PhDs in questions
George Whitesides from Harvard University and John Deutch from MIT initiated the debate in a Comment published in the first 2011 issue of the journal Nature. In an issue mostly dedicated to chemistry (remember, 2011 is International Year of Chemistry), they advocate several changes chemical research in universities should undergo in order to “solve big global problems and advance fundamental understanding”. Of particular interest for PhD students – and to a broader extent, for their supervisors – they outline the ‘ideal’, 21st-century doctoral candidate: He/she must be cross-disciplinary, educated not only in a narrow speciality but more globally in a whole domain (catalysis, materials, energy, etc.) and in non-scientific fields such as economics and corporate finance, in order to be more fit for post-graduation challenges. Here, it is necessary to mention that chemistry is somewhat particular in the sense that a large fraction of people engaging in doctoral studies do not plan to pursue academic careers – contrary to most scientific/technical fields. Chemistry-related industries are known not to be satisfied with only BSc’s or MSc’s but to require PhDs to populate their research labs.
After this first charge against conservative academic research came the second strike, still in Nature, in the form of a whole issue (!) entitled “The future of the PhD”. This time it is not about chemistry only, but about the PhD system as a whole. A series of articles (“Education: the PhD factory”, “Education: rethinking PhDs”) and opinions (“Reform the PhD system or close it down”, “What is a PhD really worth?”, “Fix the PhD”) highlight the qualities and defaults of PhDs – and raise numerous hot debates among readers. Essentially, there are more PhD students and more doctoral programmes than ever, and not enough academic positions for all these graduates – in most fields, the only jobs PhD students have ever been trained for. Consequently, hosts of PhDs will have to spend 5 or 10 tiresome years in ill-paid postdocs (waiting for an hypothetical academic position) or go to work in industry, but won’t be prepared for that: too specialized, not having the required ‘real-world’ experience, too expensive, etc. None of these perspectives seems appealing, particularly when speaking of people who spent years and significant amounts of (taxpayers’) money to achieve the highest levels of education.
There is probably no ready-made solution to these questions, but they must be of direct concern to the research world – particularly, to PhD students and recent graduates: they must be aware of the opportunities – or lack of them – that await them in the ‘post-doctorate’ (in the literal sense) world, and of what it takes to be more attractive for a future career: broad field of knowledge, soft skills and profesionnal education.
