I have
written several posts in past years about my preference for small organizations/companies and small research groups in the
world of scientific research, be they in the public or private sector. It wasn’t always so; when I was starting out in the work
world, there was something enticing about working for a large company, e.g. a
pharmaceutical company. There was something attractive about being a small fish
in a large pond, so to speak. Even though you could be surrounded by an ocean
of people, it still felt as though there were possibilities as long as you
worked hard and did your job. It felt like the world was your oyster. That was
in 1980s America, specifically Manhattan. I have not physically experienced the
changes that have occurred since that time because I moved abroad and began working
in Norway in 1990. But I have kept abreast of the different changes both there
and here via books, the news and social media. And the academic scientific workplace
has changed enormously in Norway since 1990. One must expect change, I know
that. I know too that the changes I’ve witnessed here in Norway are not
specific to Norway, although Norway puts its own stamp on them. They are global
changes--the huge growth of bureaucracy, the emphasis on mergers that result in
huge organizations/companies, the loss of individuality in the workplace, the
dominance of program-driven research, the emphasis on huge research groups
(think centers of excellence), the inability to obtain funding for non-program-driven
research and the demise of small research groups, scientific publishing as big
business, to name a few.
I have
worked in the public sector for most of my research career, over thirty years
here in Oslo and at least three years in Manhattan. I have seven years of research
experience working in the private sector (a well-known cancer hospital). There
are advantages and disadvantages to working in both the public and private
sectors. I know this from my friends in the USA who have worked in the private
sector (doing R&D for pharmaceutical companies) for most of their careers. Very
few regret working in the private sector. They were well-paid, recognized for
what they did, and when they retired, they left knowing that they made a
substantial contribution to their workplace. I doubt any of them felt like a
fifth wheel (superfluous or burdensome). The main complaint they had was not
that there was lack of money for research projects; rather that there could be
pressure on them to produce results, and when those results were not
forthcoming fast enough, projects were cancelled in favor of new and more
promising projects. But the public sector is no better. I know this to be true.
There, many projects don’t even get that far, because they don’t get funded
from the start. Many good ideas die on the planning table because there is a
lack of funding to implement them. Why? Because academic research is big
business now; huge sums of money get tossed around, and tossed to those who
have great ambitions and five-year plans that promise the delivery of great
(innovative and marketable) results. It’s often the same researchers who lead program-driven research centers who get funding; small research
groups or researchers with less lofty ambitions do not get funded anymore. ‘Bigger
is better’ in all respects. Actually, ‘bigger is best’, because if you think
‘big’, you are thought to be an ambitious scientist, a market- and
innovation-driven scientist, a high-flyer. If you don’t think big, you’re less
employable because you’re considered second-best, mediocre, unambitious, or not
good enough. Many small research groups have innovative ideas and good plans
for how to translate and implement them; it doesn’t matter because they no
longer get funding to do so. Most research in the public sector is done by
large centers of excellence (populated by project groups that are protected and
funded by the center heads). Academic science is big business now, with
emphasis on big. We’re talking tens
of millions of dollars in grant funding to program-driven research alone at
present. Some of that money goes to actual research; some of it goes to the
bureaucracy needed to run these huge centers—secretaries, accountants,
advisors, human resources, etc. Just a decade or two ago, a researcher
working in a small group doing non-program-driven research could obtain fifty
to one hundred thousand dollars per year in funding to carry out his or her
small research projects independent of large centers of excellence. That meant
a lot to those researchers. But no more. The government doesn’t want small
research groups anymore, even though many of the top researchers in the USA
have stated publicly that the best ideas often come from small research groups.
It doesn’t matter here in Norway. They know best, and big is the politically-correct mantra, in all things.
Eventually,
facing this overwhelming hugeness at all turns takes its toll on researchers
who work in small research groups and who want to pursue non-program-driven
research. There are only so many times they can apply for funding and get
continually rejected in favor of the centers of excellence and program-driven
research. There are only so many times they can be told to keep plodding on—‘one
day you’ll get funding’—when everyone who understands the system understands
that this is just lying. There are only so many years they can keep working as
post-docs or junior scientists, waiting for their chance to finally ‘belong’.
There are only so many years they can deal with the rejection, the loneliness,
the demotivation, the lack of recognition for what they do. Keeping their heads
above water, competing with the centers of excellence for funding, being told by
department research leaders that they’re mediocre because they don’t get
funding (when they can’t get funding because they don’t do program-driven
research), all these things are counterproductive at best. None of it is good
for mental or physical health, and none of it is good for sanity. If all these
scientists ever hear is negative feedback, then they become cynical,
demotivated, and demoralized. Most research leaders don’t seem to care about
that; some few do. Some few are fighting for a return to non-program-driven
research and for the survival of small research groups. But I doubt that they’ll
get far. One could ask why these ‘small’ scientists simply don’t hop on the
program-driven research bandwagon, why they don’t become politically-correct
scientists. The answer is that not all scientists are the same; they are
individuals with different motives and goals. That should be respected and encouraged;
at present, it is not. I no longer encourage small scientists to stay in
academia. I am retiring soon and can now speak the truth. It is a waste of their time and of those precious years when they
could be doing good research, preferably in the private sector, where their
skills and talents will most likely be more appreciated than in the public
sector, where after some years of not ‘measuring up’, they become the fifth
wheels, superfluous and bothersome to their institutions, and unwanted.
