Hi,

I’m doing some background research for DIUS (the Government department responsible for universities) which is working on a framework for higher education in the UK over next ten to fifteen years.

One of the issues being reviewed is research careers. There seems to be a perception that doctoral, post-doctoral and subsequent stages of typical research careers are increasingly seen as not that attractive to graduates compared to other possible careers.

Do you think this is generally true? Are research careers less attractive as, say careers in finance, banking, the media, etc.

I’m interested in hearing what postgraduate students think about this issue (either by replying to this post or by going to the blog we have running on the broader HE issue: http://hedebate.jiscinvolve.org/).

Thanks.

I guess it depends on your motivations and on whether you have worked in industry before. For me, coming to a research career after some 15 years in the workplace, the research career is more attractive but then my motivations are different than they were when I was younger. I have previously worked in law (10 years) and education (5 years). I know from reading this forum that research careers are often perceived as difficult to enter, highly competitive, restricted by funding opportunities, etc. For me the intellectual challenge and rewards of a research career are sufficient motivation to engage with the other issues, for some that's not the case. For me, the research career is also, for this reason more attractive than law, media, etc. I think it's a very subjective issue.

I don’t think this there is just a ‘perception’ that research careers are less attractive, but rather it’s regarded as a ‘known fact’ amongst graduates.

Assuming we are just talking about research in HE here, it is less attractive for a number of obvious reasons:
- The other careers you mention are all private sector jobs = better pay, greater stability, employment rights, more perks (particularly private health care and pension schemes). This is also applicable to public sector jobs to a certain extent…healthcare, teaching, civil service.
- Research at doctoral & post-doc level is the antithesis of all the above. For doctoral researchers = no empt. rights. For post-docs will have employment rights, but are often limited by the short-term nature of their contracts.
- Funding for doctoral research is typically just above the bread-line.

- At doctoral level, researchers receive no contributions to pension schemes or NI (unless they do it themselves, which is usually impossible given their income level). This contrasts with some other countries (I think Sweden is one).
- Pursuing a research career often (if not usually) holds back an individual’s financial progression in terms of mortgages/pensions etc.
- The average researcher (particularly the lowly doctoral student) is often not well-respected by HE institutions or society at large.
- The academic world, a supposedly liberated/egalitarian world, is often beset with discrimination, bullying, snobbery, and intellectual freedom issues. Researchers are often unwilling to challenge problems as their careers are dependent from references from their university.

- Looking at long-term prospects, jobs in UK academia are very competitive. The UK operates a very open-door policy, in comparison with, for example, Canada who will favour Canadian citizens and permanent residents for academics posts (the rights and wrongs of this policy is another issue).

- On a positive note (yes, I do have one ), academic careers offer greater flexibility in terms of working in different environments and removes one from the 9-5 drudgery of an office job.

- Finally, some individuals are just born academics. They are passionate about researching, writing and teaching, and no matter how negatively perceived the profession is, they will still pursue it...although the best will go to the USA for better pay ;).

The changes to doctoral funding from the ESRC and to a lesser extent the AHRC have been appalling. It's no longer merit-based and instead makes candidates desperately try to find anyone able to supervise their topic at somewhere with quota (quota places tend to go to people already at the institution as they're regarded as safe bets), however inappropriate it might be or hoping against hope that they might be allowed to be the one person entered by their institution into the competition (where standards vary completely between subjects and even within subjects). This means a lot of people can't even consider pursuing PhD research.

But maybe it's a good thing that there are less PhD students because there are precious few research jobs available in the social sciences or humanities. And universities know this and are extremely exploitative employers whether it's the 9 month temporary lectureship jobs, the 1 year postdocs or worst of all the 'hourly paid' teaching posts, which however many seminars you lead ends up as poverty rate pay. Then just imagine you've survived all that for five, six, seven years (and made the personal sacrifices of moving frequently, never being able to buy a home, have kids etc) you get a permanent lectureship. (In my subject it's not uncommon that there'll be 100 applications for each post from all over the world). You earn just about the salary of a bus driver for a 50-60 hour working week. It's rather hard to sell this as a sensible career path to bright undergraduates...You have to really have a vocation to go into it.

Thanks for these replies. They are both interesting and not altogether unsurprising in the issues that they raise.

Based on the replies would it be right to wonder whether existing incentives (e.g. stipends, salaries, access to grants, etc.) exert sufficient positive influence on graduate’s choices when it comes to research careers?

Judging by what has been posted I’m not sure they do. If they don’t then what do you think leads a typical student towards the career of a researcher (whether in a HE environment or for industry)?

Until there are permanent full time jobs available I'm very wary about continuing as a full time researcher.

Not only is there no job stability for researchers but, more importantly, research is not being fully implemented. I am in the social sciences and am aware of a project in my department which made suggestions about how practice could (and should) change. The funding body, although pleased with the findings, did not fund these implementations. Really, what is the point of conducting research which is not implemented??? Very demoralising.

The answer is for permanent positions which allow researchers to follow projects through to implementation stage.

missspacey covers a lot of important points. The fact that doing a PhD is effectively a full time job (actually more time-demanding than many FT jobs) is not reflected by access to pension schemes/NI contributions etc.

I think it's unfair that a stipend is a fixed rate regardless of your age/previous qualifications/experience. I don't see how it's fair that when I was doing my PhD, straight out of uni, I had the same income as another PhD student in my lab who had a Masters and 7 years of research assistant work under his belt. Why should his exptra experience be so devalued? I have a vested intersted in this question - I dropped out of that PhD and if I ever do another one then I'll be in my late twenties by the time I start!

Further thoughts:
1.Govt funded PhDs are far worse paid than charitably funded ones.
e.g. in London:
MRC stipend starts £14,700, increasing 2.5% per year
Cancer Research UK stipend starts £18,500, increasing 6.2% a year

2. Consumables provision in PhD grants is laughable - MRC give £1000/year; average lab project costs lab £10,000/year.

3. In biomedicine, clinicians who take time out to do a PhD/MD have some kind of salary protection, so that they're not reduced to living off of the sums I quoted in 1. Thus it would seem that their research efforts are considered to be of value. Why aren't the efforts of non-clinical biomedical (and indeed any PhD student) considered of comparable worth? (I'm not having a dig at clinicians or saying they don't deserve the money. But it does represent a huge inequality).

I want to go into research but no one will take me on. Apprarntly 2 degrees and a hoard of lab experience isn't enough.

Also the salary of a typical PhD is incredibly low, especially with inflatation rates.

Again. Useful input on this issue. Thank you. If I may develop a little what has been offered.

I suspect I am right in interpreting most of what has been posted here as referring to research in an academic setting (understandable given that this is a post-graduate form).

Can I ask whether research in a non-academic setting figures on your horizons?

Charitably funded research has been briefly mentioned. What about research in a business or industry environment.

Is this an option that you are able to consider as a route to a research career?