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The Astronomy Career Problem – it starts with the PhD

Posted in Science Politics with tags , , , , , on October 14, 2011 by telescoper

Just time for a quickie today, as I’ve got to run an examples class before dashing off on the train to London to attend the annual George Darwin Lecture which, this year, is to be given by Michael Turner with the title From Quarks to the Cosmos. I expect it to be very enjoyable and may well write a report at the weekend.

Yesterday evening there was a discussion on twitter (#astrojc) about the astronomy careers problem. I didn’t take part – in fact I didn’t realise it was happening – as I was slaving over the Private Eye crossword at the time.

Anyway, it gives me the excuse to rehash an argument I have presented before, which is that most analyses of the problems facing young postdoctoral researchers in astronomy are looking at the issue from the wrong end. I think the crisis is essentially caused by the overproduction of PhDs in this field. To understand the magnitude of the problem, consider the following.

Assume that the number of permanent academic positions in a given field (e.g. astronomy) remains constant over time. If that is the case, each retirement (or other form of departure) from a permanent position will be replaced by one, presumably junior, scientist.

This means that over an academic career, on average, each academic will produce just one PhD who will get a permanent job in academia. This of course doesn’t count students coming in from abroad, or those getting faculty positions abroad, but in the case of the UK these are probably relatively small corrections.

Under the present supply of PhD studentships an academic can expect to get a PhD student at least once every three years or so. At a minimum, therefore, over a 30 year career one can expect to have ten PhD students. A great many supervisors have more PhD students than this, but this just makes the odds worse. The expectation is that only one of these will get a permanent job in the UK. The others (nine out of ten, according to my conservative estimate) above must either leave the field or the country to find permanent employment.

The arithmetic of this situation is a simple fact of life, but I’m not sure how many prospective PhD students are aware of it. There is still a reasonable chance of getting a first postdoctoral position, but thereafter the odds are stacked against them.

The upshot of this is we have a field of understandably disgruntled young people with PhDs but no realistic prospect of ever earning a settled living working in the field they have prepared for. This problem has worsened considerably in recent  years as the number of postdoctoral positions has almost halved since 2006. New PhDs have to battle it out with existing postdoctoral researchers for the meagre supply of suitable jobs. It’s a terrible situation.

Now the powers that be – in this case the Science and Technology Facilities Council – have consistently argued that the excess PhDs go out into the wider world and contribute to the economy with the skills they have learned. That may be true in a few cases. However, my argument is that the PhD is not the right way to do this because it is ridiculously inefficient.

What we should have is a system wherein we produce more and better trained Masters level students  and fewer PhDs. This is the system that exists throughout most of Europe, in fact, and the UK is actually committed to adopt it through the Bologna process.  Not that this commitment seems to mean anything, as precisely nothing has been done to harmonize UK higher education with the 3+2+3 Bachelors+Masters+Doctorate system Bologna advocates.

The training provided in a proper two-year Masters programme will improve the skills pool for the world outside academia, and also better prepare the minority of students who go on to take a PhD. The quality of the  PhD will also improve, as only the very best and most highly motivated researchers will take that path. This used to be what happened, of course, but I don’t think it is any longer the case.

The main problem with this suggestion is that it requires big changes to the way both research and teaching are funded. The research councils turned away from funding Masters training many years ago, so I doubt if they can be persuaded to to a U-turn now.

This won’t solve the existing careers crisis, of course, but in order to make things better you first have to stop them getting worse.

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No Science Please, We’re British

Posted in Education, Politics, Science Politics with tags , , , , , , , , , on August 27, 2010 by telescoper

The time is getting closer when the Condem government’s hatchet men announce the detailed plans for spending cuts over the next few years. Those of us scientists working in British universities face an anxious few weeks waiting to see how hard the axe is going to fall. Funds for both teaching and research seem likely to be slashed and there’s fear of widespread laboratory closures across the sector, particularly in “pure” science that doesn’t satisfy the current desire for a rapid return on investment.

