Assortative sitting was the name of the game. I soon discovered there was nothing quite so deadly as attending a meeting of Directors of Institutes and Units of the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) (which morphed first by adding Food to its name (AFRC) and then into appallingly-named Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)). The first trick was to sit somewhere near the back. The second was not to sit opposite certain gentlemen whose facial expressions could induce an uncontrollable laughing fit. The third was to sit next to somebody of like mind so that you could mutter comments heavily laden with sarcasm to one another through clenched teeth. On several occasions I was both skilful enough and lucky to land next to the late John Postgate FRS who was Director of the ARC’s Nitrogen Fixation Unit.
With a father, Raymond, who founded The Good Food Guide and a brother, Oliver, who wrote, produced and appeared in the classic children’s television programmes Bagpuss and Clangers John Postgate was part of a well-known family in the second half of the 20th Century.
One topic which all Directors agreed on was what to do about those scientists who became unproductive, usually in middle age. Some went on churning the same old handle of unexciting research, others slowed down completely. In the research institutes and universities it was virtually impossible to get rid of anybody other than by a quiet word in their ear suggesting they might find more satisfaction elsewhere. If they did not take the hint, you were stuck with them. Because most of those involved had reached a certain grade in the institutes, Principal Scientific Officer, the problem became known as what to do about the clapped-out PSO. Sub-committees were set up and reported but very little happened until a financial crisis led, in England and Wales, to redundancies and the careful inclusion of the ‘clapped-out’ in an area of research to be cut—a very nasty and unfair process.
In our mutterings on the back row, John Postgate and I had very similar views. Scientists would be given a long but fixed term contract until, say, the age of 45 or a fixed time after completing their PhD. If they could then be promoted on merit they would be retained for another, say 10 year contract; if not they would be given long notice (2-3 years) that their contract would not be renewed and provided assistance in fitting themselves for employment elsewhere. Again those staying on would be subjected to a final ‘up or out’ promotion assessment.
The system we suggested would have been similar in a number of ways to that operating in the armed services to ensure the flow of young recruits into the system while retaining the highly capable scientists in the system. I had quite forgotten until I read John’s Biographical Memoir that he had published his proposed system after he retired, based on the army analogue, in a 1991 issue in New Scientist:
There is an old adage to the effect that scientists run out of steam in middle life. One would like to deny its truth, but regrettably it has substance. Most working scientists (among whom I include technologists) are familiar with the older researcher or teacher who has lost momentum. Typically he or she shows low motivation towards keeping up to date with background knowledge, a resistance to solving new problems, a reluctance to adopt new techniques and approaches.
Scientists such as these are content to coast along as before, painting the odd lily, often quite effectively, and not getting in anyone’s way.These characteristics tend to appear early on if the science has a substantial mathematical or physical component. Sadly, scientists whose output has become lower than it ought to be in quality (not necessarily in quantity) are,on the whole, more prevalent among older age groups.
Before I am accused of rampant ageism (by the way, I am immensely old myself), let me amplify that ‘on the whole’ proviso. Of course there is that invaluable minority of scientists who do not run out of steam with age; those who, appropriately talented and dedicated, sustain momentum and remain acknowledged leaders in their fields to a ripe old age, setting an example to everyone and achieving well-deserved rewards and honours. There are also a few young scientists who lack steam from the outset; equally there are a few late developers. But in all, the exceptions represent a very small percentage of our scientific workforce.
In the expansive years of the third quarter of the century, institutes or departments could carry coasters along by group momentum, but those days are over for good. Even if science funding in Britain were to rise to match the norm among other developed countries, the heady days of 1950s-type expansion will not return. Today such people are a source of anxiety to scientific directors and departmental heads, because they are numerous in both the R and D sides of R&D. They unwittingly deny opportunities to young and innovative scientists, to the detriment both of their establishments’ programmes and of the country’s scientific and technical progress.
Yet as our society becomes ever more science-based, we need an expanding scientific workforce, and it must be one capable of seeing, exploiting and developing innovations almost as soon as they appear. And we need to retain all the innovators we can get, be they old or young.
How to do this? For reasons which stem as much from specialisation as from age, retraining and redeployment are not the answer: they rarely work among scientists, as Britain’s research councils have so painfully learnt.
The military solved an analogous problem well over a century ago. Soldiers are recruited to fight and, above a certain mean age, they cease to be useful for that purpose. Therefore they are recruited for a fixed term only and then retired, usually with promotion and a reasonable, if modest, pension. A few who show special talents in appropriate directions are retained for non-combatant duties, but most professional military personnel return to civilian life in early middle age, to make second careers or to relax, as the case may be.
The careers of scientists ought to follow a similar course. It would be greatly to the advantage of all concerned if they, like the military, were normally taken on for a career-length term, say 25 years, with something like the present civil service pay and promotion prospects. At age 45 they would, subject to performance, normally be promoted by one grade and retired immediately on half pay.
A minority who retained their usefulness might or might not be promoted, but they would be invited to continue in their posts and pursue their careers normally for another decade. Then another screening would take place. A few outstanding scientists would come through the second screening and work for yet another decade; quite exceptional ones would come through again and again, and carry on well past our present cut-off age of 60 to 65.
Professional scientists’ contracts would have to be long-term. A succession of short-term contracts would be a disaster – as today’s postdoc trap has shown. The cost of pensions for scientists leaving ought to be balanced out by lower salaries for the young scientists who fill their posts. In effect, however, a career prospect based on single long-term contracts, exceptionally renewable, would render the whole scientific work-force more alert and productive, would ease promotion of young high-fliers, and would avoid the premature rejection of outstanding achievers.
Being the rule, early retirement would be no stigma, and it would provide society with a reserve of talent, intellectually disciplined and far from elderly, for all sorts of useful purposes – in new employment (helping with the shortage of science teachers, for example), self-employment or, if wealthy enough, in voluntary work.
After all, the microchip revolution is on the way to making lifelong employment the exception rather than the rule in most walks of life, if only because the alternative is lifelong unemployment for too many of us. Career scientists would, as usual, simply be pointing the way ahead.
Letters followed supporting the Postgate plan but, sadly, the ensuing and increasingly complex employment legislation prevented the adoption of any such humane scheme—and the ‘postdoc trap’ has been well and truly fallen into. But let’s not go down that road in this post and leave on the the note that John Postgate was one of the good guys. It is also worth noting that he kept lizards, fish and small mammals in his younger days, the first requirement for a biologist to fall into that category.
Postgate J. 1991. Bring in the long-service commission – Science should follow the army’s example. New Scientist 129, 65-66.
Robson R, Smith B, Dixon R. 2016. John Raymond Postgate FIBiol 24 June 1922-22 October 2014. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 62, 485-504.
No comments:
Post a Comment