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APPENDIX D 66 multitude of formal and informal pathways to training in the biomedical and behavioral sciences. In crafting your recommendations for the National Research Service Awards, I urge the committee to thoroughly review the range and quality of research training in the United States today, and consider its implications for the future of the scientific enterprise. As we approach the apogee of a new era of discovery and technology in biology, we face the perennial challenge of stimulating young minds to pursue the range of opportunities, from undifferentiated research to the translation of discoveries into products that will meet societyâs needs. The quality and number of NRSA trainees should reflect a balance of these imperatives. Challenges to Maintaining an Adequate Supply of Qualified Scientists Our nationâs ability to maintain an adequate supply of qualified scientists has been sorely challenged in recent years by a lack of community consensus on just what constitutes an âadequate supply.â Only a few years ago, for example, it was widely held that a shortage of scientists was imminent. Today--alarmed, perhaps, by failing success rates--some are convinced that the number of investigators is too great. When opinions can shift so quickly and so completely, it is difficult to believe they are grounded in fact. While employment forecasting is a notoriously difficult and inexact science, your committeeâs efforts can do much to clear the dissension that has marked recent discussions of research training. I hope you will not only be scrupulously realistic in your assumptions, but forthright in your report about the outlook for federal funding of research and the probable differences in employment prospects for the academic and industrial sectors. If you do so, and communicate your recommendations broadly, you will do much to help guide scientists, educators, and policymakers as well as to prepare students for what they can expect as they enter the job market. Ultimately, we would like gifted young people to be attracted to research not only for its excitement and challenges, but also because salary levels and the numbers of job openings convince them that their chosen field will offer ample opportunity to build a stable and rewarding career. Improvements to the NRSA program While long-range prospects supply the most compelling reasons for pursuing a research career, more immediate incentives, such as stipends, play an indisputable role. With that in mind, it is disturbing to note that stipend levels for trainees in the NRSA program have remained unchanged since 1991. Not only should stipend levels be increased to reflect inflationary changes since then, but the training budget should be sufficient to allow cost-of-living adjustments to be made annually, and computed into each training grantâs continuation base. As young physicians are likely to be more sensitive to the financial disincentives of pursuing a research career than their peers in other fields of science, their situation deserves special attention. Even when training stipends were increased in 1991, they still fell well short of housestaff salaries for those with comparable years of experience. For highly-indebted young physicians, furthermore, the impediments to a research career are greatly compounded. Additional loan repayment programs, like those initiated by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease for intramural AIDS researchers, would do much to encourage young physicians to pursue research careers. At the very least, physician scientists participating in NRSA programs should be granted loan deferments during research training. With respect to basic science training, we would draw your attention to a number of questions posed by previous committees, and made more important by the constrained financial circumstances we face today: (a) whether the current supply of new Ph.D.s and postdoctoral fellows is sufficient to meet academic and industrial needs once attrition (including the departure of foreign nationals) is considered, and (b) the extent to which the committee should consider other sources of training, such as private funds, institutional and state scholarships, research-grant-supported training, and other federal programs. We would also hope that the committee will continue its efforts to address the difficult problem of tracking the careers of trainees as they enter academia, industry, and other arenas. The clinical sciences have benefitted in recent decades, from an increasing number of Ph.D.s joining the clinical departments of medical schools and conducting clinical research. Data from the 1975 NIH
