All Comments
Listed in reverse chronological order. Click on the commenter’s name to see the full comment. If you want to see comments related to a specific topic, go to the Actions Proposed page, and click on the topic you are interested in.
Comments by Ronald Ellis
Posted: June 7, 2016
The NIH should reconfigure R01 grants into two categories, which are funded from separate budget allocations. Each laboratory could only receive one R01A award, and larger laboratories would win additional funds through R01B awards. If 45% of NIH funds were dedicated to the R01A category, that would guarantee a diverse portfolio in which new investigators and smaller groups could compete more effectively.
Comments by Michael Lenardo
Posted: June 2, 2016
Reforming the structure of graduate education will provide new solutions to the problems identified.
Comments by J. Brian Byrd
Posted: March 1, 2016
In the 1960’s, contact with patients was common in biomedical research projects (e.g., JCI, 1960’s). To remove the patient from the biomedical research enterprise would have been unthinkable. At the same time, fundamental science was recognized as having intrinsic value without a demand that it be “translational.” Transgenic mice ushered in a new, utterly dominant mode of “normal science.” In 2016, investigator-initiated biomedical research almost never involves the recruitment of a patient with a disease. At the same time, there is a diminished appreciation for the intrinsic worth of fundamental inquiry, which is almost never applied in the living humans. These two problems are related. Read more >>
Comments by Karen M
Posted: February 5, 2016
You have to pay postdocs a living wage – that means if you live in the Bay Area the NIH minimum is not a living wage. A living wage is 75K. You have to pay for their health benefits – you cannot push the cost of health insurance onto a population that’s already living in poverty.
Comments by John Abrams
Posted: January 13, 2016
Consider eliminating support for tuition from the T32 grant mechanism, especially for senior graduate students. This change should remove systemic incentives toward larger trainee pools….
Comments by Sean Luo
Posted: December 17, 2015
The length of postdoctoral training has become a problem. There is an easy way to solve this problem….
Comments by Thalia Robakis
Posted: December 8, 2015
In order to reduce the number of graduate students, improve their quality, and remove incentives for their exploitation by PIs, forbid PIs to fund students on research grants. Instead, all student support should come from dedicated individual or institutional training grants…See more >>
Comments by George Martin
Posted: December 3, 2015
The large amounts of money given to university overhead have crippled scientific advances. To my knowledge it is distributed unevenly. We could support a lot more science and scientists if we reformed overhead. At the NIH rules were changed so that senior administrators were allowed a lab. As a result many deputies were added to the budget and the senior staff is getting geriatric. No room for young scientists.
Comments by Tami Hutto
Posted: December 2, 2015
Leveraging self-assessments to help trainees think and talk about their interests, work styles, and values is a critical part of the career exploration and professional development process. Once trainees are a little more self aware, they are able to reflect and make more informed career decisions. How can a wide range of satisfying careers be facilitated for those with a talent and a passion for science?
Comments by Mohamed Ahmed
Posted: September 28, 2015
NIH Grant review process is getting more diffuse and more unclear with the time:
e.g you apply for R01: you end with the comment the grant has no promising clinical application: it just focus on emchanistic pathway?? on the other hand you get it is more direct application as a proof of concept but missing more detailed mechanistic pathway. These two comments are widely used and each serving different entity of research.
Why we can not budegt a propsoal focus on studying mechansitic pathway without clear clinical translataion; once we understand maybe we can translate the and vcie versa is true. Aspirin was used as antinflamamtory many years before finding its mechanism…
Comments by Laura Machesky
Posted: September 14, 2015
Our article, out in eLife today highlights the results of a recent social science study that we conducted where we interviewed 20 prominent US biomedical researchers about the challenges facing scientists in the current climate…
Comments by Zohreh AkhavanAghdam
Posted: September 11, 2015
Dramatically reduce the amount of graduate students admitted into biology programs. There’s too many PhDs.
Have more skills training for PhDs in biology programs (programming, quantitative biology, internships in industry). Graduate students usually apply for PhDs because they enjoy learning and yet we put very little emphasis on training and even core classes. Sometimes there’s so much pressure to churn out data (for PIs, postdocs, and grad students) that learning seems like its discouraged or put in the backburner…
Comments by Jesse Vargas
Posted: September 11, 2015
I completed my BS at UC Irvine, MS at SIU Carbondale, and PhD at UC San Diego. I now work at UCLA. I have been involved in diversity outreach in the sciences at every institution and worked directly as a program director for diversity outreach summer programs for nearly a decade. The single largest obstacle to diversification in the sciences is pay at the post-doctoral level and beyond. In the US we are increasingly seeing the post-doc demographic shift towards international students with little to no student debt and to affluent Americans (usually of majority ethnic group background) who can afford to post-doc at low pay for several years, this is not an option for poor students.
