Similar trends exist in the USA. One in five female academic oncologists surveyed in 2020 reported they werein the next five years. Add to that two years of the pandemic, and many physicians are on the brink of burnout.
Witnessing the departure of their peers, many researchers harbor concerns for how basic science might be gutted of skilled researchers if the pull towards industry prevails. Society at large also runs the risk of missing out on discoveries made in university labs and research institutes, which have greater agency to do exploratory research that is not bound to commercial interests.
Now working for a biotech company on antibody-based therapies for chronic inflammatory diseases, Ioan-Facsinay says the academic world is going in the wrong direction. “How much you publish is the wrong incentive,” she says. In the Netherlands, where she is based, graduate students must publish four papers to obtain their PhD. Consequently, researchers are less inclined to collaborate with industry, she says, because involving industry invariably induces some delays in publishing results.
Although it is difficult to predict how current trends will play out, MacArthur says the end goal should be a research system in which academia and industry each have clear, distinct roles, and where the movement of researchers between the two is seen not as a ruthless competition for talent, but as a healthy back-and-forth that stimulates fruitful partnerships.
clarewhatson What happens when you go broke. Take heed Nature Medicine.
clarewhatson And the concomitant requirement for intelligence and productive original thought. Won't need that in industry.