[munin]

It’s not as common but the incentive structures in academia are uniquely enabling to abusers. In industry it’s much easier to leave tyrant bosses. I agree with your points.

Many of the positive incentives don’t exist in industry though, an “up and out” culture is rarer in industry. When it works in academia your supervisor is positively invested in your growth, in general in industry your supervisor doesn’t care about your growth. If they need someone with new skills and you learn them fine but they can also fire you and hire someone with those skills (even though this is probably a net negative for them due to retraining on job specific stuff, it’s still seen as a net positive by management)

There is less abuse though. Full stop. Sorry you’re in this situation.

[acdha]

> In industry it’s much easier to leave tyrant bosses.

… and when that’s less true, you see the same dynamic. Most of the bad stories I’ve heard involve H1-B holders who couldn’t leave, locations where there wasn’t much other tech employment, or specialized skills which were only in demand by a handful of local employers (e.g. being a veteran COBOL employer in SV will not give you an edge for most of the open jobs). Academia is just unique in having enshrined that dynamic for almost everyone: the job market is brutal and an abusive or careless advisor’s support for finishing and finding jobs has a huge impact.

I’m not an academic but have spent a fair amount of time being the only person in the room who isn’t a grad student or have a PhD and there’s been a lot of commentary that science would be healthier for having more staff scientist positions in larger groups, both to reduce the degree that many careers depend on one person’s decisions and simply to recognize that there’s a huge mismatch between the number of people needed on many projects and tenure track positions available. Everyone I know who left for industry is happier but that’s skewed by most of them having had the skills to go into data science & ML and thus significant income multipliers.

[munin]

Oh not to worry, academia innovated on this concept too and for non-US citizens advisors can simultaneously hold both a students F-1 visa and their career future over them.

Your points are valid though.

> science would be healthier for having more staff scientist positions in larger groups

I think this is a good idea but not for these reasons. Big labs frequently do have research scientist type roles but those roles are harder to fund so it is sort of a "rich get richer" deal. As I understand it, just cast your eyes around in a university and ask "who pays for that." Professors are paid for by the students they teach and the grant money they bring in. A research scientist might not have either so why would the university commit to paying for them perpetually and how would they afford that?

They could commit to funding some number of research scientists at the expense of some well paid administrators (gasp) but I think this only adds a constant factor of slack to the system, and those research scientist jobs would quickly become as competitive and cut throat to get as TT prof jobs, perhaps more so because many TT profs really don't want to teach or do service work so if you gave them a role that was just research but with the job permanence and freedom of a TT position they would kill for it.

[mattkrause]

It's not that complicated.

PhD students in the sciences rarely pay for the professors; instead, students are often funded by the professors' grants. Research scientists could be funded the same way with a few (easy) changes.

1. Research grants are too small. The modular budget for an R01, the workhorse grant of biomedicine, just about covers a PI + staff scientist salary, with very little money left over for the actual research. Make it a bit bigger--it hasn't been inflation-adjusted since 2004(?). This might cost a bit, but we spend something like a penny per tax dollar on all research, even though it has a HUGE multiplier effect.

2. Expand the funding mechanisms. Students and postdocs are attractive not just because they're cheap, but because you might not need to pay them at all: there are myriad funding opportunities in addition to a project grant, ranging from individual fellowships to department/program-wide training grants. In contrast, there's ONE mechanism for funding staff scientists, the R50, only one of the NIH's institutes participates, and it fund ~28 people/year. Divert some money from training grants to this, which could be cost-neutral (grad students are surprisingly expensive when the grant pays their tuition).

I think this would have several beneficial effects: better science, but also a saner job market, which in turn would have knock-on benefits on trainees' success and morale (there is pretty clear data on this) as well as DEI.

[sokoloff]

Acronym expansion: TT is “tenure track” (I had to google it)

[Rapzid]

> In industry it’s much easier to leave tyrant bosses.

Well, there is a lot of industry we collectively turn a blind eye to.

Meat packing facility jobs is a hot topic right now due to stories about COVID conditions. The workers in the facilities are treated like the human equivalent of the livestock they process. But the employer is often the "only game in town" for those workers. Even if it's not impossible for them to leave they may be practically stuck and this is reflected in their treatment.

[munin]

I appreciate this but in the context of this discussion when a PhD asks “is it better in industry” they do not mean going to work at a meat packing plant.

Your larger point is true though and it would be great for there to be equity and dignity for all people of all professions!

[Rapzid]

I tend to agree that's a somewhat safe bet and it gave me pause making this comment.

However "industry" has not been thoroughly qualified and it has been used throughout the comments in a very general way.. Plus, I'm sure Tyson Foods employs some PhDs among its 141,000 workers :)

[pts_]

Brain on a stick is still livestock.