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Julie Gould: 00:09
Hello, welcome back to Working Scientist, a Nature Careers podcast. I’m Julie Gould. And this is the final episode of the Muddle of the Middle.
These last few episodes, exploring this muddle of the middle, has left me feeling a little bit like these midcareer researchers are, well, left to their own devices, a little bit unsupported.
And I’ve tried collecting useful advice for you all. And I hope it’s helped. But is there a way for the system to help?
Can more be done to support mid career researchers? I asked several of the guests that you’ve heard over the last few episodes about this, about whether or not the mid-career stage needs to be maybe more clearly defined.
Andrea Armani from the University of Southern California in the US thinks that the mid career stage is very poorly-defined, compared to the early stage, at least in academia.
Andrea Armani: 01:12
So you have this really nice clear tenure boundary. And then it’s kind of assumed that after tenure, you’re no longer an early career researcher.
On the other hand, you’re not a late stage researcher, so then everything in the middle is just middle.
But there’s obviously a huge greyscale between someone who just got tenure, and someone who’s about to retire.
And that that gap could be, you know, 25-35, depending on the person, 45 or 50 years. And that range in lumping everybody together makes it very challenging for people who are supposedly in this swimming pool to all swim together equally.
Julie Gould: 02:01
Clearly, it is not an equal playing field. You’ll have some mid-career swimmers who have only done a little bit of training. Their technique is okay, and they’ve got a lot of work to do. But they’re also young, maybe a bit nervous and inexperienced.
They’re also probably a little bit intimidated by those who have spent hours, weeks, months and years putting in more training, honing their technique.
These are the professional senior swimmers. They’ve done a lot of practice competitions, and they know how to handle mistakes.
The early career researchers, though, they’re all going through their initial training at roughly the same pace.
Andrea Armani: 02:37
Everybody is kind of in the same, the same level, at least. I’m not gonna say it’s a completely level playing field. But at least they’re the same, the same group.
Julie Gould; 02:47
So it’s that early stage of the middle career stage, where the researchers might need some extra support, that extra bit of training in the pool. Maybe even their own competitions, their own races, before they joined the older, more experienced swimmers.
Now some specific early mid-career support is becoming available. For example, the National Science Foundation in the USA recognized that this group of researchers were being left behind a little. And Leslie Rissler from the National Science Foundation told me that they have created an award to help level the playing field. And the award is called the Mid Career Advancement Program.
Leslie Rissler: 03:25
It was designed because we have so many opportunities for early career researchers. In other words, we’re very concerned about early career researchers, postdocs, and assistant professors. But at that mid career stage, there really isn’t much.
Julie Gould: 03:42
The award is aimed at those people who want to focus more on their research.
Leslie Rissler: 03:47
If you’re involved in administration, or service, or teaching, and you really want to get back to research, you need time. And you need some resources, some funding.
We also have a smaller portion of people who may be doing fantastic at the mid-career stage. But they want to get another opportunity to work with someone, to learn some new techniques and move their career in a different direction.
And this solicitation is appropriate for those individuals as well. So this is a new niche that NSF has moved into, to help those people at that unique career stage, the mid career.
Julie Gould: 04:26
Why did the NSF feel that this was a program that needed to be put in place?
Leslie Rissler: 04:33
We want to make sure that everyone in the scientific community have, that they have the tools necessary to contribute to science and to be productive.
And at the mid career stage, sometimes people get into other activities that they were shielded from as an early career researcher, like service, like administration, and sometimes extra teaching.
And that can create a negative feedback loop where maybe you’re doing great administrative work, or you’re doing wonderful teaching, but that takes away from the time that you have to apply for a research grant.
And therefore you don’t have a research grant and your department chair may say, “Well, we’re going to add more teaching onto you.”
And so you never get out of that trap. And you can’t get a research grant. So this provides time and money so that you can work with someone else, you can increase networking, you can learn new skills, and you can get back into research and really make a difference in your career, but also for the science itself.
Julie Gould: 05:41
One of the other main goals of the award, and of the National Science Foundation, is to create workload equity.
In episode five of this series we heard from Andrea Armani, who ended up being involved in 30 different committees.
She was on some of those because she, as one of only two full female professors in her engineering department, was the only one suitable for the task.
Andrea Armani: 06:04
We don’t want one gender to get swamped with all the service and the teaching, because we know from publications that women in particular tend to do more of that. They say they’re doing more of that kind of work, and less research.
And that can create, you know, problems with getting women into high leadership ranks. And that’s the… that’s one of the ultimate goals is to make sure that women and underrepresented groups are getting into those leadership ranks. So we’re not there yet. A long way to go.
Julie Gould: 06:15
Salome Maswime is the head of global surgery at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. And she is the beneficiary of a mid career award.
In 2016, she received the South African Medical Research Council’s mid career scientist grant. The award can be used in different ways, Salome told me. Some use it to focus on their research, others to develop skills. But for Salome it was about being able to create a vision for her future career.
Salome Maswime: 07:07
The most important thing was giving me a trajectory at a time where I’ve been getting one year awards, one to two-year awards.
And so giving me a five year period, where I could focus on myself and my own research, feels like a stepping stone to independence.
So I used my funding, rather, to employ staff and to provide some bursaries for Masters and PhD.
And so building my research group, per se, has been how I decided to use it.
Julie Gould: 07:44
Based on her experience, Salome thinks that specific awards for the mid career can only be a good thing.
Salome Maswime 07:51
You can label me as mid career because of an award that is associated with that.
And being there has created a safe space for for me to navigate my career without the pressures that one would have if they were trying to be seen as a senior scientist, in their institutions, or however.
So I think giving opportunity, more opportunities and awards, titled as mid-career scientist awards, is beneficial to people who are in the same space as me.
