investigators out of the picture, notes
Christopher Pickett, director of Rescu-
ing Biomedical Research, a non-profit
cofounded by Tilghman that researches
solutions to systemic issues in life sci-
ence. “I think there’s an assumption that
once you’ve established your lab, then
you’re out on your own.”
Everyone for themselves?
Rather than compete directly with senior
investigators, many early-career scien-
tists are stepping outside the research
community in search of financial support.
Geneticist Melissa Wilson Sayres of
Arizona State University, for instance,
recently raised $9,000 to sequence the
genome of the Gila monster (Heloderma
suspectum) through a crowdfunding
campaign on experiment.com, a platform
where many other scientists have begun to
crowdfund their projects. Similar digital
fundraising platforms, such as SciFund-
Challenge, have sprung up in recent years.
Other young researchers are experi-
menting with new ideas for obtaining fund-
ing. Last May, social scientist Irena Schnei-
der of King’s College London co-launched
Lyrical Science, an online platform where
biomedical researchers can “pitch” their
research in a presentation similar to a TED
talk and directly engage with an online
community of laypeople, corporations,
and foundations interested in sponsoringtheir research. Ultimately this would “add
express lanes into the funding ecosystem,”
explains Schneider. So far only two scien-
tists have signed up for the platform, which
is still in beta mode, she says.
Some philanthropic organiza-
tions offer specific grants to relieve the
pressure for early-career researchers
to secure money straight off the bat.
For instance, the Chan Zuckerberg
Initiative’s Ben Barres Early Career
Acceleration Awards support young inves-
tigators studying Alzheimer’s, ALS, and
other neurodegenerative diseases at aca-
demic institutions. And many disease foun-
dations, such as the Children’s Tumor Foun-
dation, the Foundation Fighting Blindness,and the Leukemia Research Foundation, all
have funding mechanisms geared towards
younger researchers.
A handful of academic institutions
have also been stepping up to create fel-
lowships for early-career scientists who
want to lead their own lab and conduct
research after completing a PhD. These
include New York’s Cold Spring Harbor
Laboratory, Harvard University, MIT,
and Rockefeller University.
“Such opportunities may be able to
help early-career researchers get in the
door,” writes McDowell in an email—
although for the scientific enterprise to be
sustainable, researchers need to be sure of
financial support throughout their entire
research careers, he adds.
While individual initiatives can help
offset the effects of an aging academic
workforce and a lopsided funding land-
scape, the scientific community must
consider the risk that too many research-
ers will leave academia in search of a
more-secure career, notes Tilghman. “If
you’re not doing that, you’re going to find
yourself in ten, fifteen, twenty years...
where you have a huge hole in the middle
of your workforce,” she says. “You’re miss-
ing a generation, basically, and that has
pretty significant implications.” gKatarina Zimmer is a freelance science
writer living in New York City.How to distribute money more fairly across age groups is
a question that several funding bodies have grappled with
over the years.MORE OF THE PIE
Senior investigators’ share of the total
NIH funding available for researchers
has been growing in recent years. From
2000 to 2015, the portion of money
going to researchers over 56 years old
rose from 27 percent to 44 percent. This
trend is largely driven by the increase in
the proportion of grants going to senior
researchers: between 2000 and 2015,
the number of awardees over 56 years
old nearly doubled, while the number
of mid-career awardees only increased
slightly and the number of early-career
awardees moderately.
100806040200
2000 2015
YEAR% OF NIH RESEARCH GRANT MONEYLate-career (56+)Mid-career (41-55)Early-career (24-40)27
44466211 10SOURCE: NIHTHE SCIENTISTSTAFF