Where have all the young minds gone?

The decision to pursue post-doctoral studies overseas is one of the defining moments in a young Australian scientist's career. And from a career-minded perspective, this is almost a necessity, allowing the scientist to make contacts with leading scientists in Europe and the USA. The "BOS" ("been overseas") is a qualification that many Australian scientists wear with pride.

"It's a normal rite of passage, not essential but normal," says recently returned Nobel Laureate Prof Peter Doherty.

Dr Bryce Vissal, who has recently returned to the Garvan Institute after a six-year stint at the Salk Institute in San Diego, agrees. "You are expected, in order to progress your career, to go overseas," he says. He adds that the US is the destination of choice these days, although the UK is still popular.

But the flipside of this exodus is a "brain-drain" that siphons the best young innovative minds from Australia's research community. Australia's brain drain has long been recognised by the scientific community, who point to the vast resources, monetary and scientific, of countries like the US and compare it to Australia.

Doherty sees it not so much as an Australian problem, but a small country problem. The might and wealth of the US is hard to compete with, he says.

Toss Gascoigne, executive director of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS), says that one of the things commonly said about this issue is that it's brain circulation, not brain drain. "But there are no statistics on whether scientists coming in to Australia are working in scientific research," he claims. "For a whole range of reasons, people coming into Australia are not replacing scientists who leave Australia." He would like to see more attention paid to this issue. But little has been done to look at the movements of scientists in to and out of Australia.

The Victorian government has recently completed a survey of expatriate scientists as part of a program to attract them back, and results of the survey are expected to be released soon.

According to Paul Dalton, an Australian postdoc at the University of Toronto, there are several reasons for going overseas to pursue a scientific career. For him, one reason was the opportunity to work with leading neural tissue engineers at the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering there. But another reason for Dalton was the opportunity it offered to see other parts of the world. "Australians are inherent travellers," he says.

Money matters

Dalton, who is currently finalising plans for a second postdoc in Europe, says that at this point he is not planning to come back to Australia in the short term. For a start, no one in Australia is doing the kind of bioengineering in which he has been getting experience. Another concern he has is one shared by most returning scientists - salary. Dalton said that junior faculty positions, such as assistant professorships (equivalent to lecturer in Australia) in the US were offering around $US80,000 just in salary. Doherty said that for many young Australian scientists, finding a decent job to come back to is difficult. "There are people who would desperately like to come back but can't get a job," he says.

Nearly every scientist who has worked overseas has a story about another Australian who has not been able to come back due to lack of positions, money or encouragement. Returning to a low-level position with little or no prospects for career development is not an attractive inducement for many scientists, Doherty says. Even when a good position is found, the grant situation is difficult. But Doherty says that once scientists get themselves established in Australia, they can build a substantial program. Overwhelmingly, the main reasons that bring Australian scientists back are family and lifestyle considerations.

Dr John Rasko, who heads gene therapy research at the Centenary Institute of Cancer Medicine and Cell Biology in Sydney, spent three years as a postdoc in Dusty Miller's lab at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle, USA. When the time came to finish up his postdoc, Rasko says, family reasons were the major factor for his decision to come back to Australia. "The job offers were out there, but we made a decision to come back here because Australia is the best place to raise kids," he says.

In the end Rasko was given the opportunity to come back and set up a gene therapy lab at the Centenary Institute for both basic and clinical research. At the same time, he became a staff specialist in haematology and gene therapy at the Sydney Cancer Centre, based at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and became an associate professor in the University of Sydney's Faculty of Medicine. Scientists who move overseas to do research often make sacrifices at both ends of their overseas tenure.

Postdoctoral fellowships typically do not pay terribly well, and when exchange rates are factored in, there is usually not a lot of money. "When you're doing it, you know you're not doing it for the money," says Rasko. But on the other hand, Australian scientists overseas are lured by the generous start-up packages on offer, particularly at US institutions.

Vissal, a recent repatriate, says the offers he got in the States were very appealing. Typical packages would include hefty start-up packages of $500,000 to get the lab established and begin producing results, taking the pressure off for the first year or two. "Once you take that job, the gap gets bigger and it becomes harder to come back to Australia," Vissal explains. "You don't want to complain, but it is hard not to compare with friends and colleagues in the States."