The mood is pretty accurately summarised by an article in the Guardian, in which John Womersley (who is the Director of Science Programmes at the Science and Technology Facilities Council) pointed out the very real possibility that the UK might be forced to mothball expensive national facilities such the recently built Diamond Light Source and/or withdraw from international collaborations such as CERN (which would also entail pulling out of the Large Hadron Collider). Astronomers also fear that cuts to STFC might force us to withdraw from the European Southern Observatory, which would basically destroy our international competitiveness in a field which for so long we have been world-leading. Withdrawal from CERN would similarly ensure the end of particle physics in Britain.

As well as the loss of facilities and involvement in ongoing international research programmes, big cuts in science funding – especially at STFC – will also lead to a “lost generation” of young scientists having little or no opportunity to carry out their research here in Britain. In fact the process of throwing away the UK’s future as a scientific nation has already begun and is likely to accelerate even without further cuts this year.

The STFC budgets for training young scientists at both postgraduate and postdoctoral levels were slashed even before the General Election because STFC was formed in 2007 with insufficient funds to meet its commitments. The total funding for research grants in astronomy – which is how many postdoctoral researchers are trained has been squeezed by an unsustainable level of 40% already. Many young scientists, whose contracts have been terminated with virtually no notice, have not unreasonably decided that the UK can offer them nothing but a kick in the teeth and gone abroad, taking their expertise (which was developed thanks to funding provided by the UK taxpayer) to one of our competitors in the global economy.

Some say the previous funding crisis was due to downright incompetence on behalf of the STFC Executive, some say it was part of a deliberate policy at the RCUK level to steer funding away from pure science towards technology-related areas. Either way the result is clear. Opportunities for young British scientists to do scientific research have been severely curtailed. Another round of cuts to STFC of the 25% being talked about by the new government will certainly lead to wholesale closures of labs and observatories, the withdrawal from international commitments such as CERN and ESO, and the loss of irreplaceable expertise to other countries.

On top of this, it seems not only STFC but also other research councils (such as EPSRC) are talking about clawing back funds they have already granted, by reneging on contracts they have already signed with Universities to fund research by scientists carried out there. If this does happen, there will be a catastrophic breakdown of trust between University-based scientists and the government government that will probably never be healed.

This government risks destroying the foundations of scientific excellence that have taken over 300 years to build, and all for what level of saving? The annual subscription the UK pays to CERN is about £70 million, a couple of pounds per British taxpayer per year, and a figure that most bankers would regard as small change. It would be madness to throw away so much long-term benefit to save so little in terms of short-term cost.

In the Guardian article, John Womersley is quoted as saying

Our competitor nations such as Germany and the US are investing in science and engineering right now because they recognise that they stimulate economic growth and can help to rebalance the economy. It is pretty obvious that if the UK does the exact opposite, those companies will look elsewhere. That would deepen the deficit – in a recession you need to invest in science and engineering to reap the benefits, not cut back.

Of course we don’t know how the Comprehensive Spending Review will turn out and there may be still time to influence the deliberations going on in Whitehall. I hope the government can be persuaded to see sense.

I’m trying very hard to be optimistic but, given what happened to STFC in 2007, I have to say I’m very worried indeed for the future of British science especially those areas covered by STFC’s remit. The reason for this is that STFC’s expenditure is dominated by the large facilities needed to do Big Science, many of which are international collaborations.

In order to be active in particle physics, for example, we have to be in CERN and that is both expensive and out of STFC’s control. The cost of paying the scientists to do the science is a relatively small add-on to that fixed cost, and that’s the only bit that can be cut easily. If we cut the science spend there’s no point in being in CERN, but we can’t do the science without being in CERN. The decision to be made therefore rapidly resolves itself into whether we do particle physics or not, a choice which once made would be irreversible (and catastrophic). It’s the same logic for ESO and ground-based astronomy. There’s a real possibility in a few years time that the UK will have killed off at least one of these immensely important areas of science (and possibly others too).

