S P E C I A L
F E A T U R E
E d i t o r i a l
Research Funding and Ageism R. Paul Robertson Universities of Washington and Minnesota and Pacific NW Diabetes Research Institute, Seattle, Washington 98122
ou can’t travel anywhere in academic circles these days without getting involved in depressing discussions about the pitifully low level of biomedical research funding in the United States— especially since 2008 and 2009. Whether it’s the National Institutes of Health or professional societies, a triangulation has emerged among scientists and funding agencies. Some scientists are struggling to renew funding for their established research programs, whereas others are fighting for their first success in competing for independent grant awards. I was surprised to see this issue spill out onto the New York Times (OP-ED, October 3, 2014), not because it didn’t belong there, but because of the author’s polarizing and controversial point of view. In “Young, Brilliant, and Underfunded,” he pitted young researchers with fresh approaches against old researchers with experience, thus establishing his argument by using stereotypes. The accompanying cartoon was also suggestive. Two younger people sat primly at low desks with what appeared to be an Erlenmeyer flask and a centrifuge tube, both empty, while three older people were seated on higher stools with indiscriminate overflowing vessels. What stereotypes were evoked? Younger: Bright, ambitious, focused, intense, starving, full of potential, glass ceilings, underpaid. . . and brilliant! Older: Burned out, dumpy, fuddy-duddy, backward-looking, privileged, powerful. . . and wealthy! There could just as well be other stereotypes. Younger: Impatient, grasping, inexperienced, brash, uninformed, not likely to read scientific literature older than 5 years, not broadly educated. Older: Longdistance runners, wise, tempered by experience, generous professors who share their grant money with grad students, dedicated mentors guiding mentees as they build their careers.
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Everyone I encounter in academic circles champions the research careers of young people when they encourage Congress to pass a sensible funding bill (http://www.endocrine.org/advocacy-and-outreach). However, I don’t believe creating prejudicial age-based stereotypes to inform our funding decisions is part of the answer. We learn in college psychology classes that creating and reinforcing such stereotypes are laughable, if not absurd, and dangerous when taken to extremes. A research lab is a finely tuned symphony whose players, regardless of age, are individuals who bring many different talents. There are the deep thinkers, the well-read, the workaholics, the ones who come to the lab at any time of night and on weekends, the deeply respected ones who provide the grant funds and have achieved so much in the past that they provide inspiration and mentorship to frustrated trainees. This is a scientific fabric you don’t want to mess with: a family in which each member brings unique strengths and personal needs, be they young or old. Fund the young and shoot the old? Fund the old and starve the young? These are not rational considerations. The young need the old, and the old need the young. If you defund the old, you also put out onto the street the not yet fully trained young scientist. If you fail to fund the young, you cut off the lifeblood of our scientific future. The real issue is so obvious. There has been not nearly enough growth in the United States’ investment in the biological and biomedical sciences to maintain the most capable, awesome research enterprise in history. This is unsustainable in a modern world filled with epidemics of all kinds. . . infectious, metabolic, and epigenetic. The point is to not distribute scarce funds by age bias. The point is to grasp how far we have come, how far we must go, and how essential it is to fund all creative, feasible research instead of resorting to divisive stereotypes that pit one age group
ISSN Print 0021-972X ISSN Online 1945-7197 Printed in U.S.A. Copyright © 2015 by the Endocrine Society Received January 8, 2015. Accepted .
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jcem.endojournals.org
J Clin Endocrinol Metab, February 2015, 100(2):398 –399
doi: 10.1210/jc.2015-1069
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doi: 10.1210/jc.2015-1069
against the other. If our peer-review system arbitrarily focuses on funding any one population group, we will find our scientific orchestras breaking down and getting badly out of tune, and the world will no longer listen. And young people will turn away from science as a career.
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Acknowledgments Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: R. Paul Robertson, MD, Pacific Northwest Diabetes Research Institute 720 Broadway, Seattle, WA 98122. E-mail:
[email protected]. Disclosure Summary: The author has nothing to declare.
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