Nature Magazin 04.21 PhD

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The system of PhD education in the United States and manyother countries is broken and unsustainable, and needs to bereconceived. In many fields, it creates only a cruel fantasy of

future employment that promotes the self-interest of faculty membersat the expense of students. The reality is that there are very few jobs for

people who might have spent up to 12 years on their degrees.Most doctoral-education programmes conform to a model defined inEuropean universities during the Middle Ages, in which education is aprocess of cloning that trains students to do what their mentors do. Theclones now vastly outnumber their mentors. The academic job marketcollapsed in the 1970s, yet universities have not adjusted their admis-sions policies, because they need graduate students to work in labora-tories and as teaching assistants. But once those students finish theireducation, there are no academic jobs for them.

Universities face growing financial challenges.Most in the United States, for example, have notrecovered from losses incurred on investmentsduring the financial fiasco of 2008, and they prob-ably never will. State and federal support is alsocollapsing, so institutions cannot afford to supportas many programmes. There could be an upside tothese unfortunate developments: growing compe-tition for dwindling public and private resourcesmight force universities to change their approachto PhD education, even if they do not want to.

There are two responsible courses of action:either radically reform doctoral programmes orshut them down.

The necessary changes are both curricularand institutional. One reason that many doctoralprogrammes do not adequately serve studentsis that they are overly specialized, with curricula fragmented andincreasingly irrelevant to the world beyond academia. Expertise, ofcourse, is essential to the advancement of knowledge and to society.

But in far too many cases, specialization has led to areas of researchso narrow that they are of interest only to other people working in thesame fields, subfields or sub-subfields. Many researchers struggle totalk to colleagues in the same department, and communication acrossdepartments and disciplines can be impossible.

If doctoral education is to remain viable in the twenty-first century,universities must tear down the walls that separate fields, and establishprogrammes that nourish cross-disciplinary investigation and com-munication. They must design curricula that focus on solving practicalproblems, such as providing clean water to a growing population. Unfor-tunately, significant change is unlikely to comefrom faculty members, who all too often remaincommitted to traditional approaches. Students,administrators, trustees and even people from the

public and private sectors must create pressure for

reform. It is important to realize that problems will never be solved aslong as each institution continues to act independently. The difficultiesare systemic and must be addressed comprehensively and cooperatively.Prestige is measured both within and beyond institutions by the num-ber and purported strength of a departments doctoral programmes, so,

seeking competitive advantage and financial gain from alliances withthe private sector, universities continue to create them. As is detailed onpage 276, that has led most fields to produce too many PhDs for too long.

The solution is to eliminate programmes that are inadequate orredundant. The difficult decisions should be made by administrators,in consultation with faculty members at their own and other univer-sities, as well as interested, informed and responsible representativesbeyond the academic community who have a vested interest in effective

doctoral education. To facilitate change, universi-ties should move away from excessive competitionfuelled by pernicious rating systems, and developstructures and procedures that foster cooperation.This would enable them to share faculty members,students and resources, and to efficiently increaseeducational opportunities. Institutions wouldntneed a department in every field, and could out-source some subjects. Teleconferencing and theInternet mean that cooperation is no longer lim-ited by physical proximity.

Consortia could contain a core faculty drawnfrom the home department, and a rotating groupof faculty members from other institutions. Thiswould reduce both the number of graduate pro-grammes and the number of faculty members.Students would have access to more academicstaff with more diverse expertise in a wider range

of fields and subfields. Faculty members will resist, but financial reali-ties make a reduced number of posts inevitable.

Higher education in the United States has long been the envy of the

world, but that is changing. The technologies that have transformedfinancial markets and the publishing, news and entertainment indus-tries are now disrupting the education system. In the coming years,growing global competition for the multibillion-dollar education mar-ket will increase the pressure on US universities, just when public andprivate funding is decreasing. Although significant change is necessaryat every level of higher education, it must start at the top, with totalreform of PhD programmes in almost every field. The future of ourchildren, our country and, indeed, the world depends on how well wemeet this challenge.

Mark C. Taylor is chair of the department of religion at ColumbiaUniversity in New York and the author ofCrisis on Campus: A BoldPlan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities (Knopf, 2010).

e-mail: [email protected]

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Comment on the

future of the PhD:

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MOST

DOCTORAL

PROGRAMMESCONFORM TO A

MODEL DEFINED

IN THE

MIDDLE AGES.

Reform the PhD system orclose it downThere are too many doctoral programmes, producing too many PhDs for the

job market. Shut some and change the rest, saysMark C. Taylor.

R.

HOWARD

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WORLD VIEW A personal take on events

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S

cientists who attain a PhD are rightlyproud they have gained entry toan academic elite. But it is not as eliteas it once was. The number of sciencedoctorates earned each year grew bynearly 40% between 1998 and 2008,

to some 34,000, in countries that are membersof the Organisation for Economic Co-opera-tion and Development (OECD). The growthshows no sign of slowing: most countries arebuilding up their higher-education systemsbecause they see educated workers as a keyto economic growth (see The rise of doctor-ates). But in much of the world, science PhDgraduates may never get a chance to take fulladvantage of their qualifications.

In some countries, including the United

States and Japan, people who have trained atgreat length and expense to be researchers con-front a dwindling number of academic jobs, andan industrial sector unable to take up the slack.Supply has outstripped demand and, althoughfew PhD holders end up unemployed, it is notclear that spending years securing this high-level qualification is worth it for a job as, forexample, a high-school teacher. In other coun-tries, such as China and India, the economiesare developing fast enough to use all the PhDsthey can crank out, and more but the qualityof the graduates is not consistent. Only a fewnations, including Germany, are successfully

tackling the problem by redefining the PhD as

training for high-level positions in careers out-side academia. Here,Nature examines graduate-education systems in various states of health.

JAPAN: A SYSTEM IN CRISIS

Of all the countries in which to graduate with ascience PhD, Japan is arguably one of the worst.In the 1990s, the government set a policy totriple the number of postdocs to 10,000, andstepped up PhD recruitment to meet that goal.The policy was meant to bring Japans science

capacity up to match that of the West butis now much criticized because, although itquickly succeeded, it gave little thought towhere all those postdocs were going to end up.

Academia doesnt want them: the numberof 18-year-olds entering higher education hasbeen dropping, so universities dont need thestaff. Neither does Japanese industry, which hastraditionally preferred young, fresh bachelorsgraduates who can be trained on the job. Thescience and education ministry couldnt evensell them off when, in 2009, it started offeringcompanies around 4 million (US$47,000)

each to take on some of the countrys 18,000

unemployed postdoctoral students (one ofseveral initiatives that have been introducedto improve the situation). Its just hard to finda match between postdoc and company, saysKoichi Kitazawa, the head of the Japan Scienceand Technology Agency.

This means there are few jobs for the currentcrop of PhDs. Of the 1,350 people awardeddoctorates in natural sciences in 2010, just overhalf (746) had full-time posts lined up by thetime they graduated. But only 162 were in theacademic sciences or technological services,; ofthe rest, 250 took industry positions, 256 wentinto education and 38 got government jobs.