A decade ago such decisions would have been unthinkable, but now apparently they’re most definitely on the cards. I don’t know where it all went wrong, but given the (relatively) meagre sums involved and the fact that it started before the Credit Crunch anyway, it’s difficult to escape the conclusion that it’s a deliberate stitch-up by senior mandarins. All I can say is that the future looks so grim I’m glad I’m no longer young.


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Exam Time

Posted in Education with tags , , on May 18, 2010 by telescoper

A busy day today, marking undergraduate examinations most of the time, but also keeping an eye on the viva voce examination for a PhD student too. In the end both tasks went off satisfactorily. I finished my batch of marking third-year examinations scripts and my PhD student Rockhee Sung also passed her PhD. The completion of the former task wasn’t so much of a cause for celebration, because I still have a second paper to do, but Rockhee’s successful PhD defence definitely was. The viva was probably no more than the formality I expected it to be, but it was great to see the look on her face when she emerged from the room. In anticipation of a successful outcome I’d bought a few bottles of champagne which I had secreted in the departmental fridge. A few minutes after the viva had finished, I sprang into action,  corks were popped, and we were all congratulating Rockhee on her success. We then adjourned to a local bar and thence to dinner in a nice restaurant.

Rockhee started her PhD with me when I was at Nottingham. When I decided to move in 2007, she moved with me and transferred her registration to Cardiff. Moving wasn’t as easy as I had anticipated  owing to the Credit Crunch. It took me the best part of a year to fully relocate, causing considerable disruption to my research (and Rockhee’s PhD). However she managed to complete her thesis some time ago and managed to get a  postdoctoral position in the beautiful city of Cape Town, South Africa. She flew back yesterday for her viva, just escaping the dreaded Icelandic Volcano Ash, and passed (with flying colours) today. Well done Rockhee!

Although the outcome of the examination was hardly unexpected, I don’t mind saying that I was absolutely delighted, as I am every time one of my PhD students passes this final hurdle. It’s one of the things that makes this job so very special. That’s a round dozen now, and I’m so very proud of all of them. Especially considering what a crap supervisor they all had.

That’s not to say that I won’t feel proud when this year’s undergraduates finally qualify for their degrees,  but postgraduates have a much closer personal connection than undergraduates do to their tutors and lecturers, and that  inevitably makes their success that bit more special…

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The Problem of the Steady State

Posted in Science Politics with tags , , on February 24, 2009 by telescoper

Just as a quick postscript to my recent item about proposed changes to the method of funding PhD students by STFC, let me point out the following simple calculation.

Assume that the number of permanent academic positions in a given field (e.g. astronomy) remains constant over time. If that is the case, each retirement (or other form of departure) from a permanent position will be replaced by one, presumably junior, scientist.

This means that over an academic career, on average, each academic will produce just one PhD who will get a permanent job. This of course doesn’t count students coming in from abroad, or those getting faculty positions abroad but in the case of the UK these are probably relatively small corrections.

Under the present supply of PhD studentships an academic can expect to get a PhD student at least once every three years or so. At a minimum, therefore, over a 30 year career one can expect to have ten PhD students. A great many supervisors have more PhD students than this, but this just makes the odds worse. The expectation is that only one of these will get a permanent job in the UK. The others (nine out of ten, according to my conservative estimate) above must either leave the field or the country to find permanent employment.

The arithmetic of this situation is a simple fact of life, but I’m not sure how many prospective PhD students are aware of it.

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Scientiae Doctores

Posted in Science Politics with tags , , , on February 22, 2009 by telescoper

The season for recruiting new research students is well and truly upon us and at the same the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) is consulting about changing the way that it allocates PhD studentships to departments.

Most postgraduate students studying for PhDs in Astronomy are funded by STFC (although some Universities also fund their own internal studentships). The result of this arrangement is that successful applicants to a PhD course can receive a stipend which amounts to about £13K per annum. It’s not a huge amount of money, but it is a stipend rather than a salary so it’s tax-free. Since a PhD student also remains a student and therefore qualifies for various other fringe benefits (Council Tax, student discounts, etc), it’s not actually a bad deal for the student. Anyway, if it were significantly more then it’s possible PhD students would have to start paying back their student loans, which would make things worse. STFC also pays a tuition fee to the University concerned, but this is done directly and the student doesn’t even see that element of the funding.