Jessica Louie
Posted: July 30, 2015
Topic: Graduate Education
7/28/2015
“Prioritize training rigor and integrity over publications and career. Improve neural oversight and checks & balances by holding universities accountable. Create student-level outlets to share work without the need to compete with postdocs for CV items.”
Richard
Posted: July 29, 2015
Topic: Different Grant Mechanism
7/27/2015
“…why aren’t grants awarded to the investigator with freedom to find competitive workspaces that they can lease at low cost~ so that they can spend research funds on staff and worthwhile experiments?”
Nathan Boles
Posted: July 22, 2015
Topic: Grant Review
7/21/2015
“Restructure the review process by de-identifying many parts of the grant”
Nathan Boles
Posted: July 22, 2015
Topic: Indirect and direct cost issues
7/21/2015
“Indirect costs are too high at most institutions. Tie the rate of indirect costs an institution can receive to the hard money they provide for salaries, e.g. 50% hard money for a salary gives a max indirect rate of 40%, 25% hard money gives a max rate of 20%.”
Melissa Boles
Posted: July 22, 2015
Topic: Postdoctoral Training
7/21/2015
“Change the NIH suggested guidelines for post-doctor salaries to mandatory guidelines.”
Sonali Sengupta
Posted: July 10, 2015
Topic: Improving Career Paths
7/7/2015
“Identify the reason a person is stepping into the field of biological sciences. I think the intent and motivation for pursuing science is one of the indicators for reaching a certain proficiency level in science and scientific research, and obtaining success. For eg a person whose sole motivation is entrepreneurial may not be motivated to do a postdoctoral fellowship…..”
Jim Daniel: Nebraska
Posted: July 2, 2015
Topic: Postdoctoral Training
7/2/2015
“Eliminate graduate student funding from RO1’s making the institute / university take more care into graduate education…..”
Sri Gopalakrishnan: MPI
Posted: July 2, 2015
Topic: Postdoctoral Training
7/2/2015
“Streamline the postdoc experiences. Lesser number of years, more salary and benefits. Suitable job opportunities…”
Joel Rosenbaum: Yale
Posted: July 2, 2015
Topic: Other Topics
7/1/2015
“One of the very best treatments of almost all the problems concerning present day government funding of biomedical science can be found in the article by the group at the University of Wisconsin/Madison in the June 30, 2015, eLIFE issue on line.
It treats almost all of the questions stated above, and does so in a thoughtful way and,
most importantly, offers practical solutions to some of the problems. It is clear and concise, and so far I have not read anything better. The group had the expertise of the original ‘gang of 4’ who published their ideas in the PNAS…….and that, also was an excellent aritcle…”
Kenneth Flanagan: Prothena Biosciences
Posted: July 2, 2015
Topic: Improving Career Paths
7/1/2015
“There are a glut of underpaid, and over educated postdocs in this country. There is a dearth of high school teachers with a background in science with hands on experience. It seems that there should be a method to solve these two problems simultaneously by making a fast track process to retrain these postdocs as teachers….”
Lionel Brooks: UCSF
Posted: June 30, 2015
Topic: Graduate Education
6/30/2015
“The duration of the PhD and the number of matriculating PhD students has been steadily increasing. This is because the academic research enterprise is advanced on the backs of cheap graduate student labor. Faculty must stop exploiting graduate students….”
Donald Forsdyke: Queen’s University, Canada
Posted: June 30, 2015
Topic: Grant Review
6/3/2015
“The “Bicameral Review” approach to research fund allocation has been on the table for some decades. It was arrived at from first principles and elementary logic. As Jevons pointed out long ago, our professional blinkers must be discarded if we are to implement effective reforms. We must boldly implement and then retrospectively consider, not stall with pleas for statistical comparisons that will create a bureaucratic nightmare.”
Max Rogers: Harvard/BWH
Posted: June 30, 2015
Topic: Postdoctoral Training
6/30/2015
“Increase salary/implement changes to the postdoc funding system, reduce the numbers of trainees going into the system, provide actual career training to those in it including outside of the academic path, increase exit opportunities, and improve publication policies….”
Christina D
Posted: June 30, 2015
Topic: Postdoctoral Training
6/29/2015
“Postdoctoral training should be eliminated.”
Christina D
Posted: June 30, 2015
Topic: Effects of Hypercompetition
6/29/2015
‘Hypercompetition occurs because individual PIs compete for limited funds like little banana republics. This leads to hypercompetition among PIs and systemic abuse and exploitation of support personnel….”