With such dismal prospects, the numberentering PhD programmes has dropped off(see Patterns of PhD production). Everyone

tends to look at the future of the PhD labourmarket very pessimistically, says KobayashiShinichi, a specialist in science and technol-ogy workforce issues at the Research Centerfor University Studies at Tsukuba University.

CHINA: QUANTITY OUTWEIGHS QUALITY?

The number of PhD holders in China is goingthrough the roof, with some 50,000 peoplegraduating with doctorates across all disci-plines in 2009 and by some counts it nowsurpasses all other countries. The main prob-lem is the low quality of many graduates.

Yongdi Zhou, a cognitive neuroscientist at

the East China Normal University in Shanghai,

THE PHD FACTORYThe world is producing morePhDs than ever before.Is it time to stop?

EVERYONE TENDS TO LOOK AT

THE FUTURE OF THE PHD LABOUR

MARKET VERY PESSIMISTICALLY.

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identifies four contributing factors. Thelength of PhD training, at three years, is tooshort, many PhD supervisors are not wellqualified, the system lacks quality control andthere is no clear mechanism for weeding outpoor students.

Even so, most Chinese PhD holders canfind a job at home: Chinas booming economy

and capacity building has absorbed them intothe workforce. Relatively speaking, it is alot easier to find a position in academia inChina compared with the United States, saysYigong Shi, a structural biologist at TsinghuaUniversity in Beijing, and the same is true inindustry. But PhD graduates can run intoproblems if they want to enter internation-ally competitive academia. To get a covetedpost at a top university or research institutionrequires training, such as a postdoctoral posi-tion, in another country. Many researchersdo not return to China, draining away thecream of the countrys crop.

The quality issue should be helped byChinas efforts to recruit more scholarsfrom abroad. Shi says that more institu-tions are now starting to introduce thesiscommittees and rotations, which willmake students less dependent on a singlesupervisor in a hierarchical system. Majorinitiatives are being implemented in variousgraduate programmes throughout China,he says. China is constantly going throughtransformations.

SINGAPORE: GROWTH IN ALL DIRECTIONS

The picture is much rosier in Singapore.Here, the past few years have seen majorinvestment and expansion in the universitysystem and in science and technology infra-structure, including the foundation of twonew publicly funded universities. This hasattracted students from at home and abroad.Enrolment of Singaporean nationals in PhDprogrammes has grown by 60% over the pastfive years, to 789 in all disciplines and thecountry has actively recruited foreign gradu-ate students from China, India, Iran, Turkey,eastern Europe and farther afield.

Because the university system in Singa-pore has been underdeveloped until now,

most PhD holders go to work outside aca-demia, but continued expansion of theuniversities could create more opportuni-ties. Not all end up earning a living fromwhat they have been trained in, says PeterNg, who studies biodiversity at the NationalUniversity of Singapore. Some have verydifferent jobs from teachers to bankers.

But they all get a good job. A PhD can belucrative, says Ng, with a graduate earningat least S$4,000 (US$3,174) a month, com-pared with the S$3,000 a month earned by astudent with a good undergraduate degree.

I see a PhD not just as the mastery of adiscipline, but also training of the mind,says Ng. If they later practise what they havemastered excellent otherwise, they cantake their skill sets into a new domain andadd value to it.

UNITED STATES: SUPPLY VERSUS DEMAND

To Paula Stephan, an economist at Georgia

State University in Atlanta who studies PhDtrends, it is scandalous that US politicianscontinue to speak of a PhD shortage. TheUnited States is second only to China inawarding science doctorates it producedan estimated 19,733 in the life sciences andphysical sciences in 2009 and productionis going up. But Stephan says that no oneshould applaud this trend, unless Congresswants to put money into creating jobs forthese people rather than just creating supply.

The proportion of people with sciencePhDs who get tenured academic positionsin the sciences has been dropping steadilyand industry has not fully absorbed theslack. The problem is most acute in the lifesciences, in which the pace of PhD growthis biggest, yet pharmaceutical and biotech-nology industries have been drasticallydownsizing in recent years. In 1973, 55%of US doctorates in the biological sciencessecured tenure-track positions within sixyears of completing their PhDs, and only2% were in a postdoc or other untenuredacademic position. By 2006, only 15% werein tenured positions six years after graduat-ing, with 18% untenured (see What shallwe do about all the PhDs?). Figures suggest

JAPAN AUSTRALIA POLAND UNITED

KINGDOM

UNITED

STATES

CANADAGERMANY HUNGARY

MEXICOCHINA KOREAINDIADENMARK

17.1%

40%

7.1%8.5%10%

6.2% 6.2% 6.1% 5.2%2.5% 1% 0% 2.2%

e rise of doctoratesMajor expansion of higher education has boosted PhD output in many countries, shown hereas average annual growth of doctoral degrees across all disciplines, 19982006.

India hopes to

dramatically increase

PhDs by 2020.

Expansion of the higher-

education system after the

fall of Communism has

led to growth.

Patterns of PhD production

1990 92 94 96 98 00 02 04 06 08

CHINA

GERMANY

49,698

16,296

16,606

25,604

50

60

40

30

20

10

0

98 99 0 0 01 02 0 3 04 05 06 0 7 08

98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08

98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08

30

20

10

0

Rate of productionstagnating incomparison withcompetitors.

UNITED KINGDOM

Trends in annual PhD graduation across all disciplines.All gures given in thousands of PhDs.

5

0

10

15

20 JAPAN

0

5

10

15

20

By some counts, China has

overtaken the United Statesto become the worldsbiggest producer of PhDs.

A policy to increase PhDsin science has not beenmatched by jobs, leadingto a slowdown.

Growth has been fuelled byoverseas doctoral students;recent cost-cutting hasslowed growth.

SOURCE:OECD/CHINESEMINISTRYOFEDUCATION

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that more doctorates are taking jobs that donot require a PhD. Its a waste of resources,says Stephan. Were spending a lot of money

training these students and then they go outand get jobs that theyre not well matched for.The poor job market has discouraged

some potential students from embarking onscience PhDs, says Hal Salzman, a professorof public policy at Rutgers University in NewBrunswick, New Jersey. Nevertheless, produc-tion of US doctorates continues apace, fuelledby an influx of foreign students. Academicresearch was sti ll the top career choice in a2010 survey of 30,000 science and engineer-ing PhD students and postdocs, says HenrySauermann, who studies strategic manage-ment at the Georgia Institute of Technologyin Atlanta. Many PhD courses train studentsspecifically for that goal. Half of all scienceand engineering PhD recipients graduatingin 2007 had spent over seven years workingon their degrees, and more than one-third ofcandidates never finish at all.