Since about 1995, PPARC and then STFC has funded research studentships in areas within its remit by means of peer review. Departments have bid for studentships (every two years) and a panel awards an allocation depending on the quality of the bid. Of course, everyone asks for many more studentships than are available so what you get is a fraction of what you ask for. I wrote the application for the first ever quota studentships for the Astronomy group at the University of Nottingham, and did it again a couple of times after that. Each time, despite going into best bullshit mode to write the case, I was frustrated by the relatively small number of studentships we were awarded. Although we succeeded in building up gradually from zero to 2-3 per year, it was a very slow process.

In recent years, the funding mechanism has evolved slightly so that studentship fees and stipends were devolved to the departments concerned in terms of Doctoral Training Grants (DTGs) rather than being administered centrally by PPARC/STFC. In the old days, students used to get their stipend from PPARC/STFC whereas now they are paid by their department from a cash grant.

Anyway, for various reasons (chief among them being no doubt to save administrative costs) STFC has decided to consult on changes to the mechanism for allocating the DTGs to the various departments around the country. The most serious proposed change is to follow the practice at the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and dispense with peer review. Instead, the proposal is to award studentships based on a formula involving how successful the department is at obtaining postdoctoral research assistant (PDRA) support from STFC.

Here is the proposed formula:

 Specifically, the studentship award per department should be proportional to the product of volume and average quality per academic within the department, that is to:

 

V * Q

 

The Committee has followed guidance in developing measures of V and Q that are non-subjective, repeatable and transparent.  The volume V is defined as the number of academics (including Fellows) eligible to hold STFC research grants. The  quality Q is measured by the number of STFC-funded PDRAs (P) awarded per academic (i.e. P/V), since this measures the success of the academic staff in securing STFC funding for PDRAs through peer-review.  More precisely we define quality per academic as Q = [1 +(P/V)].

 

Although the Committee felt this definition of quality applied primarily to responsive-mode PDRAs, it agreed that PDRAs on project grants should be included, but with a weighting, relative to responsive-mode, of 0.33.

 

Using these definitions, the Committee recommends that the studentship award per department should be proportional to a simple product of volume and average quality per academic within the department, that is to:

 

N(students) µ V * Q

 

where Q = [1 + (P/V)]

 

And so the departmental quota is proportional to: 

 

V[1+(P/V)] = V+P

 

In addition, recognising that very small departments offer more limited training opportunities on their own, a threshold is proposed, such that no studentships are awarded for V < 3. Instead, these very small departments/groups would be able to collaborate with other larger departments in seeking STFC studentship support.

 

Hence

 

         N(students) µ V+P  for V ³ 3

                             = 0        for V < 3

 

The constant of proportionality is chosen such that the total number of studentships equals the number available for allocation.

 

 

I think this is a fairly reasonable proposal, actually. The one thing I don’t really understand relates to the fact that STFC doesn’t just fund PDRAs on its grants, but under the Full Economic Cost regime (FEC), it also pays for fractions of academic staff effort for people working on its projects. On my recent successful STFC grant, for example, I was awarded 25% of my time (i.e. 0.25 FTE, full-time-equivalent) to do the research as well as a PDRA. Since the proposal above will have to cope with the question of what staff are “eligible” then why not make the quantity V proportional to the total FTEs funded, or at least only count those for whom some FEC time is allocated? And why not include staff FTE in the Q-factor too?

My guess is that such a modification wouldn’t make much difference to astronomy departments, but the original proposal has caused cries of anguish from particle physicists. This is because the number of PDRAs in particle physics is much smaller than in astronomy, so many large groups face a big reduction in their PhD quota. Including FEC numbers in the mix might well smooth the transition for them. For your information, the number of PDRAs per active astronomy researcher  is around 0.5 at present.

