Nine U.S. research universities and a major cancer institute today announced plans to give would-be life scientists clear, standardized data on graduate school admissions, education and training opportunities, and career prospects.
The institutions, which include the University of Michigan, formed the Coalition for Next Generation Life Science in response to the focus of many new Ph.D.s solely on a limited number of traditional faculty positions and to the lack of good marketplace information on training and career options for talented life scientists.
The presidents and chancellors of the founding institutions announced the initiative in a joint article published in the Dec. 15 issue of the journal Science.
“It’s important that aspiring graduate students and postdocs know the career outcomes of others who have studied and done research at our institutions so they can make intelligent choices about their own futures,” said U-M President Mark S. Schlissel, M.D., Ph.D., one of the authors of the Policy Forum article. “This will help strengthen the pipeline of future scientific talent.”
The presidents and chancellors said they would begin posting informative new standardized data on institutional websites in February 2018 and add additional categories of information over the following 18 months.
To read more about the new coalition, and to read the Policy Forum article, see story in The University Record.