Some universities are now experimentingwith PhD programmes that better preparegraduate students for careers outside academia(see page 280). Anne Carpenter, a cellular biolo-gist at the Broad Institute of the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology (MIT) and HarvardUniversity in Cambridge, Massachusetts, istrying to create jobs for existing PhD holders,while discouraging new ones. When she set up

her lab four years ago, Carpenter hired expe-rienced staff scientists on permanent contractsinstead of the usual mix of temporary postdocsand graduate students. The whole pyramidscheme of science made little sense to me, saysCarpenter. I couldnt in good conscience churnout a hundred graduate students and postdocsin my career.

But Carpenter has struggled to justify thecost of her staff to grant-review panels. How doI compete with labora-tories that hire postdocsfor $40,000 instead of a

scientist for $80,000?

she asks. Although she remains committed toher ideals, she says that she will be more opento hiring postdocs in the future.

GERMANY: THE PROGRESSIVE PHD

Germany is Europes biggest producer ofdoctoral graduates, turning out some 7,000science PhDs in 2005. After a major redesignof its doctoral education programmes over thepast 20 years, the country is also well on its wayto solving the oversupply problem.

Traditionally, supervisors recruited PhDstudents informally and trained them to fol-low in their academic footsteps, with littleoversight from the university or research insti-tution. But as in the rest of Europe, the numberof academic positions available to graduates inGermany has remained stable or fallen. Sothese days, a PhD in Germany is often mar-keted as advanced training not only for aca-

demia a career path pursued by the best ofthe best but also for the wider workforce.

Universities now play a more formal role

in student recruitment and development, andmany students follow structured courses outsidethe lab, including classes in presenting, reportwriting and other transferable skills. Just under6% of PhD graduates in science eventually gointo full-time academic positions, and most willfind research jobs in industry, says ThorstenWilhelmy, who studies doctoral education forthe German Council of Science and Humani-ties in Cologne. The long way to professorshipin Germany and the relatively low income ofGerman academic staff makes leaving the uni-versity after the PhD a good option, he says.

Thomas Jrgensen, who heads a programme

to support and develop doctoral education for

the European University Association, basedin Brussels, is concerned that German institu-tions could push reforms too far, leaving stu-

dents spending so long in classes that they lacktime to do research for their thesis and developcritical-thinking skills. The number of Ger-man doctorates has stagnated over the pasttwo decades, and Jrgensen worries about thisat a time when PhD production is growing inChina, India and other increasingly powerfuleconomies.

POLAND: EXPANSION AT A COST

Growth in PhD numbers among Europes oldguard might be waning, but some of the formerEastern bloc countries, such as Poland, haveseen dramatic increases. In 199091, Polishinstitutions enrolled 2,695 PhD students. Thisfigure rose to more than 32,000 in 200809as the Polish government, trying to expandthe higher-education system after the fall ofCommunism, introduced policies to rewardinstitutions for enrolling doctoral candidates.

Despite the growth, there are problems.A dearth of funding for doctoral studies causeshigh drop-out rates, says Andrzej Kraniewski,a researcher at Warsaw University of Technol-ogy and secretary-general of the Polish RectorsConference, an association representing Polishuniversities. In engineering, more than half ofstudents will not complete their PhDs, he says.The countrys economic growth has not kept

pace with that of its PhD numbers, so peoplewith doctorates can end up taking jobs belowtheir level of expertise. And Poland needs tocollect data showing that PhDs from its insti-tutions across the country are of consistentquality, and are comparable with the rest ofEurope, says Kraniewski.

Still, in Poland as in most countries,unemployment for PhD holders is below 3%.Employment prospects for holders of doc-torates remain better than for other higher-education graduates, says Laudeline Auriol,author of an OECD report on doctorateholders between 1990 and 2006, who is now

analysing doctoral-student data up to 2010.

Medical and life sciences

Biological sciences

0

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

Physical sciences

Social sciences

PHDS AWARDED TIME TO COMPLETION EMPLOYMENT OF DOCTORATES

1993 95 97 99 01 03 05 07

0

2

4

6

8

10

Biological sciences

Earth, atmosphericand ocean sciences

Full-time tenured or tenure-track

Physical sciences

United States: What shall we do about all the PhDs?

83 87 91 95 99 03 071979 1981 85 89 93 97 01 05

10

20

30

40

50

%

Years

NumberofPhDs

Postdoc

Full-time nontenured nonfaculty

Part time

The annual number of science and engineering doctorates graduating from US universities rose to almost 41,000 in 2007 (left), with thebiggest growth in medical and life sciences. It took a median of 7.2 years to complete a science or engineering PhD (middle) yet theproportion nding full time academic jobs within 13 years of graduating is dwindling (right).

THE RELATIVELY LOW INCOME OF

GERMAN ACADEMIC STAFF MAKES

LEAVING THE UNIVERSITY AFTER

THE PHD A GOOD OPTION.

SOURCE:SCIENC

EAND

ECONOMICINDICATORS2010

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Still, a survey of scientists byNature last yearshowed that PhD holders were not alwaysmore satisfied with their jobs than those with-out the degree, nor were they earning sub-stantially more (see Whats a PhD worth?).

EGYPT: STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE

Egypt is the Middle Easts powerhouse for

doctoral studies. In 2009, the country hadabout 35,000 students enrolled in doctoralprogrammes, up from 17,663 in 1998. But fund-ing has not kept up with demand. The major-ity comes through university budgets, whichare already strained by the large enrolment ofstudents in undergraduate programmes andpostgraduate studies other than PhDs. Universi-ties have started turning to international fundingand collaborations with the private sector, butthis source of funding remains very limited.

The deficit translates into shortages in equip-ment and materials, a lack of qualified teachingstaff and poor compensation for researchers. It

also means that more of the funding burden isfalling on the students. The squeeze takes a tollon the quality of research, and creates tensionbetween students and supervisors. The PhDstudent here in Egypt faces numerous prob-lems, says Mounir Hana, a food scientist andPhD supervisor at Minia University, who saysthat he tries to help solve them. Unfortunately,many supervisors do not bother, and end upadding one more hurdle in the students way.

Graduates face a tough slog. As elsewhere,there are many more PhD holders in Egyptthan the universities can employ as researchersand academics. The doctorate is frequently ameans of climbing the civil-service hierarchy,but those in the private sector often complainthat graduates are untrained in the practicalskills they need, such as proposal writing andproject management. Egyptian PhD holdersalso struggle to secure international researchpositions. Hana calls the overall quality oftheir research papers mediocre and saysthat pursuing a PhD is worthless except forthose already working in a university. But thepolitical upheaval in the region this year couldbring about change: many academics who hadleft Egypt are returning, hoping to help rebuildand overhaul education and research.

Few PhDs are trained elsewhere in the

Middle East less than 50 a year in Lebanon,for example. But several world-class universi-ties established in the oil-rich Gulf States inrecent years have increased demand for PhDholders. So far, most of the researchers havebeen imported after receiving their degreesfrom Western universities, but Saudi Arabiaand Qatar in particular have been building uptheir infrastructure to start offering more PhDprogrammes themselves. The effect will be feltthroughout the region, says Fatma Hammad,an endocrinologist and PhD supervisor atAl-Azhar University in Cairo. Many graduatesare now turning to doctoral studies because

there is a large demand in the Gulf States. For

them, it is a way to land jobs there and increasetheir income, she says.

