A new paradigm for the scientific enterprise: nurturing the ecosystem

Adjusting flow in the pipeline

Alberts et al.³⁵ proposed that the supply of the pipeline (i.e., the number of trainees) should be adjusted to match the demand (i.e., the number of tenure-track positions). Increasing the number of tenure-track-style positions, as desirable as that might be, seems unlikely given the current trends in science funding. By addressing the demand end, it has also been suggested that the size of individual labs should be decreased to reduce the number of trainees that must be moved into faculty positions^10,42. While these proposed reforms are thoughtful and well-intentioned, they do not address the problems of an oversupply of talented researchers and funding models that rely on large numbers of low-paid trainees to get work done. Such a solution could certainly lead to fewer scientists with more career stability, but is this the future that we envision for science and our society?

Adapting to the pipeline

Today’s search for a tenure track position is often a multi-year process as many open positions are saturated with candidates⁴³. Many candidates must go to great lengths to make themselves more competitive. Recognizing this need, academic departments, as well as for-profit companies⁴⁴, now assist with academic “survivorship” to help potential candidates prepare CVs, develop interview skills, and write research statements. This is leading to a system that is even less accessible to those with lesser means⁴⁵ and may contribute even further to a bias towards hiring candidates from elite institutions⁴⁶. It also contributes to the ever-lengthening time period before a scientist can “fledge” as a professional in academia. Much of the energy, currently being devoted to preparing individuals to adapt to the system, could be redirected towards more collaborative and collective solutions.

Finding another pipeline

The paucity of traditional academic jobs has led to increased career advice about alternatives to academic careers, and there are encouraging indications that many PhDs are finding employment outside academia^47,48. Although most of these efforts are entirely well-meaning, they sometimes have the unintended consequence of reinforcing the same tendencies as “pipeline-thinking”. For example, a recent Nature editorial discussed the ability of PhDs or postdocs to “stay in touch with science” by working in a “related function such as administration, outreach or publishing”⁴⁸. While these career options suit many people, the possibility of doing any future self-directed science outside of an academic or research position is rarely considered. Such a narrative is disempowering overall, as junior researchers are encouraged to “take a hard look at their job prospects” rather than question the nature of institutions or the pipeline²⁵. Other discussions of the STEM pipeline are framed by discussions of “workforce needs” and the production of workers that are “globally competitive”^49,50, reinforcing a business approach to science⁵¹, rather than on doing science as a public good or for its own sake⁵².

Thinking outside the pipeline

Much of the career advice on how to be successful in the academic science pipeline reflects the values and dynamics present in the job market when many senior scientists obtained their first positions (e.g., that outlined by Diamandis⁵³), instead of the realities of today^54,55. As many of these scientists’ career experiences are often limited to academia, their perspectives may not be relevant to early-career scientists who are open to other career options. Academics often fail to recognize the broad applicability and value of PhD degrees, or encourage their trainees to work outside the traditional academic pipeline.

By framing solutions in terms of “fixing the pipeline”, the underlying career structures for scientists remain largely unchallenged. As such, early-career scientists occupy a passive role, waiting for change to come from the top, such as through institutional reform driven by senior leaders. Likewise, the scarcity of research positions is accepted as a given, limiting how much science can be done. There is, no limit on society’s need to address complex challenges, the number of research questions that can be asked, or the amount of scientific work that can be done. New models are needed to help identify different ways for scientists to continue their work outside of a standard academic or agency job.

1. Fundamental development of the scientist

Basic necessities (i.e., Maslow’s hierarchy of needs) are fundamental to any human livelihood, and certainly for a scientist to be able to flourish. To truly allow independent scientists to develop, a strong set of progressive social policies, such as universal health care, basic income, and high-quality free education, are needed to strengthen the core of the ecosystem^66,67. The ecosystem concept recognizes that the journey of a scientist through training is often an indirect path with many more career development influences than the direct path that a “pipeline” implies (Figure 1). Instead, an individual learns foundational knowledge, explores ideas, and gathers experience through a journey that is influenced by a broad range of interests, a balance of personal and professional goals, and adaptation to the challenges of life overall.

