NIH Panel Notes Overabundance in Biomedical Research Trainees for Academic Posts. (June 15, 2012)

Yesterday a working group of the Advisory Committee to the Director of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) released the executive summary to its draft report on its assessment of the "Biomedical Workforce".

The 14-member working group led by co-chairs Sally Rockey, Deputy Director for Extramural Research, NIH and Shirley Tilghman, President, Princeton University intend to release their full report in the near future, but their executive summary clearly sets out the overall conclusions of the group.

The overall purpose of the recommendations is to ensure future US competitiveness and innovation in biomedical research by creating pathways through undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral training that provide excellent preparation in a timely fashion to:

• Attract and retain the best and most diverse scientists, engineers and physicians from around the world to conduct biomedical research as well as increase the number of domestic students from diverse backgrounds who excel in science and become a part of the Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) workforce,

• Prepare biomedical PhD students and postdoctoral researchers to participate in a broad-based and evolving economy.

And while it agreed that "K-12 and undergraduate education are major factors that influence the success of building the biomedical research workforce, [it] has confined its recommendations to graduate training and beyond as NIH funding and training focuses on those stages".

Below are excerpts of the groups recommendations.

• NIH should create a program to supplement training grants through competitive review to allow institutions to provide additional training and career development experiences to equip students for various career options, and test ways to shorten the PhD training period...

• To encourage timely completion of graduate degrees, NIH should cap the number of years a graduate student can be supported by NIH funds, with an institutional average of 5 years and no one individual allowed to receive support for more than 6 years.

• To ensure that all graduate students supported by the NIH receive excellent training, NIH should increase the proportion of graduate students supported by training grants and fellowships compared to those supported by research project grants, without increasing the overall number of graduate student positions.

• The current stipends for NIH-supported postdoctoral fellows need to be adjusted to levels that better reflect their years of training.

• To encourage larger numbers of PhD graduates to move rapidly into permanent research positions, NIH should double the number of Pathway to Independence (K99/R00) awards, and shorten the eligibility period for applying to this program from the 5 years to 3 years of postdoctoral experience.

• NIH also should double the number of the NIH Director’s Early Independence awards to facilitate the “skip-the-postdoc” career path for those who are ready immediately after graduate school.

• NIH should require individual development plans (IDPs) for all NIH-supported postdoctoral researchers...

• Institutions that receive NIH funding should collect information on the career outcomes of both their graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, and provide this information to prospective students/ postdoctoral researchers and the NIH.

• NIH should create a permanent unit in the Office of the Director that works with the extramural research community, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the NIH ICs [institutes and centres] to coordinate data collection activities and provide ongoing analysis of the workforce and evaluation of NIH policies so that they better align with the workforce needs.

The group then concludes its executive summary with what might be termed a plaintive plea: "The working group is aware that similar recommendations have been made in the past by other groups that studied the biomedical research workforce. Many of those recommendations were not implemented, in part because of funding constraints and in part because of resistance from the scientific community. Therefore, the working group urges NIH to provide the funds necessary to implement these recommendations and encourages institutions to work with NIH on the implementation."

As if in response Science reports: "NIH Director Francis Collins said he would like to see some 'experiments' before making 'more systemically disruptive' changes to the funding system'. But, he added, this time the Tilghman panel's recommendations 'will go somewhere. I promise you that.'"