Anyway, the deadline for consulting on this has passed (on February 20th) so we now wait to see what STFC actually does. Probably the consultation period is a purely cosmetic exercise anyway and what will emerge is exactly what was proposed.

If you ask me (and nobody did), all this is mere tinkering. I think there are serious problems with graduate funding in the UK and these require much more radical remedies. At the risk of (and indeed with the intention of) being provocative, here is my diagnosis and suggested remedies:

  • There are too many PhDs in astronomy. STFC funded 160 studentships in 2006, compared with 88 in 2000. There are nowhere near enough PDRA positions to accommodate this number of PhDs in academic research. And even those who get their first PDRA position have very limited prospects of getting a permanent job. The result is a generation of disaffected students employed as low-paid assistants for 3-4 years and then thrown aside when they have got their PhD.
  • Of course, applicants for PhD places don’t know what research is really like and some will leave academia of their own volition when they find out that it’s not for them. In my experience, though, most graduate applicants simply don’t realise how heavily the odds are stacked against them. Less than one in ten can possibly stay in research in the long term, and the more PhDs are funded the worse the odds against them become.
  • The short duration of a British PhD disadvantages our students with respect to those from the USA or continental europe, who all do a lengthy Masters course before taking their PhD. These take at least 5 years to complete.  The result is that our home-grown PhDs are seriously disadvantaged in the job market against competitors from abroad. Similar points have been made forcefully by Ian Halliday.
  • My remedy is simple. Reduce the number of studentships but extend each one to five years and require each hosting department to provide a proper graduate school with intensive graduate-level courses to make up for the progressive reduction in content of undergraduate physics courses.
  • Even more unpopularly, I think the UK should scrap 4 years Masters (MPhys) programmes and embrace the structure of the Bologna agreement, i.e. a universal 3+2+3 structure of 3 years Bachelors, 2 years’ Masters and three years PhD.
  • Currently STFC stipends can only be paid to UK nationals and residents. It’s an open secret that most departments would preferentially recruit European physics graduates to their PhD positions if they were allowed to do so, because their undergraduate preparation is much better than that provided in UK universities. I propose that we abandon this protectionism and open up PhD opportunities to European applications, just as we would legally have to do if a PhD were considered to be a job.
  • Finally, I think the UK should consider the introduction of a common graduate entrance examination, perhaps based on the US GRE, to ensure the maintenance of appropriate standards for postgraduate entry and eligibility for STFC funding.

There are of course some advantages to the current British PhD system. For one thing, the PhD is earned very quickly. I was 25 when I got my PhD, and already had several publications. Most of my European collaborators were at least 30 before they got theirs (additional years have to be added for national service in many countries, but we don’t have it in the UK). But I am painfully aware that my technical knowledge outside the immediate area of my PhD is much thinner than most academics in the field. Now, in middle age, I feel like a long-distance runner who had inadequate preparation, went off too fast at the start of the race, and is now struggling along while people overtake him with monotonous regularity.

The nature of research in astronomy and cosmology has changed so much in the 20 years since I got my PhD that the old system has to go. Instead of tinkering with funding formula, driven principally by the need to save adminstrative costs within STFC, we need a radical overhaul of the entire graduate education system in the UK, involving all research councils and their political masters.

Unfortunately, though, for the time being at least the politicians have other more pressing matters to worry about, such the collapse of the economy.

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Taking down their Particulars and Examining their Testimonials

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , on January 21, 2009 by telescoper

If you’ve looked at Cosmic Variance recently you will know that has almost gone up in flames (metaphorically speaking) . The incendiary item was what I thought was a gently humorous post on the subject of recommendation letters for entry into graduate schools, which evolved to include postdoctoral positions too. This item has generated nearly a hundred comments so far, some of which are quite sensible and interesting but others worryingly vitriolic. One correspondent in particular got hold of the wrong end of the stick and proceeded to beat wildly about the bush with it,  accusing academics of everything from intellectual snobbery to the Whitechapel Murders.