INDIA: PHDS WANTED

In 2004, India produced around 5,900 sci-ence, technology and engineering PhDs, a fig-ure that has now grown to some 8,900 a year.This is still a fraction of the number fromChina and the United States, and the coun-try wants many more, to match the explosivegrowth of its economy and population. Thegovernment is making major investments in

research and higher education includinga one-third increase in the higher-educationbudget in 201112 and is trying to attractinvestment from foreign universities. Thehope is that up to 20,000 PhDs will gradu-ate each year by 2020, says ThirumalachariRamasami, the Indian governments head ofscience and technology.

Those targets ought to be easy to reach:Indias population is young, and undergraduateeducation is booming (seeNature472, 2426;2011). But there is little incentive to continueinto a lengthy PhD programme, and onlyaround 1% of undergraduates currently do so.

Most are intent on securing jobs in industry,

which require only an undergraduate degreeand are much more lucrative than the public-sector academic and research jobs that needpostgraduate education. Students dont thinkof PhDs now, not even masters a bachelorsis good enough to get a job, says Amit Patra, anengineer at the Indian Institute of Technologyin Kharagpur.

Even after a PhD, there are few academicopportunities in India, and better-paid indus-try jobs are the major draw. There is a shortageof PhDs and we have to compete with industry

for that resource the universities have verylittle chance of winning that game, says Patra.For many young people intent on postgraduateeducation, the goal is frequently to go to theUnited States or Europe. That was the coursechosen by Manu Prakash, who went to MIT forhis PhD and now runs his own experimentalbiophysics lab at Stanford University in Califor-nia. When I went through the system in India,the platform for doing long-term research Ididnt feel was well-supported, he says.

Reporting by David Cyranoski, NatashaGilbert, Heidi Ledford, Anjali Nayar and

Mohammed Yahia.

Location

Workingconditions

Opportunitiesto advance

Intellectualchallenge

Level ofresponsibility

Degree ofindependence

Contribution

to society

35

40

30

25

20

15

10

5

People with a PhDarent much happier

WITHOUT A PHDWITH A PHD

SCALE OF DISSATISFACTION

Whats a PhD worth?

0

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

50,000

60,000

70,000

Asia Europe United States

Salary

Benets

Number satised with theirjob 610 years after

achieving their highestqualication.

they gripe about benefits,

but like the intellectual challenge

and most arent much richer.

SatisedSatised NeutralNeutral

Not Not

PhDs

Salary(US$)

Average salary 610 years after achievinghighest qualication.

Non-PhDs

Job security

Social status

Percentage of doctorate holders dissatisedwith employment situation, by reason

SOURCE:OECD

NATURESALARY&

CAREERSURVEY2010

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RETHINKING PHDSFix it, overhaul it or skip it completely institutionsand individuals are taking innovative approaches to

postgraduate science training.

B Y A L I S O N M C C O O K

Most of them are not going to makeit. That was the thought that ranthrough Animesh Rays mind15 years ago, as he watched excel-lent PhD students including

some at his own institution, the University ofRochester in New York struggle to find fac-ulty positions in academia, the only jobs they

had ever been trained for. Some were destinedfor perpetual postdoctoral fellowships; otherswould leave science altogether.

Within a few years, the associate professorwas in a position to do something about it.A stint in a start-up company in Californiahad convinced him that many PhD graduateswere poor at working in teams and managingshifting goals, the type of skills that industrialemployers demand. So he started to develop aprogramme that would give students at KeckGraduate Institute (KGI) in Claremont, Cali-fornia, these skills. I was determined not tohave to keep watching scientists struggle to

find the jobs they were trained to do.Ray is one of a number of researchers andadministrators who are attempting to reshapegraduate training. They want to save youngscientists from falling into the postdoc hold-ing pattern or taking jobs below their station.Here,Naturepresents five approaches to shak-ing up the hallowed foundations of academia.They range from throwing scientists deep intoindependent study, to going interdisciplinary,to forgoing the PhD altogether.

1

JUMP IN AT THE DEEP ENDFor Michael Lenardo, a molecularimmunologist at the US National Insti-tutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda,Maryland, the thought process went

like this: When too many scientists are look-ing for too few academic positions, PhD pro-grammes need to admit the students mostlikely to succeed, and provide them with allthe skills theyll need. And neither the UnitedStates nor the United Kingdom seemed to begetting the mix exactly right.

In the United Kingdom, PhD students aregiven independence early, and degrees rarelylast more than 4 years. But not all institutionsrequire that students publish a first-author

paper, which Lenardo sees as a drawback. USscience degrees often do require first-authorpapers, but have ballooned to more than 7years in duration.

In 2001, Lenardo created a new degreeprogramme, called the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program, that wouldcombine the best elements of each system fora cadre of truly elite students. It admits just12 of the 250300 applicants per year. Inde-pendence is stressed students devise andwrite their own project plan, begin their the-sis work immediately, and skip the uniformcoursework but they must meet require-

ments such as authoring papers.

ILLUSTRATION

BY:OLIVERMUNDAY

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Students split their time between the UnitedStates and the United Kingdom, and have atleast two mentors, one in each country (andoften in different disciplines). Because noadviser has full control, students learn how tooperate independently, says Lenardo. Travel-ling to another country reinforces that auton-omy, and ensures that the students work with

the best people in their field, he says.In the ten years since the programmesinception, more than 60 students have gradu-ated, taking slightly more than 4 years apiece.They published an average of 2.4 first-authorpapers out of their PhD research. Eighty per-cent of graduates are still in academia, andhalf a dozen are already working as principalinvestigators.

Ambika Bumb, now a postdoc at theNational Cancer Institute in Bethesda, spenther PhD developing a nanoparticle withmagnetic, optical and nuclear properties thatmight one day aid in imaging tumours and

delivering targeted therapies. She finished injust three years, had four advisers in two coun-tries and received training in engineering,immunology, radiochemistry and radiology.She published at least four scientific papersand one review article from her PhD research,and she is now applying for faculty positions.

Developing independence is a crucial stepto becoming an investigator, says RichardHetherington, a postgraduate-skills develop-ment coordinator at Newcastle University,UK. Having that will make them strongerwhen they get to the end, he says. But a lackof structure and core coursework could leavesome students unprepared, says NathanVanderford, who manages a grant and manu-script development office at the University ofKentucky in Lexington, and has written aboutcareer issues in science. I dont see that youdget the depth of the history [of science], andthe central core principles, strictly in a lab set-ting. Some students may struggle.

2FORGET ACADEMIARays experiences encouraged him tothink more about non-academic train-ing for PhDs. Many institutes, includingKGI, had already embraced Profes-

sional Science Masters (PSM) programmes asa way to stock the ranks of industry and keeptraining scientists, but Ray found that thesedegrees could limit students opportunities.

