Madam, - It was with great interest that I read the Science, Engineering and Technology supplement to The Irish Times on April 25th. However, there are several issues with regard to postdoctoral research that should be addressed. There are substantial funds and various initiatives to encourage students to take up science subjects at second and third levels. Furthermore, we now have the "fourth level" education programme encouraging students to take postgraduate courses to MSc and PhD level. This is to be commended and encouraged - to an extent.
The problem is that the Government seems to be focusing on educating students to a very high level, but has thought little about their futures afterwards. In previous decades most PhD graduates who continued in university research would be employed as postdoctoral researchers for a number of years before eventually being employed permanently as a lecturer. But with increasing student numbers and the streamlining of universities, these opportunities are now available to fewer than 10 per cent of PhD graduates.
Within industry the prospects are equally bleak; many industries in Ireland do not recognise the core skills of postdoctoral researchers and are unwilling to offer them positions that suitably reward the time and effort expended in acquiring these skills.
Furthermore, most pharmaceutical companies employ postdoctoral researchers on a similar salary scale to someone who has just completed a primary degree.
This leaves the postdoctoral researcher in a wilderness of short-term contracts with no real career path. As outlined in your supplement, there has been increased investment in science research sectors, with more planned. However, unless the Government starts investing this money at all levels of research, highly qualified graduates will leave research. This is already happening.
Research is enjoyable and can be highly rewarding. In a recent survey of fixed-term contract researchers at Trinity, most respondents said they were definitely glad that they had completed a PhD. However, only 17 per cent would recommend a PhD course to somebody else, and about a fifth thought a higher degree had either a negative or no influence on their career prospects.
Nearly 90 per cent of TCD researchers were dissatisfied with the stability of their positions and over a third did not know where they would be working in five years' time. Issues such as these must be addressed before the Government puts in place its plan to double the number of PhD graduates.
- Yours, etc,
ALISON DONNELLY, Chairperson, Trinity Research Staff Association, Dublin 2.