Opinion: The need to back young scientisits

Laboratory heads are the engines of creativity and innovation in academic medical research. In general, they set the research theme for those students and staff in their laboratory, they garner the resources to support their research effort and they are recognised, through last authorship on papers and invitations to speak at conferences, as being ultimately responsible for the discoveries that are made. With recognition comes credit and kudos, promotion and the capacity to garner increasing resources; whether in terms of talented students, dynamic staff or grant funding, the cycle of positive reinforcement begins.

In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, the expectation was that a promising researcher might work as a post-doctoral scientist for two, three or perhaps even five years, and then obtain an independent position as a laboratory head. Since that time there has been a steady, seemingly inexorable, shift in resources away from young scientists, towards established investigators, so that even the most talented researchers may have to spend a demoralising decade or more as a postdoctoral scientist before they are recognised as independent laboratory heads.

The evidence for this shift is overwhelming, and its effects are undoubtedly devastating on individuals. Unless we redress the balance, we risk undermining the Australian medical research sector for decades to come. Without conscious policy decisions having been made, we now accept the current situation as normal. How has this occurred?

The empowerment of the aged

The post-war baby boom and an increased life expectancy mean the proportion of older researchers has increased. This has coincided with a change in societal norms, with compulsory retirement at age 65 being replaced by an ageing scientist’s inalienable right to compete for funding. And compete they do!

In an era in which the size of the funding pool has not grown in proportion to the size of the sector or the expense associated with carrying out 21st century research we need to ask some difficult questions. Do we have too many researchers? Should we support fewer researchers, but with funding at a level and duration that provides a real chance of success? How should we split funding between researchers with different levels of experience, in order to sustain the research effort and ensure innovation and creativity flourish?

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There are no doubt advantages to keeping experienced researchers active. However, as a community, we have not considered the consequences to those coming though behind them. In the NHMRC system we currently have funding schemes that, perhaps unwittingly, make it all too easy for career decisions to be postponed, creating super-postdoctoral fellows who desire independence but who work for 10 to 15 years in the laboratory of a senior investigator. In this career Neverland, a researcher may be supervising students, writing grants and coming up with research ideas, but be condemned to be a perpetual scientific-adolescence, in which they are denied the resources to properly execute their research plans and denied the recognition that comes from being a laboratory head.

Within the NHMRC system, there are three broad types of personal support for researchers with a PhD: first are postdoctoral fellowships for researchers that have had their PhDs for up to two years and which provide four years of salary support in Australia or two years support overseas and two years in Australia (examples are the old Peter Doherty Fellowships and CJ Martin Fellowships). Second are research fellowships, (Senior Research Fellowships, Principal Research Fellowships, Senior Principal Research Fellowships and Australia Fellowships) that support, to varying degrees, laboratory heads. Third are career development awards, which are a dog’s breakfast of confused aims and beautifully encapsulate the pickle in which the medical research community has found itself.

According to the National Health an Medical Research Council (NHMRC) website, career development awards aim “to further develop Australian health and medical researchers early in their career”. “Early in their career” is defined as between two and 12 years postdoctoral, meaning that recipients have between seven and 17 years research experience at the start of the award (assuming an honours year and a four-year PhD), and between 11 and 21 years at the end of the award. At the upper end of this age bracket it is hard to conceive of any definition that would satisfy the definition of “early career”.

The NHMRC further states the awards “will enable investigators to establish themselves as independent”. This implies that the applicants are not independent but by gaining the award will, in time, become independent. Paradoxically, the NHMRC also makes it crystal clear that postdoctoral fellows aspiring to be independent would not be competitive, since successful applicants in previous years had “obtained research funding as a first named chief investigator in a competitive granting scheme and led their own (small) research group”. In summary, this is a scheme designed to support postdoctoral fellows aspiring to be lab heads who are already running labs. Joseph Heller, author of Catch 22, would be proud.

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Recognising potential

The greatest hurdle is to obtain funding as a new laboratory head. By definition, if you have never run a laboratory before, you are appointed based on your potential, not your demonstrated ability to do the job. Just as there are funding schemes for postdoctoral fellowships that only consider your performance as a PhD student, there must be a funding scheme for new lab heads in which applicants are only assessed on criteria that can be met by a conventional postdoctoral scientist.

We cannot simply blame the NHRMC, since this organisation is a reflection of the mores and norms of the research community. As a community, we have become risk averse. There has been a change in mind-set when appointing new laboratory heads. Previously, we appointed based on our estimate of the potential of an applicant for independent research, their performance as a postdoctoral fellow, and the opinions of those with whom they had worked. Increasingly, we expect postdoctoral scientists to have all of the hallmarks and experience of laboratory heads prior to their initial appointment. This may result in less risky appointments; however, the extent to which supervision of students and obtaining grant funding as a “super-postdoc” are good predictors of ultimate success in running an independent research program is debatable.

Why would institutions become risk averse? One reason is that in all sectors of the Australian medical research enterprise – university, medical research institute (MRI), hospital, CSIRO etc – there has been an erosion of discretionary funding available to research leaders to make innovative appointments. In MRIs, this can be seen in the shift from NHMRC block funding to open and transparent competition for grants.

Likewise, because no Australian research organisation has an endowment of the size of its major international competitors, any funds that could be spent on recruitment and support of young investigators and on development of new programs are diverted to keep the lights on and the phones connected. In the absence of discretionary government funding and discretionary income from endowments, targeted philanthropy plays a crucial role.

The Carden Fellowship of the Cancer Council of Victoria, which supported a young and inexperienced Donald Metcalf, was a risky appointment that has led to real benefits for 10 million cancer patients. At the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, we recently received a generous commitment from The Dyson Bequest, which has allowed us to appoint and support an exceptionally talented 30-year old post-doctoral fellow, Dr Marnie Blewitt, as a new laboratory head.

There is no one solution to the dilemma we now face. We need more Carden and Dyson Fellowships, we need discretionary funding that allows adventurous appointments to be made. We need funding schemes that have clarity of purpose. We need to fill the new investigator funding void. Ultimately, we need to debate how to strike the right balance between supporting new investigators and established investigators rather than accepting the disenfranchisement of youth as normal or desirable.

Professor Doug Hilton is the director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research and Research Professor of Medical Biology and Head of the Department of Medical Biology at the University of Melbourne.