He watched as graduates of KGIs Mastersof Bioscience often started as an assistant toa consultant, or a mid-level manager, thenadvanced from there. They did well, but typi-cally remained in the management side of acompany, separate from the science. So Rayworked with David Galas, a KGI co-founder,and Sheldon Schuster, the institutes presi-dent, to extend the PSMs reach and develop aPhD programme that would provide students

with both industry know-how and technical

research training.To complete a PhD in Applied Life Sci-

ences at KGI, students must f irst completethe masters course there, then spend three tofour more years doing original research, withat least one adviser from industry. Eric Tan,the first graduate of the programme, spent hisPhD at KGI developing a DNA chip that might

have applications in diagnostics or assessingbiological threats. He learned not only thescientific method, but also how to write abusiness plan and present it to venture capi-talists, how to carry out market research and

the ins and outs of patent legislation.

Courses in marketing and communicationare useful for any scientist, even those whostay in academia, says Vanderford. Regard-less of the career path a PhD would take,having those courses would be helpful.

Time will tell if it is working. Ray is inspiredby the success of KGIs PSM programme,which has seen nearly all of its 300 graduatesfind jobs since it started in 2000. Since thePhD programme began in 2006, three studentshave earned their degrees, and each has founda job earning more than the median startingsalary for the PSM students (US$73,000). It isa result that Ray calls astounding.

Ray says he hopes that the rounded train-ing will give his students the ability to managescientists and interact with business people.They can see and appreciate the big picture; atthe same time, they are well-versed in the tech-nological depth for which they will be valued.

But well-rounded students may have somedull edges, and Ray acknowledges that KGIcannot provide coursework in specific areassuch as physical chemistry or cell biology. Itwill be an ongoing process to try to figureout the balance between how much detailedscience courses you need versus how muchprofessional development you need, saysVanderford.

3TRAMPLE THE BOUNDARIES

Marc Jacofsky was working on a PhDin physical anthropology at ArizonaState University (ASU) in Tempe whenhis brother, an orthopaedic surgeon,

told him about all the questions he wanted toinvestigate in movement and artificial joints.Jacofsky remembers interrupting his brotherwith a few suggestions: He looked at me andhe said, I thought you studied monkeys.

Jacofsky did study monkeys but alsoengineering, mathematics, computer science,

kinesiology and neurophysiology. He was

enrolled in a new programme developed byASU faculty members from a wide range ofdepartments, an attempt to go beyond inter-disciplinary studies and instead create entirelynew disciplines.

Nearly every new PhD programme at ASUis designed to be transdisciplinary, saysMaria Allison, dean of the graduate college.

Other examples include Human and SocialDimensions of Science and Technology,Biological Design and Urban Ecology. Somedegrees involve more than 80 faculty mem-bers, because of the range of topics covered.

The initial funding for Jacofskys

programme, called Neural and Musculo-skeletal Adaptations in Form and Function,and some of the other ASU degrees camefrom a National Science Foundation projectknown as IGERT, or Integrative GraduateEducation and Research Traineeship. IGERTprovides US$3-million 5-year grants to USinstitutions to develop programmes that helpstudents to gain career skills and tackle real-world problems.

Since 1998, the IGERT programme hasfunded nearly 5,000 graduate students. Anindependent survey found that IGERT stu-dents are better able than their non-IGERTpeers to work in multidisciplinary teams andto communicate with non-experts, withoutsacrificing expertise in their chosen area.There is even some indication that IGERTgraduates have an easier time finding a job.

Similar interdisciplinary programmes arestarting up elsewhere. The Canadian govern-ment has an initiative called the CollaborativeResearch and Training Experience Program,and a new PhD course in Bangalore, India,trains engineers, chemists, computer scien-tists and physicists in interdisciplinary lifesciences, teaching them to use the tools ofphysical science to tackle biological problems.Started around five years ago by physicists at

the National Centre for Biological Sciences,the Interdisciplinary Biology, or iBIO, pro-gramme has graduated eight students. Twoare already tenure-track faculty members.

It is good to expose trainees to differentfields, but specialization is still important, saysHetherington. The purpose of a PhD is to pro-vide a deep understanding of a specific area.Even cross-disciplinary research consists ofscientists who contribute specific skills fromtheir particular fields, he says.

Broadening the scope of a programmehas advantages, however. It teaches studentsabout their options. Jacofsky had entered

his degree thinking he would one day teach

I WAS DETERMINED NOT TO HAVE TOKEEP WATCHING SCIENTISTS STRUGGLE.

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university-level anthropology. Instead, he isvice-president of research and developmentat the at the Center for Orthopedic Researchand Education, or CORE Institute, in Phoenix,Arizona, co-owned by his brother. Jacofskystudies biomechanics and gait before and afterorthopaedic procedures. If Id done a tradi-tional anthropology degree, I think theres

an incredibly small chance Id be working inindustry.

4GET IT ONLINESome potential postgraduate studentsdo not have the flexibility to committo full-time studies, or to travel to alab. Online training aims to fill this

gap and provide more individuals with appro-priate training, even at the PhD level.

Rana Khan started teaching an onlinecourse initially out of curiosity she didntunderstand how it would work. I was fasci-

nated by the whole idea, she says. How doyou do it?At the time, she was a postdoc at the US

Department of Agriculture, investigating howto make soya beans more resistant to patho-gens. She wanted teaching experience, andsaw a job listing at the University of MarylandUniversity College in Adelphi.

The job was to teach part of an online bio-technology Masters degree. The college hadset up an online classroom, where Khan postsweekly lectures, and students are required tocomplete assignments and participate in dis-cussions throughout the week. At least oncea day, Khan checks in, answering studentsquestions. At the end of the programme, stu-dents do an online internship, in which theydo group projects for real companies inves-tigating, for example, potential competitorswith a new technology and submit 100200page reports. There is no lab component, butthere could be, says Khan, who directs theprogramme, now a PSM: students could sim-ply work at a nearby lab and submit their dataonline, she says.

The colleges programme has been aroundsince 2001 and now graduates approximately50 students a year. Roughly 10% live outsidethe United States. Thats a big advantage of

online degrees, Khan notes some of hercurrent students are members of the military,stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

One graduate is Kyle Retterer, who started aPhD in physics. After realizing he didnt wantto spend years focusing on a narrow area insemiconductors, he abandoned academia.When he began to miss research, he lookedfor programmes that tackled cutting-edgeproblems and let himdo what he had alwaysloved analyse hugeamounts of data.

His mo th e r h a d

completed two online

degrees in information technology and isnow a vice-president at Nasdaq, so he saw thepotential in distance learning. He graduated intwo years, and two months later had a job atGeneDx, a clinical genetic-testing company inGaithersburg, Maryland, analysing data frommulti-gene tests. He now makes three to fourtimes what he was making as a graduate stu-

dent. I feel like Im in pretty good shape.Even a PhD is possible from a distance. TheOpen University, which is headquartered inMilton Keynes, UK, now has about 40 part-time science PhD students. They work locally,conducting research at a local astronomy lab,

for example, then are expected to check inevery two weeks via Skype or sometimesin person with supervisors, usually at theuniversitys main campus. That can be just asrewarding as having a supervisor on-site, saysJames Bruce, who manages the universitys sci-ence PhD students.

