Short-term contracts here to stay

There is little prospect of reversing the dramatic rise in the numbers of contract researchers in universities over the past 15 years, according to the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

Giving evidence to the House of Lords select committee on science and technology this week, the council's chief executive, Tom Blundell, said that he expected to see little increase in the areas of demand for highly qualified scientists. This, together with increasing emphasis on a "market" system of public sector research funding, is likely to further erode long-term career prospects.

The council also told the committee, which is looking into academic careers for graduate scientists, that an "insecure casualised research career structure will be increasingly unattractive to young people of the highest quality."

BBSRC argued that in recent years, the low levels of postgraduate student stipend in comparison with graduate starting salaries has been a major factor working against stability and financial security in science careers.

Bob Price, the council's director of human resources, says that while university-funded posts in science and engineering had remained static or declined in number, the number of posts backed partially or wholly by non-university organisations doubled over the past 15 years, an indication of the remarkable success institutions have had in attracting contract work. The growth of the non-university group has resulted in a big increase in post-doctoral contract research staff.

The increase in contract research funding has not been accompanied by a parallel increase in the number of lecturer and other long-term posts for the later career phases of these scientists. The bottleneck has been narrowed further by industrial demand for PhD scientists remaining stable over the same period.

The pattern of employment in universities has been closely mirrored by the council's eight institutes. Less than half the income of most of the institutes comes from the Government science budget, and of the 2,700 scientists employed there, around a third are on short-term contracts.

The council concludes that unless there is a major stimulus to demand for PhD scientists from industry, little demand-side change will occur significantly to alter the current science career pattern. A factor which might boost demand for post-doctoral life scientists is the growth of the biotechnology industry.