Vissal, who has just arrived back in Australia, has some NHMRC funding as well as a BioFirst Award from the NSW government, which gives him an extra $100,000 for the next three years - enough to make it worthwhile to come back, he says. But the pressure is already on for next year's funding, and Vissal already has filed grant applications. "It feels like a struggle, it feels do-able -- let's see what the next year does," Vissal says.

Bringing them back

Rasko says there are major financial constraints for returning scientists. "You can't hit the ground running as you can in the US," he explains.

Last year's Federal government innovation statement, Backing Australia's Ability, pointed out the need to attract and retain scientists. Since then, the Australian Research Council has established Federation Fellowships, which are given to 25 high calibre scientists a year, providing them with $225,000 salary per annum for five years. These fellowships are designed not only for scientists in Australia, but to lure back scientists from overseas and to bring foreign scientists into Australia to work here. The catch with the Federation Fellowships is the need for the institution to match the fellowship, either with further funding or in-kind support - like a new lab. Some of the State governments are helping out - Victoria, for example, is providing up to $500,000 to Federation Fellows to support their bid.

The NHMRC is also offering enticements to expatriate scientists. The Burnet Award, recently given to Nobel Laureate Peter Doherty to help bring him back to Australia, is worth $400,000 for five years. In addition, returning post-docs can apply for Howard Florey Centenary Fellowships, which pay salary and relocation costs. But the number of fellowships awarded each year is small, and there is stiff competition. The fellowship includes $10,000 to go towards consumables, but that figure doesn't go far in today's research environment.

The NSW State government has its BioFirst Awards, which act as a top-up to packages offered to scientists returning to work in NSW. But the question remains whether this is enough to bring back expatriate scientists.

Shane Colley, a postdoc at the University of Bristol, is about to move back to Western Australia. While overseas, he has actively fostered contacts with scientists back in Australia. "I didn't think it would be hard getting a job, but I wanted the right job. I think I have found that," he says, explaining that he has been offered a postdoc position at the University of Western Australia. But Colley says there is a wide disparity between the number of fellowships available from both the government and the university systems, and the number of scientists applying for them.

"As a nation we simply don't invest enough in science and research," says FASTS' executive director Gascoigne. "Young to middle-range scientists find it hard to find a permanent job. There is no career path for young scientists. It's a classic waste of the best and brightest minds."

Gascoigne's comments strike a chord among scientists. "We measure ourselves by international standards but don't fund ourselves at international standards," Colley says.

"There are vastly insufficient funds in the pot," says Rasko. "Good research is not funded and the best research is not adequately funded."

'Every year away is worth three in Australia'

A commonly heard theme among biotechnology professionals is that there is not enough international experience, especially at the management level, within the industry. Gavin Roberts, business manager at Pharmaceutical Professionals, a recruiting company in Sydney that specialises in the pharmaceutical sector, sees the main difficulty as being the scope of roles available in Australia.

"There is only so much that can be done in Australia," he says. "The scope and depth of Phase I and early clinical development is limited here."

Roberts says some people start off in Australia, go overseas, but then find that they are overqualified for positions available here, making it hard to come back. On the flipside, overseas experience is highly valued here, Roberts claims. "Every year overseas is worth 3-4 years here in Australia," he says. But salary concerns are a big problem for returning scientists in the commercial sector too. "Salaries are less here, no bones about that," says Roberts. "It can be really difficult to come back to Australia when the salary is half."

One scientist who has made the transition is Dr Ross Murdoch, who is now the chief operating officer at Prana Biotechnology. He was transferred to the US while working for SmithKline Beecham, and ended up over there for six years. "Although you can get some experience here in running clinical trials, you don't get any head office experience," he says.

After SmithKline Beecham, Murdoch spent two years heading clinical project management at AstraZeneca, before being recruited to join Australian biotechnology company Thrombogenix (now Kinacia). "When I left, there was not much biotechnology," he says. "When I came back I was very pleased that the industry had grown. Really, it was the quality of the company that encouraged me to come back -- it was equal to anything overseas."

Like Roberts, he says that salary differences are a big issue. "You have to take a pay cut to come back. This is a problem if you plan to go back to the States or to the UK, but not so bad if you intend to live in Australia," Murdoch explains. He says that it makes it difficult to recruit foreign professionals to work in the biotechnology industry here. "It's hard if you want to attract people to Australia from overseas for the shorter term," he says. - Melissa Trudinger