Nene Kalu: MD Anderson Cancer Center
Posted: June 19, 2015
Topic: Workforce Age Demographics
6/17/2015
“Seasoned scientists need to retire earlier and serve instead in consulting roles as emeritus professors and should no longer be eligible for government funding…..”
Nene Kalu: MD Anderson Cancer Center
Posted: June 19, 2015
Topic: Improving Career Paths
6/17/2015
“The PhD training in the United States is unparalleled and prepares us to be successful in a variety of positions. Not everyone who completes a PhD should/ wants to be at the bench but we all want to have a close connection to life changing research. Below I propose the development of new positions within institutions that PhDs are well equipped for…..”
Kate O’Connor-Giles: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Posted: June 12, 2015
Topic: Staff Scientists
6/11/15
To increase opportunities for biomedical scientists, the NIH could establish a supplement mechanism, similar to the Research Supplements to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research currently in place, for labs interested in creating a staff scientist position. By supplementing a portion of the staff scientist’s salary, this mechanism would make it financially feasible for labs to hire long-term scientific staff, reducing the dependence of the research enterprise on trainee labor.
Lorenzo Federico: MD Anderson Cancer Center
Posted: June 11, 2015
Topic: Effects of Hypercompetition
6/9/2015
“I believe that the only way to eliminate a competitor is to turn him or her into a collaborator. The current system disproportionately rewards scientists according to the number of publications, “first name” articles, and paper’s impact factor. This approach kills collaboration at its root, while encouraging misconduct and unethical behavior. Funders should create policies that strongly reward scientists who adopt an open-science approach, promote data sharing and collaborations, and maintain well curated databases storing original data to be made available upon request. ….”
Lorenzo Federico: MD Anderson Cancer Center
Posted: June 11, 2015
Topic: Errors in Science
6/9/2015
“…Ideally, scientists should be principally rewarded according to the reproducibility of their research. In theory, published research can be scrutinized and reassessed by trained scientists/inspectors in collaboration with principal investigators and postdocs that made the study. Each year a number of high profile papers can be selected for such inspection…”
Suzanne Ponik et al.: University of Wisconsin–Madison
Posted: June 11, 2015
Topic: Staff Scientists
6/9/15
This group of 4 PhD’s proposes 4 specific actions to make academic staff scientist positions more attractive and stable, beginning with the suggestion to “Improve opportunities for promotion, recognition, and compensation increases for AS scientists and have transparent, clearly communicated, and campus-wide-consistent criteria for these. Also, establish a real research track series and make it possible for at least a subset of interested and qualified scientists (criteria to be established) to apply to enter or transfer into this series…”
Nene Kalu: MD Anderson Cancer Center
Posted: June 1, 2015
Topic: Translational Versus Fundamental Research
6/01/2015
“Encourage fundamental research by requiring translational researchers who receive NIH funding to collaborate with basic researchers in order to explore mechanistic studies in addition to clinical research….”
Vaibhav Pai: Tufts
Posted: May 29, 2015
Topic: Errors in Science
5/29/2015
NIH has a vested interest in publishing the research conducted using its funds even if it validates or refutes (negative result) previous findings. NIH should invest in creating a centralized (online) publishing outlet (free for NIH funded research/researchers) that accepts individual experiments, negative results and validation results with a post-publication review model. Such a model has already been tried in the field of Physics and is enormously successful in cutting down the publication costs…
Vaibhav Pai: Tufts
Posted: May 29, 2015
Topic: Effects of Hypercompetition
5/29/2015
It would be wiser to not focus too much on solving the harmful effects of hyper-competition but rather highly focus on solving the hyper-competition itself. Tackling the hyper-competition will automatically alleviate all the harmful effects that arise from hyper-competition.
Julian Menter: Morehouse
Posted: May 27, 2015
Topic: Other Topics
5/27/2015
I think the ideas articulated by the “gang of four” are good as far as they go, but:
Biomedical research has come up with some fantastic results based mainly on high technology. But that is one – dimensional. It tends to lead to the results that we are observing. Young scientists, especially those at have – not institutions (see above) are not usually able to avail themselves of the expensive high – tech gadgets necessary for such projects.
Matthew Cook: UCSF
Posted: May 22, 2015
Topic: Postdoctoral Training
5/22/2015
The vast majority of incoming faculty have no background in management and receive no formal mentorship training. I propose a mandatory, structured 5-day training upon new faculty hiring, and another session after earning tenure.
