The academic scientist
Who: Andrew Pontzen, 29
What: Astrophysics postdoc
Where: University of Oxford
Everything in life is a trade-off, but let me be clear at the outset that I鈥檓 not complaining about life as a research scientist. I鈥檓 earning a good wage 鈥� just a tiny bit under the university average 鈥� I have a pretty good final-salary pension deal and I can work flexible hours or from home. It鈥檚 just that, like all young scientists, my office swivel chair is positioned beneath a sword suspended from a thin thread.
Let鈥檚 cover the good bit first, the thing that keeps me going. I鈥檓 in love with physics. It wasn鈥檛 love at first sight, it was a marriage of convenience while I struggled through my undergraduate course. But towards the end of those years I realised how much I would miss studying the universe. Through a series of unplanned lucky breaks I now get to study how the cosmos operates, working with a combination of supercomputers and good old-fashioned pencil-and-paper equations. It鈥檚 genuinely fun.
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Except for when it鈥檚 not. You often meet failure, and you have to bounce back fast. That鈥檚 when the love gets tested. If you are committed enough to get beyond that, a university job offers astounding levels of freedom. You can, usually, work on exactly what you want. There鈥檚 no such thing as office hours; you can take time off when it鈥檚 needed. Other sectors rarely offer that luxury.
Yet ill-defined working hours lead to their own pressures. There鈥檚 no question of paid overtime. You can work weekends if you like. And who needs a holiday? You can go to that conference instead. Every hour you spend away from work, someone else is beating you to the crucial next discovery, notching up a few more CV points, edging in front of you for the next job.
Which brings me to the central problem. It鈥檚 rare for young researchers to have a contract longer than three years. I have two years left in my current position, after which I am expected to find a job at another institution. That is the sword of Damocles hanging over us all. It pressures us into an unhealthy devotion to work, chasing publications and that next opening.
What this means in practice is that the people best placed to enjoy science are those who can see possibilities beyond it. If you can imagine a life after science, if it doesn鈥檛 matter that you may eventually move on to other things, you can make more considered choices and the pressure becomes tolerable.
I don鈥檛 know whether I鈥檒l be able to continue indefinitely in this career. Most do not. My approach is to get on with enjoying the time I have and not worry too much about the future. Because, despite the sword, working in science feels like the best job there is.
The industry scientist
Who: Liz Hardaker, 32
What: Pharmacologist
Where: Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, Horsham
I head up a lab of five scientists working on lung disease. Approximately half my time is spent in the lab, doing everything from carrying out fiddly analytical techniques that require a lot of skill, to tidying up the lab, which just requires patience. I鈥檓 also expected to discuss the meaning of any data we generate with my colleagues and management team, and negotiate the future direction of our research.
It was during a stint of contract research that I took on while doing my postdoc that I realised that the part of research I enjoyed most was identifying drugs that could be used to treat disease. Although you can do early-stage drug discovery at a university, the infrastructure and money simply isn鈥檛 there to see a new drug all the way through the process. So I began looking for a postdoc or job vacancies in industry. I applied for a lab head position at Novartis and was elated when I got it. In the five years since, I鈥檝e had two promotions, with appropriate pay rises. This has brought my salary over the average for scientists working in industry. I鈥檓 on a permanent contract which means I can focus on my work rather than having one eye on what I鈥檓 going to do next.
My job has given me the opportunity to work on multiple projects at various stages of the drug development process, so I鈥檓 continually learning and interacting with people from a variety of disciplines. I can鈥檛 remember ever feeling bored. One of the advantages of working for a large pharmaceutical firm is that my collaborators can be based all around the world and I鈥檝e had the chance to visit a number of other Novartis sites to meet them.
The hardest part of my job is ensuring that the members of my team get the opportunities they want and are able to progress with their own careers. There have been some sleepless nights when I鈥檝e realised that members of my team are unhappy and I鈥檝e had to find ways to help them. When I manage to resolve the issue, though, there鈥檚 a real sense of satisfaction.
As part of my job I鈥檓 expected to publish my data and I鈥檝e presented at a number of international conferences. This aspect of my work means that I could, in theory, return to academia, but I feel that the breadth of opportunities I get at Novartis couldn鈥檛 be matched there. Plus, I really value the benefits being at a large company brings, such as flexi-time, healthcare insurance and a performance-related bonus. After all, we all appreciate feeling recognised.
The government scientist
Who: Alastair Graham, 31
What: Earth scientist
Where: British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge
For some, the decision to follow an academic route within a government research institute is a tough one: many of my fellow earth science graduates secured high-flying, well-paid jobs in the petroleum industry before their studies were even complete. For me, though, the lure of the cold, a desire to explore the unknown, and a thirst for anything muddy and icy outweighed any yearning to go and seek my fortune in the commercial sector. So being an earth scientist at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), specialising in the history of glaciers and ice sheets at the poles, suits me pretty well.
There is also a common perception in academia that one 鈥渟ells one鈥檚 soul鈥� to join the oil industry. With many friends working for oil companies, I know this is not really true, but at the same time my ambition had always been slightly different to theirs: to better understand the planet we live on, rather than exploit its resources. I found this to be a common motivation amongst BAS scientists, and it鈥檚 one of the reasons why I continue to enjoy my job.
It would of course be possible for me to change my direction, and take a side-step into university life 鈥� or one giant leap into industry. In many ways, the scientist in each is no different. Day-to-day, we apply the same techniques and methods of analysis to geological samples and geophysical data sets to improve our knowledge of Earth鈥檚 history. The only real difference is perhaps our end goal. The target of my work is to address some of the key challenges facing the environment today, whereas my counterparts in industry take a more applied approach with a clear end-product for their company. We also manage to forego many of the teaching duties of our peers in university.
Having said that, the industry or university roads are certainly appealing from a job-security point of view. In the current times of austerity, public-sector science is feeling the pinch, and the lingering uncertainty that further changes are on the way is something that occasionally keeps me awake at night.
My salary, although about average for a government researcher, also falls well below that of other specialists in my field, so a shift to university work is tempting. However, the chance to focus purely on the research I love, the opportunity to work in some of the most remote and extreme parts of the world, alongside a mix of talented scientists from a range of disciplines, are all benefits of the research-centric life that I鈥檇 not give up lightly. Sure, we work hard, and don鈥檛 get paid as well as those in equivalent posts in other sectors, but I don鈥檛 think any of us are in it for the money.