The Science Policy Network


In order to facilitate a more open discussion of a range of science policy issues, compared
to that presented by current science "policy" establishment, I have assembled an
informal "Science Policy Network" email newsletter.  Topics will range from
updates on progress towards improving the salaries and career prospects for young
scientists, to the status of current science policy reports and legislation, science funding issues,
and a historical context for many current science policy issues.

Currently there are 460 or so people on this list, ranging from graduate students
and postdocs to professors, science policy analysts, and program managers from
funding  agencies and professional science societies. I hope you find the information
provided useful and please feel free to write in with information or insights on the
issues being presented to the email address below.
[Please do NOT use the "reply-to-all" feature of your email program.]

Sincerely,

Robert Bartolo

bobdc2 at verizon.net


Current Issue

SPN Newsletter #12     " Debunking workforce shortage predictions: A promising new "alternative career "    09/01/03
Despite current news coverage of high-tech layoffs, foreign outsourcing of high-tech jobs, increased levels of high-tech immigration via the H1B and L1 visa programs, and record unemployment among electrical engineers and computer scientists, the National Science Board (NSB) has approved a new report that has somehow concluded that there is a shortage of American scientists and engineers. The selective use of faulty or obsolete statistics to make shortfall claims echoes of past tactics by the National Science Foundation that were debunked by a Congressional committee back in 1992.



SPN Newsletter #11                    High-tech Layoffs: The Other Quiet Crisis                 02/23/03

Contrasts the latest hypothetical science and engineering (S&E) manpower shortage prediction contained in an article titled, "The Quiet Crisis", circulated by a public-private partnership called BEST-(Building Engineering and Science Talent), with the current reality-based quiet crisis of massive S&E layoffs in several high-tech sectors, such as telecom (fiber optics) and now biotechnology.


                                
SPN Newletter  #10               The Doubling Machine and Salary Suppression           11/17/02  

Examines inner-workings of the science lobby's effort to double science budgets,  NIH's budget in particular, and the adverse affect such increased budgets have had on suppressing salaries of young scientists in the biomedical field. Discusses how young scientists and postdocs are busy lobbying university administrators to obtain even subsistence level salaries for their age group, despite the large funding increases. In fact, the NSF Division of Policy Research Analysis in the late 1980s modeled how increased government sponsored research fellowships would lead to the suppression of salary increases for scientists, something the NIH budget increases has demonstrated when it comes to biomed postdoc salaries.

                                           

                                                               SPN Newsletter Archives

SPN Newsletter #9        1200 New York Avenue:  Peddlers of the Myth          07/29/02

Takes a detailed look at the fatally flawed Ph.D. shortfall prediction published in 1990 by Dr. Richard C. Atkinson, president of the University of California, in Science Magazine. Such Ph.D. shortfall predictions later came to be known as "the myth" by postdocs struggling to find employment. There are many specious assumptions in Atkinson's paper that continue to be used today in analyses of Ph.D. supply and demand.

SPN Newsletter #8     AAU Headquarters, Suite 550: Are the lights even on?     06/24/02

Contrasts how the Association of American Universities (AAU) prepared a report discussing the need to address the postdoc plight (and glut) while lobbying on behalf of universities for exemption from H1b visa quotas and a Department of Labor wage rule.

SPN Newsletter #7   AAAS Headquarters: The lights are on, but is anybody home?  06/7/02

Examines how in one office at AAAS Headquarters, science writers are detailing the nature of the PhD glut, while in another Suite 550, the AAU is lobbying to maintain the postdoc glut.

SPN  Newsletter #6        "Massive layoffs hit the telcom sector"     05/14/02

Despite predictions of acute shortages in the telcom industry, companies such as Lucent, Nortel, and Corning lay off workers by the 10s of thousands, over 100,000 workers in all.

SPN Newsletter #5                "Echoes of the Myth"                                05/03/02

The myth, that the US faces a looming shortage of scientists, originated with the NSF, and was subsequently debunked by a Congressional Committee in 1991, yet echoes of this myth persist.

SPN Newsletter #4   "How much more data do you need?"                    04/26/02

Discussion  of the "2002 Postdoc Network National Meeting" where a request for even more data on the postdoc plight was requested in lieu of action.

SPN Newsletter #3    "Science: The End of Careers"                             04/18/02

Implications of V. Bush's 1945 science policy vision titled, "Science: The Endless Frontier" on scientific manpower studies.

SPN Newsletter #2 .        NIH/NRSA postdoc compensation and benefits     4/1/02

Issues of postdoc compensation as presented in two articles that appeared in "The-Scientist ".

SPN Newsletter #1.  Postdoc Politics in France and the COSEPUP Report  3/27/02

The debut of the SPN Newsletter that  discussed "postdoc politics" at the presidential level, at least in France anyway, and  the lack of coherent national science policy in the US that was evident at the " Convocation on Enhancing the Postdoctoral Experience for Scientists and Engineers " on March 2, 2001 in Washington, DC.