Online PhDs are a rarity, but that couldchange, speculates Hetherington. Scienceisnt done in isolation, he says, so degrees inwhich students work alone and simply checkin with a mentor wont teach them about man-aging relationships with mentors and peers.However, future tools could make it easierfor students to interact with others remotely,better preparing them for being collaborativeresearchers, he says. It will become increas-ingly more possible to do it.

5SKIP THE PHDSome are choosing to forgo the PhDaltogether. Deanna Pickett had alwaysexpected to get a PhD, maybe in engi-neering or environmental chemistry.

That changed last year, during her final yearas an undergraduate in chemistry at the Col-lege of Wooster in Ohio. Paul Edmiston, achemistry professor, asked her to help him

investigate the properties of a new materialthat absorbed contamination from drinkingwater. It was real work that had an immediateimpact; she loved it.

So when she later visited a potential gradu-ate school, she was unimpressed. The pros-pect of years of more theoretical work, whenshe was already doing f ield research, wasunappealing. When Stephen Spoonamore,the chief executive and co-founder (alongwith Edmiston) of the company ABSMate-rials in Wooster, asked her to continue herwork after she graduated, she changed herplans. It is just a little more fulfilling next

step of my life than going to do another five

years of research on another topic.Picketts opportunity is unusual, perhaps

more so now than ever before. Academiaand industry have such a rich choice of PhDgraduates for jobs that those without PhDsneed not apply. There is currently an amplesupply of highly skilled people on the market,says David Harwell, assistant director of career

management and development at the Ameri-can Chemical Society in Washington DC. Insome fields, such as bioinformatics, simpleon-the-job training can sometimes suffice,but even then scientists generally need a PhDto advance. Anyone can cite examples of non-

PhD bioinformaticists who have made reallymajor contributions, but few of these peoplehave taken on the full range of responsibilitiestypically reserved for PhD investigators, saysMaynard Olson, a genomics researcher at theUniversity of Washington in Seattle.

ABSMaterials is one of the few exceptions mostly because Spoonamore believes thatPhDs have got the wrong training. Spoon-amore says that he often pays undergraduatesabout the same as PhDs, and promotes themjust as easily. He himself founded 13 technol-ogy companies without finishing an under-graduate degree, the first at the age of 18 withfunding from his lawn-mowing business. Iwill always have a preference for an incred-ibly smart, top-of-their-class undergraduatestudent in chemistry. Every time.

In her second day on the job, Pickett gave apresentation to a group of entrepreneurs, anda week later, had to develop a pilot plan to cleanup a site in Ohio that had been contaminatedwith trichloroethylene. She says she probablydoes many things a PhD graduate would do. Ido feel like Ive skipped a step, she says.

But she knows she might not get as manyresponsibilities if she decided to change com-panies. For this reason her colleague, LauraUnderwood, has decided to pursue a PhD

after working with ABSMaterials for 3 years.Underwood, who has a similar backgroundto Pickett, was the companys first employee,with huge responsibilities running a manu-facturing facility, overseeing conference plan-ning and managing a lab. Without a PhD, shefears it might be hard to find the same kindsof opportunities elsewhere. But shes gladshe worked for a while before going to gradschool. If you go straight into a PhD, some-thing that sounds great in a lab may be kind ofunderwhelming when you get into the field.

Alison McCookis a freelance writer in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

NATURE.COM

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RAYMOND GOSLING

1950s: The ageof formalityEmeritus professor, University of

London

PhD in structural analysis of DNA (Kings

College London, 1954).

Looking back on my PhD at Kings CollegeLondon, I realize that I was fortunate toexperience the feudal process of research ina large department dominated by an enthu-siastic professor, John Randall. Although I,like every other student, had to register for aPhD with Randall, I was free to collaboratewith other senior scientists in the lab.

I worked closely with Maurice Wilkinsand later Rosalind Franklin, under whose

direction I pursued X-ray diffraction

studies of the sodium salt of DNA. One ofthe highlights of my PhD was the now iconicphoto 51, a diffraction photograph I took,which clearly showed the helical structureof the molecule (see image). I will alwaysremember the moment I first saw that beau-tiful double diamond pattern.

Of my two mentors, Maurice was friendly

and determined but very shy. Rosalind had amore combative style and taught me the valueof being a devils advocate, so challenging anddefending our developing ideas. However, Iwas unable to ease the tensions that devel-oped between Maurice and Rosalind.

Randalls biophysics unit was a wonder-fully energetic place to work. However, inthose days relationships between staff andstudents were rather formal. All the menwore ties with their white lab coats, and thesenior common room at Kings was for menonly. However, all the women scientists,including Rosalind, were an integral part of

the labs efforts.

Randall was exceptional because he foundfinancial backing for all the members of hislab. The only other comparable example thatI have experienced is the work at Cold SpringHarbour Laboratory in New York directedby James Watson. These days, students arenot always so fortunate and have to spendtime and energy seeking funding.

My advice to would-be doctoral studentsis to seek out a dynamic, flourishing researchgroup. Do not start until you have agreedwith your supervisor on a beginning, mid-dle and an end to your project. A good PhDoften raises more questions than it solves,so you should not be surprised if your workchanges direction.

The University of Londons advice toexaminers states that PhD students shouldidentify a distinct and new contribution toscience, not just a review of the literature.Since those rather heady days of the 1950s,I have sometimes wondered whether this

always happens. Some will say I was lucky

Seven ages of the PhDScientists share memories of doing doctorates in different decades, disciplines andlocations, from the hunt for the structure of DNA to deciphering the human genome.

ILLUSTRATION

BYOLIVERMUNDAY

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to be in the right place at the right time,and I would agree, but it is also importantto have high standards, something I learnedfrom Randall.

The less formal relationships betweenstudents and professors today probably

improve communications. I have sincedirected the research of many PhD students,and have come to know them all personally,something that was just not possible withRandall. He told me that he didnt want tosee my PhD until it was submitted I cantimagine that happening nowadays.

STEVE W. RUNNING

1970s: The ageof innocenceUniversity of Montana, Missoula

PhD in forest ecology (Colorado State

University, 1979).

I finished my PhD in 1979, just beforepersonal computers arrived. So it was writ-ten on a typewriter, with 53 hand-drawnfigures. The subject of this labour of lovewas inducing water stress on 13 pine treesby cutting their leaves off and measuringdesiccation responses. Looking back now,

Curtis took me on not knowing muchabout me, suggested the project and thenleft it to me to work out the details. Thismeant that my progress was slow andsometimes painful, but also that I learnedfor myself how to set about things andmaster new techniques. Fortunately otherstudents and staff in the department were

encouraging and supportive. One of mymost important practical lessons I learnedthe hard way: you can never record toomuch detail about your experiments. Iwas perplexed because I was suddenly get-ting different results. I later realized thatI had switched to using a different shakerto bring cells together. This changed theresults completely and I hadnt initiallybeen recording which shaker I had used.