Such a student might attend the traditional classes expected in their field, explore other fields of interest (e.g., fine arts, social activism), and gather experience through interactions with others, work, internships, and volunteering, both within their field and outside of it. Along the way, they might explore other career (or life) choices, and perhaps return to academia completely, or explore specific scientific questions from a new perspective in another career choice outside of traditional academic institutions. Overall, the ecosystem model emphasizes that there is no right way to become a scientist. The diversity of experiences and perspectives are key to advancing STEM development in novel and more inclusive ways.

2. Multiplicity of niches

Most importantly, the ecosystem model recognizes that every scientist is a person, meaning that people are more than their jobs and must balance a myriad of responsibilities, goals, and limitations that change as they move through life. While the conventional academic scientist pipeline assumes that individuals are functioning within a protected static environment (i.e., male scientists who serve as the breadwinner for their family in a generally unchanging environment), the ecosystem model encompasses the diverse and dynamic roles that individuals (both men and women) take on, particularly as they move through the household lifecycle (i.e., people’s needs and resources change throughout their life and most notably when they raise a family⁶⁸). Indeed, sustainable livelihood strategies⁶⁵ further emphasize this point by recognizing that people must be constantly making decisions to most efficiently use their resources (human, natural, financial, physical, and social capital) to meet their livelihood needs, and such decisions are often made within the context of the changing biophysical and socio-political conditions of the system that they live in.

Furthermore, people must balance both non-monetary activities (i.e., child-rearing, house-keeping) with income earning activities, and both are equally important to almost all individuals. There is a lack of recognition of the importance of non-monetary activities in making livelihood decisions within conventional career models, as well as limited supporting economic and political structures to support these activities⁶⁹. The pipeline model simply doesn’t consider both career and life balance in such a dynamic environment, nor does it present any opportunities to leverage the social diversity that occurs through such processes. By contrast, the ecosystem model not only presents a flexible model that encompasses the dynamism of the system, it also thrives on social, economic, and experiential diversity.

Income-generating activities in the ecosystem approach can be diverse different, contrasting with the expectation of there being a sole niche, such as tenure-track employment in university settings. Some of these new niches include part-time, or “fractional scholarship”⁵⁷, through virtual institutes such as the Ronin Institute⁷⁰ (see Box 2), small business or consulting companies (either partly or wholly focused on scientific research), and non-traditional start-ups. For example, some independent scholars run consultancies involving their scientific expertise in a commercial setting, but reserve time to pursue their own research; their research and consulting activities help inform the other, resulting in more grounded research and science-informed solutions, respectively. At a larger scale, some independent scientists have obtained venture capital funding to pursue biomedical research^71,72, such as Perlara in San Francisco, which operates as a public benefit “B-corporation”.

3. Open ecosystem flows

Academics often view the abandonment of the search for a permanent tenured university position as a signal that a person is “leaving science”, but we argue that this should not necessarily be a one-way valve. Thus, another step towards building the open ecosystem is to normalize the movement into and out of traditional university positions. The formal system for scientific training must value students, postdocs, or other researchers who leave and re-enter programs or jobs for their professional and diverse experiences, and the unique network of colleagues that they bring to programs or jobs. Such a change will reduce the fear that scientists have in diversifying their career experience. We expect that for some kinds of science (i.e., those that require the use of expensive equipment), employment in a traditional university-based setting may continue to be the most appropriate, but other types of science (e.g., theoretical and computational sciences) can easily be practiced outside traditional academic settings (Box 2). Normalizing these movements as one of many flows within the overall scientific ecosystem would be a big step in the right direction (Box 3) for both broadening and diversifying science, and creating new career opportunities for scientists.

4. Diversity of scales in pace and budget

The increasingly all-consuming competitive nature of academic life often discourages speculation, innovation, and collaboration^73–75. Little time and energy is left for the reflection needed to develop original ideas³⁵. Interesting and creative science does not necessarily require this intense pace and may even be inhibited by it. The “slow” science movement encapsulates a more deliberative and conscious approach to science (Box 4). Smaller-scale research projects can have quite modest budgets, and crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter and Experiment.com have supported many such interesting scientific projects⁷⁶. Relative to standard grants, funds raised via crowdfunding might be considered tiny, but with the large overhead required by brick and mortar academic institutes (often over 50% of a grant), such funds can often go a long way in a research budget. Such monies have been fairly modest to date, but these approaches are still in their infancy and have much more potential for growth. The scientific ecosystem concept explicitly recognizes the value of, and enables, such scientific work at multiple niches and scales.