I’m actually quite pleased that the more extremist comments are there, as they make mine look quite sensible which they perhaps wouldn’t if they were on their own. I’ve therefore collected my thoughts here to see if they generate any reaction.

A follow-up post attempted to defuse the issue with an injection of common sense, but it remains to be seen whether this will indeed steady the ship. (I’m proud of that multiply mixed metaphor.)

The principal bone of contention is the matter of “recommendation letters” and whether a Professor should ever write negative comments when asked to recommend a student for a place on a graduate course.

In the UK we generally don’t have “recommendations” but “references” or “testimonials” which are supposed to describe the candidate’s character and abilities in a manner that is useful to those doing the recruitment. They are not meant to be written in absurdly hyperbolic terms and they are not meant to ignore any demonstrable shortcomings of the applicant. They are supposed to advise the people doing the recruitment of the suitability of the candidate in a sober, balanced and objective way. Fortunately, most students applying to graduate schools are actually rather good so there are many more positives than negatives, but if there are weaknesses in my view these  must be mentioned, even this turns out to be the kiss of death to their application.

Another objection is to recommendation letters that include statements of the form Aaron is better than Brenda but not as good as Charlie. I don’t object at all to the idea of a reference that includes some form of  ordering like this. Since there are inevitably more applicants than places the panel will have to make a ranking, so why not help them by giving your input? After all, you know the candidates better than the panel does.

The point is that the referee is not only providing a service for the student but also for the recruiting school. On this basis, it is, I think, perfectly valid to include negative points as long as they can be justified objectively.

British professors are often criticized by our colleagues over the pond for writing very reserved recommendation letters, but having one year received references from a US institution on behalf of 4 different students who were all apparently the best student that institution had ever had in physics, I think I prefer the old-fashioned British understatement.

However, references transcripts and other paperwork can only establish whether a student has reached the threshold level of technical competence that is needed to commence a research degree. That’s a necessary but not sufficient condition for their success as a scientist. The other factors – drive, imagination, commitment, and diligence (which apparently is a term of abuse in the USA) are much harder to assess. I think this part has to be done at interview. You can’t just rely on examination results because it’s by no means true that the best students at passing examinations turn into the best graduate students. Research is a whole different ball game.

I also think there’s a difference between how references are used for making a job appointment versus a place at graduate school. Where I come from, in the UK, graduate study is funded by a studentship which pays a stipend rather than a salary and the successful applicants are not formally employed by the university. It is rather different in the case of a postdoc where the successful candidate is an employee of the institution.

Owing to recent changes in employment legislation in the UK, best practice for the process of appointing staff is now considered to not even ask for references until after short-listing or even after interview. The purpose of references is simply to verify that the information the applicant has given in the application is complete and correct; they are not to be used in deciding on quality. Shortlisting is done on the basis of whether the applicant can show in the application that they have skills that match the requirement of the post. The final decisions is made after interview of shortlisted candidates.

Many academics hate this new-fangled way of doing things partly because its a new-fangled way of doing things but also because they tend to rely heavily on references in judging the relative quality of candidates for PDRA appointments. Personally, however, I don’t find references particularly helpful in this context – especially those from America where the language is so inflated as to be laughable – so, unlike most of my colleagues, I’m quite happy to embrace the “new” approach. I think relying too much on references is a tantamount to wanting other people to make difficult decisions for you rather than making them yourself.

On top of this, modern protocol requires the use of a standard application form rather than just a CV and list of research interests. That way the relative merits of all candidates can be judged on the basis of the same pieces of information and answers to the  same questions. Whatever you think about this process, it certainly does make things more transparent.

I’m currently advertising a postdoc job and will be shortlisting for this position on the basis I have described, i.e. without asking for references uprfront. I’ll only look at references later on, after shortlisting.  This is the first time I will have done it this way, so I am interested to see how it works.

But I can’t see at all how one could possibly make decisions concerning entry of an undergraduate student onto a graduate programme without using references earlier on in the process.

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