And I think, more more attention or more effort, sort of creating more hype around mid career scientists, and defining it more, is beneficial to people who are in my stage of their careers.
Julie Gould: 08:49
But what about some more tangible guidelines, some goals and targets to hit in the mid career stage that might help define when you’re getting a little bit closer to the end, and becoming more independent?
I asked Dame Athene Donald about this. And she said that on reflection, she thinks this would help enormously. She thinks that maybe some sort of appraisal system could work well,
Athene Donald 09:12
I was appraised at various points, but I don’t think routinely. And when I was appraised, one of the things I remembered, whether this was before I was professor or after, I really don’t know.
But someone said to me, “You shouldn’t feel obliged to referee more papers in a year than you are submitting.” And that was a very tangible thing. And I was thinking “I’m accepting everything as I feel I ought to do this. And maybe this is unnecessary.”
And I think there should be ways of saying, you know, “You’ve got two grants, that’s sufficient.”
Or, “Have you thought about what size your research group should be?”
You know, do you really want to have a research group of a dozen or 20 or three or whatever it may be?
And I would like to think that a process would do that. But of course that may or may not happen, it’s a question of luck. But those are the indicators I think. People asking you to reflect. “You’re doing this. Why are you doing this?”
Or alternatively, “Have you thought about your international career looks weak? What are you going to do?” It may be positive or negative, but I think there should be more to it than muddling through. There should be more guidance.
Julie Gould: 10:29
In Brazil, working as a faculty member at a university is a government position. And the career ladder to becoming a full professor is very well described, with particular goals and timelines.
Alessandra Filardi is an assistant professor of immunology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, and she is working hard to become a full professor.
But to get there, she’s got a lot of boxes to tick. She’s currently at the assistant professor level, a position which she will have for eight years.
The next rung on her career ladder is an associate professor, which will be another eight years. And when that is done, she will be a full professor. But to get from one stage to the next, she has some targets to hit.
Alessandra Filardi 11:12
in general you have to publish some, a number of papers in every two years. You have to mentor a number of students. You have to give it some hours of classes in two years, et cetera.
And you have to do an extension course, which is I dont know if the same name as an English, but it’s kinds of services to population in general.
So for example, I give some, some immunology classes to students from high schools only by all my communities. So it’s a kind of service to communities. It’s another thing that we have to do to go through the, the levels.
Julie Gould: 11:58
What are these numbers? Do you have, do you have an idea of how many papers you need to publish? And how many students you need to measure, need to mentor? Is that a specific, like a specific number that you need to do?
Alessandra Filardi 12:11
Yeah, they don’t don’t give you a specific number, but they expect you publish at least five papers in every two years.
And of course, the impact factor of the papers counts a lot. So for example, if I publish just one paper, in every two years, but the impact factor is very high, it’s okay you know. But you don’t need to be the corresponding author in all the five papers, you can collaborate in everything.
But they don’t fix a number. They will not ask you, “Oh, you have to publish at least five.” But they expect, they encourage you to publish at least five papers in every two years. But it’s up to you.
But if you don’t publish, you don’t go through the other level.
And the number of students, they don’t give you like, a minimum, but at least one. One PhD student, at least one master’s student, and you have to also mentor undergrad students.
Julie Gould: 13:14
Alessandra agrees with Andrea Armani from the University of Southern California in the US. The mid-career stage is the hardest. But she’s a bit more specific.
Alessandra Filardi 13:23
So I guess this is the hard part, to be on the beginning of the middle career. You are competing with people who have more publications, more students more, you know, experience and everything.
Julie Gould: 13.27
Would you say it is the hardest part?
Alessandra Filardi 13.30
Yes. In your career I think it is. Because when you are in the beginning, you have a lot of opportunities to get grants, to get fundings.
But when you are in this in the middle, you have different layers of people in the same level. And then you are, you know, you don’t have much things to compete with them, but you cannot compete with the youngers. And I guess this is the worst part.
Julie Gould: 14:16
Now, I don’t like to be all doom and gloom and I like to look at things in a more positive way.
And there is a more positive way to look at all of this, says Cara Tannenbaum, the scientific director of the Institute of gender and health for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Cara Tannenbaum: 14:32
Unfortunately, career progression in science and academia is paramount. And there are and there shouldn’t be a lot of career pathways. There simply aren’t enough senior scientist positions. Not everyone could get hired by a university. Not everyone loves research.
Sometimes you discover you have a talent for teaching. Sometimes you discover you have a talent for administration. Sometimes you discover you have a talent for being a visionary director of an entire research institute. Sometimes you have a talent for policymaking.
So given that there’s not as many positions, I think it’s a real reckoning to decide where your skills lie best.
And that’s part of the competition. In a way it’s to see if, how dedicated and persistent you are. And in a way it’s to make you look around and see the other doors and opportunities for you to contribute.
Julie Gould: 15:38
Cara believes that the mid career stage, although hard, and yes, a bit of a muddle, is also a chance to be flexible.
She told me that if you put too many guidelines and barriers and targets on this stage of the career, you lose the freedom to really explore the science, but also who you are, and what you want to do as a person.
Cara Tannanbaum: 16:01
I think you have to be flexible. I think just being open minded. If there is a barrier one place, then, you know, be persistent at it.
But make sure you have a plan B, C, G for things that you’re excited about, and grow and learn.
One thing about being a scientist is our humility, constantly asking questions, testing the null hypothesis, again, wondering if there’s alternative explanations, alternative ways of doing things, not just trusting that what we’ve known and what we’ve been told until now is the absolute truth, but being open to discovery.
Julie Gould: 16:40
Thank you to all the guests for sharing the insights and advice in this series, the Muddle of the Middle. I’ll be back in a little while with a new series from working scientist, all about leadership. Thanks for listening. I’m Julie Gould.
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