5. Peer-to-peer networks

Researchers in traditional settings operate in a highly hierarchical system, where the usual benchmarks of “success” are controlled by a relatively small number of people at each level. A large number of apprentices are under the control of a small number of masters⁹³; this structure can make it difficult for new ideas to gain a toehold^94,95 and can also lead to the exploitation of apprentices^96,97. While senior investigators occupy important roles in identifying promising research avenues, providing synoptic views and institutional memories of their field, and many are tireless in promoting their trainees and helping them succeed, this success generally assumes continuing within the “pipeline” model. In contrast, we believe that moving towards less hierarchical peer-to-peer ecosystem models, which emphasize more democratic decision-making, cooperativity, and solidarity, will lead to a more dynamic and creative scientific enterprise overall (Box 5).

6. Fluid communication networks and shared access to resources

The burgeoning open science movement^15,98 is a key enabler of the scientific ecosystem by bringing data, models, and resources out from behind institutional walls. Initiatives, such as the Center for Open Science⁹⁹ and Sage Bionetworks¹⁰⁰, have developed pioneering tools to enable large-scale sharing, and thus mining of open biological data by any interested parties without the need for the original infrastructure that generated the data. Access to shared resources, such as lab space, are also part of this shift (Box 6). In addition, the citizen science¹⁰¹ and indigenous research¹⁰² movements reach out to bright and creative individuals outside the academic system who are eager to contribute skill and time to advance science. The growth of open-access publishing will especially benefit the peer-to-peer model proposed here (Box 6).

7. Broader distribution of resources

Self-funding of research can sometimes be sufficient, since many studies, especially in computational, mathematical, and social science fields cost little beyond the time required. Free of arbitrary institutional expectations of “bringing in grant money”, this can be quite liberating. However, many other kinds of research, especially wet lab biology, can be expensive and labor-intensive. The benefit of joining institutes like the Ronin Institute, allows scholars to apply directly for traditional federal grants (e.g., NIH or NSF) with reduced institutional overhead, leading to more efficient use of money for research. However, existing funding agencies, especially federal, are largely geared to favour the already well-funded or those who are working on whatever scientific questions they may be prioritizing that year. More balance is needed to ensure that scientific questions that are valued by society are also represented. Funding solutions outside of the traditional federal agencies and more distributive approaches, whether federally funded or otherwise, must be considered to help fill this gap (Box 7).

8. Institutional change

While we have emphasized existing grassroots movements and trends, this is not because we do not need reform of our institutional practice of science—we certainly do. However, we believe that social and structural changes are often initiated outside institutions, and these efforts can catalyze internal reforms. That said, many of the design patterns have clear institutional analogs. The aforementioned peer-to-peer approaches discussed under subheading 5 can be implemented within institutions as well, particularly at the level of individual labs, by giving postdocs greater autonomy outside of individual projects or grants¹⁰³. Some institutions, such as the Santa Fe Institute, have postdocs that are tied directly to the institution, rather than an individual professor. Furthermore, institutions should recognize that researchers work in different styles and at a diversity of scales, as discussed under subheadings 2 and 4, respectively, and avoid monolithic ranking and assessing of scholars by external metrics.

Finally, the ecosystem approach of providing multiple on-ramps and off-ramps to academia (subheading 3) together with distributing resources more broadly (subheading 7), point to a reform of the tenure system itself. The tenure system could be made more fluid, and the benefits of tenure (stability, security) extended to more people, rather than a lucky few. A progressive commons-based economy would be one way to realize this vision (Box 8). Organizations such as Future of Research, which are leading the way in engaging institutions to encourage open-science practices (subheading 6) and shape a more equitable job and funding landscape (subheading 7), should also be vigorously supported⁵⁸.