Nine U.S. research universities and a major cancer institute reported plans to give would-be life scientists clear, standardized data on graduate school admissions, education and training opportunities, and career prospects.
The institutions formed the Coalition for Next Generation Life Science in response to the focus of many new Ph.D.s. solely on a limited number of traditional faculty positions and to the lack of good marketplace information on training and career options for life scientists.
The presidents and chancellors of the founding institutions announced the initiative in a joint article published in the December 15 issue of Science. They said they would begin posting informative new standardized data on institutional websites in February 2018 and add additional categories of information over the following 18 months.
"In the absence of such information, students are prevented from making informed choices about their pre- and postdoctoral training activities, and universities from preparing trainees for a full range of careers," the presidents and chancellors wrote in the Science article.
Their article cited studies showing that only about 10% of U.S. biomedical scientists land tenure-track faculty positions at U.S. institutions within five years of their Ph.D. graduation. Among the constraints on the academic job market, the article said, are a nearly 20% decline in inflation-adjusted federal research funding from 2003 to 2016. That decline limits hiring by universities and other nonprofit research institutions that receive federal research support.
The coalition members will issue statistical reports with information on: