. Maybe it was in the genes - his grandfather was a GP. It was during his Boston years that Brady met his wife, Yvonne O'Meara - a fellow medic and UCC graduate. They didn't give much thought to returning to Ireland - until the arrival of their triplets. That got them thinking. "We started to consider where we wanted the boys to grow up and asked ourselves what would it be like to grow old in America," Brady recalls.

Back in Ireland, Brady divides his time between UCD and the Mater, where his clinical work involves caring for general medical and dialysis and transplant patients. He has continued research collaborations in molecular medicine begun while he was in the States. His particular involvement is in translational research - research which aims to apply breakthroughs in the lab to a clinical setting. "In terms of practical bedside medicine, Irish graduates are way ahead (of their US counterparts)," he says. As a result, "they approach research from the patient's viewpoint. People here have a good track record of identifying new molecules that drive common human diseases." Add to that the fact that Irish patients are also keen to co-operate in research programmes, and you have the perfect opportunity for collaborative research with lab scientists here or abroad. Collaboration has become a major theme in Brady's career. He played a central role in the establishment of UCD's Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research. This institute has been set up to support multidisciplinary collaborative research into the identification of molecules that promote common diseases and are potential targets against which to direct new drugs. Brady co-ordinates the Conway Institute's molecular medicine theme. Collaboration in the biomolecular field has now gone one step further - the Dublin Molecular Medicine Centre is a research partnership between the Conway Institute and TCD's molecular medicine endeavour, involving the RCSI. "What makes it so exciting," Brady says," is that it has been driven primarily by researchers. There's a new breed of investigator in town who, while being loyal to his or her institution, realises that Dublin has the potential to a be a major international centre in molecular medicine within the next five years. "Most of these people have spent up to 10 years abroad in key research positions. They realise that the competition is international rather than local and that it is vital that there is only one co-ordinated molecular medicine research programme in Dublin." According to UCD's professor of medicine, there's no reason why the Irish research endeavour in molecular medicine shouldn't be as good as that of Edinburgh University. "Dublin and Edinburgh both have strong traditions in clinical medicine and science and yet in terms of research output, they left us behind 25 years ago," he says. Why? Simply because of funding shortages: the talent has always been available in large supply - but most of it has been forced abroad. "After three years of PRTLI we are able to tell researchers that we have a state-of-the-art research environment - `come back and try it'. The first thing they ask is what kind of security will they have? They want more security and they want to know that after three or five years' funding, they can apply again and that there will be career advancement. At different stages of their careers people can bring different skills and make different contributions."