Nowadays, PhDs are much more struc-tured. Students are not given as free a reinas I was, nor are they allowed to make asmany mistakes. There is a greater empha-

sis on acquiring data. Students also oftenwork with others rather than alone. Thesedifferences reflect the changes over the past40 years in the way in which research is car-ried out, and its growing pressures.

my PhD research seems highly esoteric. Thework built fundamental understanding ofleaf-scale physiology but had no policyrelevance. The only practical value was inunderstanding why your Christmas treeturns brown. I think how innocent we allwere then, doing weird science and lookingfor cheap beer.

After my PhD I got a tenure-track pro-fessorship at the University of Montanain Missoula, teaching tree biology. I neverimagined being interviewed by nationaljournalists, or getting hate mail from thepublic. As a lead author for the Intergovern-mental Panel on Climate Changes FourthAssessment Report, I have now experiencedboth. What happened? The policy relevanceof my work is to be found at larger scalesthan my 13 trees. For example, it can apply tothe hydrology management of a river basin.So what began as curiosity-driven researchinto water stress on trees evolved into global

analyses of terrestrial carbon sources andsinks. And questions in forest ecology arenow motivated by policy and economics,including carbon credits, carbon offsettingand biofuels.

The modern PhD student needs to bemuch more policy aware, because society hasmany environmental problems to solve, andnot much time. There is a huge need for bet-ter quantification of ecosystem services, andconnecting sustainable ecosystem principleswith slow-growth economics.

Public outreach has become essential.Young faculty members are often devotingtime to blog discussions, work that needs tobe valued better by academia. During myPhD, I had no training in public speaking,yet it may now be the most important thingI do. Above all, I think that this next genera-tion of scientists will have no choice but topursue research aimed at saving the planetfrom catastrophe. I remind my public audi-ences that Earth doesnt need us the cock-roaches will gladly take over if we flame out.

CHERYLL TICKLE

1960s: The age ofindependenceEmeritus professor, University ofBath, UK

PhD in cell biology (University of Glasgow,

1970).

As an undergraduate, I became fascinatedby the arrangement of cells and how it iskey to understanding embryology andtissue biology. So I applied to do a PhD withAdam Curtis at the University of Glasgow inScotland. He had recognized that cell adhe-sion was central to sorting out, the processby which a mix of different cells stratifiesinto regions of cells of the same type.

The highlight of my PhD was managing,at the end, to publish a paper in theJournal ofEmbryology and Experimental Morphology,with a statistician. The biggest pressure I feltduring my PhD was the responsibility for thedata I produced. I realized for the first timethat others might base their own work onwhat I had found and that there was nowhereI could go and look up the correct answers.Part of my anxiety stemmed from the factthat although I had done a lot of practicalwork, I had not carried out a research projectduring my undergraduate degree.

The person who influenced me most

during my doctorate was my supervisor. A far cry from hate mail: Steve Running induces water stress in pine trees in 1972.

S.

RUNNING

Goslings PhD photo revealing structure of DNA.

R.

GOSLING/

KINGSCOLLEGELONDON

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YAO TANDONG

1980s: The age ofinternationalismHead of the Institute of TibetanPlateau Research, Beijing

PhD in glaciology (Institute of Geography,

Beijing, 1986).

I graduated from Lanzhou University inChinas Gansu Province in 1978. At thattime, the postgraduate system in China wasimmature. During the Cultural Revolution(196676), the whole education system wasbroken, and it was only after 1978 that thedegree system was restored. There wereprobably only a few hundred PhD studentsin China. I was one of the first to study fora masters degree in physical geography atLanzhou, and because no institution in myprovince could grant a PhD I had to travel toBeijing to study at the Institute of Geography.

The prestigious institute was part of theChinese Academy of Sciences. In the 1980s,

science was held in the highest esteem inChina, and you had to get the highest marksin very strict exams to get into a PhD pro-gramme. However, there were still few seniorscientists who were qualified by the Chinesegovernment to supervise PhD students. Iwas lucky in that my PhD adviser was thefamous Chinese glaciologist Shi Yafeng.

It was also popular at that time to studyabroad. I passed all my exams to teach Eng-lish as a foreign language and planned to goto the United States, but my adviser asked meto stay in China. He said I could go abroad forshort courses, but he wanted me to do most

of my research in China. It turned out to be

the right decision for me because I spent awhole month with him at the Glacier No. 1research station in the Tianshan mountainsin northwest China. This glacier is famousworldwide with scientists and tourists, and itis shrinking at an accelerating rate. It supplieswaters to the city of Urumqi and is the worldsclosest glacier to a metropolis.

Shi Yafeng was already in his sixties, butvery dedicated to his work a dedication thatinspired me for the rest of my career. Duringthe month we spent on the glacier he workedfor every possible hour on the water-resourceproblem that was the subject of my PhD.While I was on the glacier I also got to knowthe famous glaciologist Lonnie Thompsonfrom Ohio State University in Columbus. Hewas just starting his ice-core work in Chinaand that meeting shaped the rest of my career.After I graduated in 1986, I spent three yearsabroad working with ice-core scientists inGrenoble, France, and in the United States.

I returned to China in 1989 and initiatedice-core studies on the Tibetan plateau.I have now supervised more than 25 PhDstudents in the same field, although thecountrys great passion for science has been

replaced by a national passion for business.I was lucky enough to have a good adviser

and excellent collaborators, but I had to findcollaborators outside China because therewere so few scientists to work with at home.I always encourage my students to spendsome time abroad. I learned important newfieldwork and lab techniques in the twomonths I spent in Alaska during my PhD.Scientifically, we still have a gap in China.

Happily, almost allthe students from myinstitute have returnedto China from overseas,

so everyone benefits.

ANDRAS DINNYES

1990s: The ageof revolutionProfessor of biotechnology, Szent

Istvan University, Gdll, Hungary

Candidate of sciences in veterinary science

(1995)

The year 1989 was a remarkable one for meand for Hungary. I obtained my veterinarydiploma in Budapest, and my country sawthe official end to four decades of Commu-nism. Free multiparty elections produced anew political system and in principle a newera in Hungarian science. I was eager to starta doctoral programme, because I had alreadydone three years of scientific research dur-ing my veterinary studies and had become a

recipient of the Pro Scientia Gold Medal ofthe Hungarian Academy of Sciences in thefirst year it was awarded.