Jessica Lao: UCSF
Posted: May 22, 2015
Topic: Postdoctoral Training
5/22/2015
We propose that postdocs have access to structured career development and exploration tools, currently available to graduate students at many institutions. Postdocs (and the ir mentors) should be prepared for more than one career outcome. Making myIDP, my Individual Development Plan, an official requirement for postdocs would facilitate this goal.
John Denning: Cornell
Posted: May 20, 2015
Topic: Graduate Education
5/20/2015
I propose three actions to whittle down the number of PhDs to only the very best pool of future scientists. The overarching theme is to make it more costly to employ graduate students and to raise the standard for admission:
Philip Clifford: UI Chicago
Posted: May 20, 2015
Topic: Other
5/19/2015
Overlooked in the topic categories is taking control of wasteful spending by scientists. There needs to be some accountability for the way direct costs are spent.
Michael Gavino: UCSF
Posted: May 19, 2015
Topic: Postdoctoral Training
5/16/2015
The postdoc is a position that is at once trainee and employee. While this feature has remained constant over the years, the circumstances that a postdoc inhabits today have changed much from those of even a decade ago…
Katherine Thompson-Peer: UCSF
Posted: May 19, 2015
Topic: Workforce diversity
5/14/2015
Postdocs who are trying to raise a family while training for a scientific career need more support…Increasing support for postdoc parents would go a long way to increasing diversity at the postdoc and faculty stages, especially in the STEM fields where postdocs are longer and more common…
Megan Mayerle (P-value): UCSF
Posted: May 19, 2015
Topic: Postdoctoral training
5/14/15
1) Increase the number of Institutional and National fellowships for postdocs. 2) Increase the training related budget for postdoctoral fellows, and ensure that this money goes toward research, not overhead or health care…
Nene Kalu: MD Anderson Cancer Center
Posted: May 15, 2015
Topic: Graduate Education
5/15/2015
“Require institutions that receive government funding to have defined year-by-year curriculum for PhD students with defined career development pathways.”
Nene Kalu: MD Anderson Cancer Center
Posted: May 15, 2015
Topic: Postdoctoral Training
5/15/2015
“Most postdoctoral fellows do not need training on the scientific method. What we need is increased responsibility and less micromanagement so that we can develop our independent spirit earlier. We also need a defined career development plan….”
Nene Kalu: MD Anderson Cancer Center
Posted: May 15, 2015
Topic: Errors in Science
5/15/2015
“This is my biggest pet peeve as well. In a perfect world there would be no impact factor. However, it may be beneficial for online journals to allow other researchers in the same field to read and review published articles. ….”
Becca Weinberg: Michigan State
Posted: May 13, 2015
Topic: Graduate Education
5/12/15
The first thing to do for graduate students is for NIH obtain from previously funded training grants the best strategies to track student outcomes. Then we must require all graduate programs to track students.
Alex Carli: Harvard
Posted: May 7, 2015
Topic: Government Sources
5/7/2015
The quality of the federal workforce needs to be maintained by keeping employees more accountable for their actions. In order to encourage accountability, supervisors need to be able to warn, demote, and even remove employees based on overtly dysfunctional behavior…..
Drew MacKellar: Harvard
Posted: May 6, 2015
Topic: Staff Scientists
5/4/2015
Many of the people I have spoken to about the structure of the US Biomedical research structure have emphasized a role for staff scientists (and particularly in increasing their number as a portion of the workforce) in improving outcomes, and I agree with that assessment….The expanded use of permanent staff may need to be encouraged at first by funding agencies such as the NIH, but ultimately PIs may find their interests better served by a greater variety of levels of seniority among the members of their labs, too.
Drew MacKellar: Harvard
Posted: May 6, 2015
Topic: Publication Processes
5/4/2015
While journals remain a crucial part of the dissemination and evaluation of research results, I consider the basic paper format to be in need of extensive updating.…Of course, a concise, human-readable summary will always be required, but journals should encourage authors to augment this wherever possible with other media and online tools to make their data easier to grasp as well as reinterpret and build upon.
Nadya Vasilyeva: UC Berkeley
Posted: May 6, 2015
Topic: Infrastructure Support
5/2/2015
Promote special conference registration fee category for people without institutional support (including post docs, adjuncts, etc.)
Drew MacKellar: Harvard
Posted: May 6, 2015
Topic: Government Sources
5/4/2015
As contributing the lion’s share of research funding in the US, federal government agencies like the NIH and NSF are crucial in shaping the culture and direction of science. In conversations with other scientists, I’ve heard several themes of proposed changes in the way these agencies distribute funds….
We invite you to offer your own input here >>