Smart Economy - Education

SAVING SCIENCE:The absence of a secure career path is a huge obstacle to attracting the very people needed to help create a 'smart economy' in Ireland

IT’S A PRETTY big ask, to raise an Innovation Island from the ashes of economic ruin. But that’s one of the aims of the Government’s proposed “smart economy”, which plans to turn scientific research into innovative gold.

So what’s it like to be at the heart of such alchemy? A pulse-check of early-career scientists in Ireland reveals that, while the individuals genuinely love their jobs and welcome the improved quality of research facilities, the backbone of academic research in this country is being severely bent.

From the lack of a secure career path through academia to difficulties securing funding, the folk shovelling the coal into the smart economy’s furnace can find themselves facing uncertain futures in research.

Of course it’s meant to be that way, up to a point. When you emerge, blinking, into the sunlight from writing your PhD thesis, the conventional route through academia is to work through a number of short-term post-doctoral contracts. It’s an opportunity to travel, to choose your field and build up expertise and contacts. Then you get a permanent post and start building your own research group.

When a Science Foundation Ireland census found one-third of post-docs exiting their funded projects in 2007 had moved on to another post-doc contract, it was hardly surprising.

“It’s the norm to move from one contract to another,” explains neuroscientist Dr Keith Murphy, a principal investigator at University College Dublin. “Typically, post-docs do need to go through several rounds before they are ready to build their own groups.”

The problem is, in recent years, the length of those contracts has shrunk considerably. When I was a post-doc in the late 1990s, research jobs usually lasted a luxurious two to five years. Now, they can be as tight as a few months.

Meanwhile, permanent academic posts are as rare as hens’ teeth, particularly since the public sector recruitment freeze. Yet despite the university research career pipeline being blocked – “You’d have to poison a lecturer to get a job,” quips one post-doc – the Government is pushing for ever more PhD students to enter the system and bolster the economy’s smartness.

For those who earn a PhD it can be a passport to new opportunities and countries. But for those who want to stay at home, permanent jobs are limited, according to Dublin City University (DCU) analytical chemist, Dr Blánaid White.

There isn't enough room in industry here to cope with the increasing volume of freshly- minted doctorates, says White, who is currently secretary of both the DCU Contract Researchers' Association and the Irish Research Staff Association. "With 1,300 PhDs being graduated a year in Ireland, the absorptive capacity [of RD in the industry] is not there," she says.

Another option is to stay in academia and enter the realm of the "professional researcher", with little prospect of getting a more permanent teaching position.

The Government's Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation outlined steps to avoid the academic logjam, including developing sustainable career paths to retain researchers, but they have yet to happen, says White, who is now on her fifth post-doctoral contract.

With such a rapid turnover of short-term contracts, even getting mortgage approval can be tricky for some individuals, despite being highly educated, trained and earning a wage. It's a frustration echoed by post-docs around the country, who express disappointment that their contributions are lauded on paper but appear under-valued in practice.

Trinity neuroscientist Dr Sarah Harney recently highlighted the mortgage plight of the post-doc in the letters page of The Irish Times, but it's the ongoing lack of career stability in academia that really bites.

"Science is a career of lifelong learning but that shouldn't mean infinite training," says Harney, who has been a post-doc for eight years. "At this stage in my career, I still have no real stability. I was quite prepared to work on short contracts but I didn't think it would be for so long."

Dr Sara Morrissey at DCU's school of computing is on serial one-year contracts and is similarly deflated by the unbreaking cycle. "If research in the physical sciences is so valuable in Ireland and this 'smart economy', it doesn't seem so smart to perpetuate an environment that doesn't foster the tenure and development of independent researchers," she says.

Career paths aside, what about the inventions, the commercial fruits of research on which the Government's vision of a smart economy has its sights? It's a competitive arena, but the quality of research in Ireland has improved vastly, says Dr Simon Elliott, who works on computer modelling of thin films at Tyndall National Institute in Cork. "If our ambition is to produce widgets for jobs, then we have to be world class, up there with the likes of MIT. There's no point in producing the second-best widget, no company or venture capitalist will be interested. We can't be playing catch up," he says.

To help facilitate that, he would like to see more predictable calls for commercialisation funding, in as much as the budget allows, and longer-term grants that take into account the timescales involved in bringing ideas to market.

Time is also a consideration for Vivienne Williams, chief executive of Cellix Ltd, a spin-out from Trinity College that develops "vein on a chip" testing platforms for biotech and pharma companies.

Williams co-founded the company in 2006 after her masters in physics and climbed a "massive learning curve" with support from Enterprise Ireland, various mentors and venture capital.

"From a university spin-out point of view, in general it takes a lot longer to get a high-tech company off the ground than most people realise," she says. "I would estimate eight to 10 years from basic research to proof-of-concept to production of prototypes for testing in the market, all while investigating if there is even a market for the product or service."

But Ireland has the infrastructure for scientists to compete, she says. "There are fantastic facilities [here]. I have visited laboratories of world-renowned researchers in MIT, Harvard, Yale University and Caltech and many of them are not as well-equipped as some of the labs in Ireland. Those researchers who can find innovative ways to get around problems are the ones that will succeed, particularly if they intend on starting a business."

Like her colleagues, she is still passionate about science. And, she says, it can open plenty of doors. "A degree in science gives a person a good solid educational background which does not necessarily confine them to a specific industry; it can lead to anything."

The only way is out - job frustration forces scientist to emigrate

He sounds like a vital piston in the proposed smart economy. A bright and enthusiastic scientist with plenty of international research under his belt.

He has also built up valuable links with industry and he's forging ahead in a highly bankable area of computing.

He's the kind of guy we want to hang on to, but he is upping sticks from a research post here and moving to a more prestigious job abroad. Why? Because he's frustrated with the lack of promotional opportunities in academic research in Ireland.

"The universities are screwing up royally when it comes to computer science," he says, although he doesn't want to be named before taking up his new role. . "It's not too complicated to retain people, they just need to recognise the needs of the discipline."

That means not focusing only on traditional metrics like journal publications, and instead attributing more value to "real-world" contributions like publishing at conferences and writing software – approaches that build credibility in the field.

His move – he will become an associate professor in a highly visible institute – has been prompted in part by being knocked back for promotion in Ireland. He laments the lack of agility in the Irish academic system that has seen several of his colleagues hit that glass ceiling.

"When it happens to one person you can excuse it, but when it's many people, there's something broken here; clearly there's something rotten in the state of Denmark," he says.

But it's not easy to leave. "I am walking away from lots of collaborators and students – however, they all understand my reasons and support me.

"When I saw what was happening to myself and others I couldn't stand by and let it wear me down. I love my job and I want to keep loving it."