In later years this award would have been aticket for automatic admission to a doctoralprogramme, but in 1989 I still had to takean entry exam. I was admitted to the Acad-emy of Sciences for a three-year fellowshipprogramme towards a candidate of sciencesdegree. This was the old Soviet-style degree usually obtained by scientists in their for-ties, and an entry into the closed Hungarianscientific community. By the mid-1990s, itwas replaced by a Western-style PhD, aimedat younger students and opening up theentire system. But along the way the acad-emys fellowship programme was new andbrave, breaking with the old gerontocracy,and offering a fast-track doctorate for a fewyoung scientists.

To my surprise, I found my activities tightlycontrolled by my supervisor. I had to spendone year doing veterinary obstetrics workfor the university, unrelated to my fellowshipresearch in embryo cryopreservation. So dur-ing the second year, I applied for and won aFulbright Fellowship to the SmithsonianInstitution in Washington DC. There, I spent16 months with William Rall, the godfather

of embryo vitrification technology (whichuses high dose chemicals to aid embryo cryo-preservation without the ice causing damage).

The fellowship changed my life. At first it wasa culture shock to work for a strict Americanboss David Wildt, the head of department who demanded six days a week, ten hoursa day. Rall provided me with training, adviceand friendship and allowed me to work fairlyindependently. I gained self-confidence andbecame a workaholic. Soon I found inter-national friends and enjoyed free museumsand classical music concerts. The methods Ilearned determined the next ten years of my

career as a scientist and inventor in embryo,

TAO

IMAGES/ALAMY

Yao Tandong spent a month during his PhD on Glacier No. 1 in the Tianshan mountains of northwest China.

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ERIKA CULE

2010s: The age ofcommunicationImperial College London

PhD in statistical genetics (Imperial College

London, due for completion in 2012).

The first draft of the human genomewas published when I was still at school.I was excited by the opp ortunities thismilestone would offer, and back then Iimagined that I would become a labora-tory scientist. During my undergraduatedegree, however, I found that I preferredanalytical questions to cell and molecularbiology. Today I am privileged to be work-ing in a high-profile and rapidly evolvingfield statistical genetics.

The biggest challenge of my PhD so farhas been mastering the skills I need to docomputational genetics, and building theconfidence to use them effectively. Thetransition from undergraduate studies inbiochemistry has been a steep learningcurve. A masters in bioinformatics andtheoretical systems biology enabled me totackle programming and statistics and gaveme some tools to get started.

Fortunately, I have had support. My lategrandfather, himself an academic, helpedme decide to study for a PhD and gave mepractical advice. My elder sister is a recentPhD graduate, and she understands the upsand downs of the process. I also have anexcellent relationship with my supervisor,who is actively interested in my work I know that this is not always the case. APhD can be an isolating experience, butit helps to work in a friendly and sociabledepartment. Invaluable support also comesfrom my partner and friends who provideme with a perspective from outside aca-demia.

Working in a computational discipline,and having an interest in writing, it seemednatural to start a blog. Blogging about myPhD (go.nature.com/zkcy5l) has helped

me to connect with scientific bloggers fromaround the world who share their experi-ences and suggestions. I also hope that myblog writing will help me when it comes towriting the thesis.

As a new PhD graduate I will face a diffi-cult climate in which research funding fromthe government is being squeezed and theacademic job market is increasingly com-petitive. I hope that my PhD will equip mewith specific and transferable skills suchas networking and presenting that willgive me options after I graduate, whetherin academia or elsewhere. SEE NEWS FEATURES

P.276 & P.280

A. A. OSOWOLE

2000s: The age ofperseveranceDepartment of Chemistry, Universityof Ibadan, Nigeria

PhD in inorganic chemistry (University of

Ibadan, 2002).

I started my PhD on the kinetics of novelorganometallic compounds at the Uni-versity of Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1994, andcompleted it eight years later. After a year, apiece of kit that was crucial to my kineticsstudies broke down and could not be repaired

the machine was ten years old and themanufacturer had stopped making it. Suchtechnical difficulties are common in Nigeriabecause equipment is rarely well maintained.

I had to change my research topic tosomething I could do with the equipmentavailable. So I began to investigate mole-cules containing both organic and inorganiccomponents. This required the synthesis ofnovel metal complexes. The other research-ers in the team encouraged me, gave me tipsand taught me to use the equipment. A fac-ulty member, Gabriel Kolawole, providedthe expertise and a chemical to solve the

hydrolysis problems I was facing.

gamete and stem-cell cryobiology.In Washington, I produced sufficient

data for my first publication and my thesis.Naively, I turned down an offer to do a PhDat Cornell University in Ithaca, New York,because I was so close to proudly completingmy degree in Hungary.

I returned to Hungary in 1992 and

submitted my completed thesis to the acad-emy. My Hungarian supervisor thought itwas premature, but I was stubborn and self-confident. Frustratingly, the scientific degreecommittee of the academy took more thantwo years to process my submission. So inthe interim I did a one-year European Unionpostdoctoral fellowship in Belgium, forwhich the submitted thesis made me eligi-ble. Finally, in 1995, at the age of 29, I wasallowed to defend my thesis and became oneof the youngest veterinarians to obtain thecandidate of sciences degree in Hungary.

After several positions abroad I am now

back in a much-changed Hungary, workingon genetic reprogramming, cloning and stem-cell research as a professor and chief executiveof my own stem-cell company. I supervise sixPhD students from Hungary and Thailand,who enjoy the reforms that came just a littletoo late for me. I always encourage my stu-dents to pursue international experience which I can provide through the EuropeanMarie Curie projects I coordinate.

Even with the right tools, the work

was challenging. I did not isolate a singlecomplex in the first year.I also had three BSc students working

with me, who needed to finish their disser-tations within six months. The students wereintended to facilitate my research, but they allneeded close supervision. I spent about 35%of my time teaching and 65% on research. Iwas under enormous pressure: I worked vir-tually every day, about six hours on the benchas well as teaching and practical classes. Bythe end of 199899 year (the 199596 and199697 sessions were cancelled due toindustrial crises) I had managed to isolateabout 100 metal complexes a good result.

My next challenge was interpreting andwriting up my results. In 1999, the Universityof Ibadan library had limited access to jour-nals, the most recent ones dating to 1996. Toget more up-to-date chemical papers I had torely on colleagues abroad. Back then, thingswerent as computerized. Furthermore,analysing my samples required equipmentwe did not have, necessitating sending mysamples abroad for analyses. But I could notafford the fees.

I realized I would not be able to completemy PhD at Ibadan with these limitations.Again, help came from Kolawole, who

suggested that I apply to the Third WorldOrganization for Women in Science nowthe Organization for Women in Science forthe Developing World.

I was awarded a fellowship and used itin 2000 at the Indian Institute of Science inBangalore. There I was able to complete theoutstanding analysis, and learn porphyrinchemistry and various chromatographictechniques. I defended my thesis in 2002 andgot about ten publications from it.

The lessons I learned from my doctoratewhich I try to pass on to my students are: befocused, persevere, work hard and be honest.

Where there is a will, there is a way.

Andras Dinnyes worked on embryo preservation

during his PhD in Hungary and the United States.

D.

SPEARSLTD/SPL

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