NSF is not terribly concerned with the "furtherance of science".
If they were, many many policies would be drastically different, including:
1) They would forbid any institution from being eligible for NSF funds
who engages in spousal hiring or any other form of nepotism. Usage of
any funding to hire based on marital status (and to whom) rather than
purely on CV content/merit is wasteful and counter to the "furtherance
of science".
2) The NSF would also mandate that any NSF- or federal-funding eligible
(or even accredited) institution was required to allow their postdocs
and staff scientists (at LEAST any PhD-holding scientist) to submit
grants with themselves as PI, sole PI if they wish. As it stands now, a
combination of institutional and agency policies (tons of buck passing
on this one as far as where the root of the problem lies) currently
forbid many (most?) of the best and brightest scientists in the US from
being PI of their own grants, or even owning
publication/patent/grantwriting rights to their own ideas/intellectual
property or work.
3) The NSF would also consider doing away with all postdoc positions all
together, and pressure institutions to hire many more independent
scientists and permanent staff scientists.
4) The NSF would create a robust and safe grievance/whistle blower
system for graduate students and postdocs to report unethical or
otherwise bad treatment or intellectual property theft at the hands of
their faculty bosses. They would also have a system to evaluate grant
submitters based on their MENTORING as robust as how they evaluate
research - and reject grants by poorly rated "mentors".
5) They would have a working group taking a long hard look at tenure and
whether it is still relevant or if it is largely abused and needs done
away with or replaced with a better system not as easily abused and more
based on protecting controversy rather than protecting lack of
productivity, employee abuse or IP theft.
... many other things they would do if they CARED about science, but the
above would be a fantastic start.
On 7/6/2013 3:40 PM, David L. McNeely wrote:
I assume you are not serious.
What people who find fault with NSF doing this fail to acknowledge is that NSF
is responsible for the furtherance of science. Projects suffer when
participants must be away for family matters. So science suffers, and NSF
money goes to waste. By providing PIs small grants to temporarily replace
workers who must be away for family reasons, NSF is salvaging its projects.
I assume that PIs have hiring and firing authority. Being absent for
recreational reasons and letting the project suffer would in my mind justify
replacement of such personnel. That shouldn't be hard to do in today's
employment climate.
PIs may be faced with an institutional family leave policy that requires that
they provide time off for family reasons (which is a legitimate institutional
policy -- it helps retain employees in which the institution may have valuable
training invested). This policy provides for PIs to work around the difficulty
to projects that that might cause.
NSF seems to be responding to a need among grantees. David McNeely
---- "David M. Lawrence" <[email protected]> wrote:
What other choices that might "compete with their professional career,"
would warrant such an opportunity, Michael? The proposal here looks a
bit half (if that) baked.
Few other "choices" invoke such a huge emotional, financial -- and LEGAL
-- burden as parenthood. Being a caregiver for old or ailing relatives
might certainly warrant such treatment, but let's say your choice is
scuba diving (a choice I am afflicted with). It is a personal choice, it
involves costs in terms of money and time -- and if done enough, could
interfere with my professional career. So should I be eligible for NSF
help to help with my recreational diving habit? [For the sake of
argument, let's ignore the fact that my dissertation is focusing on
coral reefs and will involve some diving.]
Dave
On 7/4/2013 10:47 PM, Michael Clary wrote:
We are all much too busy managing our work and families, parents no longer own
that distinction. To the degree that parenthood has been an informed choice for
the average postdoc for some time, my modest proposal would be to make this
opportunity available to any early career scientist who has made a personal
decision that was reasonably certain to compete with their professional career.
Michael
--
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--
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ATD of ATB and ISI
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