Cancer Research UK PhD students

Transcription

1 Cancer Research UK PhD students

2 Summary Cancer Research UK s Research Strategy includes plans to provide the right people for research. A key part of this is our support for research training, through bursaries, studentships and fellowships. This report summarises Cancer Research UK s current support for our PhD students. It also provides the first report from our annual student survey. Our Centres will recruit 27 new students in October 2011 We will spend over 14 million on PhD students this year We support 455 PhD students 50% of our Population Research Post-docs are former Cancer Research UK PhD students We support students in 31 universities P a g e 2

3 Cancer Research UK s PhD students We fund 455 students. Just over half are located in 31 different universities in the UK. The remaining students are in our five core funded Institutes 1. London Cambridge Paterson Institute Beatson Institute Gray Institute Figure 2: Students in our five Institutes Oxford Imperial Cambridge ICR Newcastle Edinburgh Birmingham UCL Kings Dundee QMUL/Barts Sheffield Liverpool Surrey Nottingham Manchester Southampton Cardiff Sussex Leeds Belfast St Georges School of Pharmacy York Warwick St Andrews Glasgow Durham Bristol Bradford Aberdeen Figure 1: Students in universities Current year of study Institutes Centre Training Accounts Studentship grants Training Programmes First year Second year Third year Fourth year Totals Table 1: Total students across all our funding streams 1 Data correct at July 2011 P a g e 3

4 Student funding Most of the funding for our students is provided through our Centre Training Accounts and our Institutes. We also have a number of other funding streams, although many of these will be coming to an end over the next few years. Current funding In 2011, our 17 current Centres will recruit a total of 27 new PhD students. Each Centre governance board selects the best students and allocates them to the most suitable projects. We expect the Centres will eventually recruit 32 new students each year. Our Institutes aim to recruit 56 students to start in October The largest intake will be at the London Research Institute, with 25 new students expected. Training Programmes The five Medicinal Chemistry programmes have recruited a total of 12 students a year for the past five years. Our Molecular Pathology and Clinical Genomics programme, which is held jointly by the Institute of Cancer at Barts and the University of Cambridge, has funded a further six PhD students in total. Location Students Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Oxford 8 Northern Institute of Cancer Research, Newcastle 8 Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London 8 Departments of Chemistry, Edinburgh and St Andrews 8 Department of Chemistry, Cambridge 16 Molecular Pathology Programme 6 The Imaging Initiative The Imaging Initiative promotes the application of imaging science to cancer Table 2: Total number of students that will be trained through our Graduate Training Programmes research, and includes support for graduate training for clinical or non-clinical students. There are currently 50 non-clinical students and 15 clinical fellows in post in the nine Centres and Programmes, and more students will be recruited in P a g e 4

5 Our support for students Cancer Research UK provides a generous stipend and running expenses to our PhD students. We also provide communications training, and bring our students together once each year to offer them advice and help as they plan their careers in research and beyond. Stipends Cancer Research UK must pay a competitive stipend to our students, so that our researchers can continue to attract the best candidates. We reviewed our stipends in 2011 and have made some major changes, leading to a much simpler system. There will be only two stipends - one for students at London universities and another for those in the rest of the UK. Location Annual stipend London 21,000 Rest of UK 19,000 Training We run a two day communication skills training course, where our students learn how to improve their oral and written communication skills. They also practise giving presentations to a lay audience. This year we held five courses throughout January and February and just over half our second year students attended. We receive very positive feedback from those that attend the course - they find it very useful and would recommend it to their fellow students. Excellent! Can t wait to use what I have learnt Communication skills training delegate Networking meetings Every April we hold a meeting in London for our students in years one to three, to give them an opportunity to meet other PhD students and Cancer Research UK staff. Just under one third of our students attended. Break-out sessions for part of the day allowed students to learn a range of skills that will help them with their PhD and future careers. The students also heard presentations from speakers from academic and other science-related careers, who offered advice based on their own personal experience and chosen career paths. There was a poster session over lunch, which was judged by the invited speakers. The winner was Chris Phang from the Institute for Cancer Research, for his poster Inhibition of protein-protein interactions with drug-like α-helix mimetics. Essential advice for the future! Thanks! Final year student Final year students meeting This year, for the first time, we held a separate meeting for our final year students, which focussed entirely on future career options. 35% of our students came to the meeting. The meeting gave them chance to discuss their career opportunities, both within and outside of research, and gain valuable tips in getting the right job. The programme included an interview skills workshop, a series of talks from PhD graduates about careers in a range of science-related areas, a speed networking session and presentations from two of our researchers, Ian Hart and Mark O Driscoll. P a g e 5

6 What our students are doing now We run a survey of our former students, asking them about their current post and their future career plans. We aim to find out how many of our graduates leave academia, the stage at which they leave, and the reasons they give for doing so. Our survey For the 2011 survey, we contacted 156 former PhD students and 76 former Clinical Research Training Fellows. 47% of the students responded. 63% of the graduates that responded have remained in scientific research. Most of these are still writing up their thesis or are currently doing post-doctoral research, although some have progressed to a more senior role or have been awarded a fellowship. About threequarters of those still in academic research are currently employed in the UK, but eight are in the USA, two in Germany and one in Denmark, France, New Zealand, Sweden and Switzerland. Academic research (non-clinical) Academic research (clinical) Clinical medicine Research support role Industrial research Non-working mother Private sector (non-research) Unemployed Charity Clinical fellows Non-clinical PhD Figure 3: Next destinations of former students and fellows Those who have left academic research and are in paid work have pursued careers in scientific support roles, charity work, medical writing and industrial research. 63% of our PhD graduates are still in academic research The bigger picture How do our data compare with results from other funders? The Wellcome Trust s student survey 2 reported similar results to ours - it found that 73% of their PhD graduates stay in academic research immediately after completing their PhD. A recent Royal Society report 3 found that, across all science disciplines, only 47% of basic science PhD students stay in scientific research straight after their PhD. Many of those will be working in non-university research, such as industry and government research laboratories. However, at later career stages the picture changes. The Royal Society reported that, of the graduates that stayed in academia after their PhD, 90% have moved into non-university research roles, or entered a non-science career, by the time they reach the stage of being an early-career independent researcher. Only 3.5% of the total original UK science graduate group gained a permanent academic research post. The results of our survey suggest that Cancer Research UK students are more likely to stay in research, relative to all science students. The challenge for us will be to see if our long-term retention rate is higher than the 3.5% reported by the Royal Society. 2 Wellcome Trust (2010). Wellcome Trust Career Tracker Wave 1, Royal Society (2010). The Scientific Century: securing our future prosperity P a g e 6

7 What our students are saying As part of the survey, we gave our former students a chance to say why they had made their choices about their next career steps. Almost all gave some reasons. A career in research The majority of our graduates are still in academic research. Many were still writing up when they completed the survey, and were looking for post-doctoral research posts. This comment was typical: I hope to take a post-doc position to consolidate and build on the experience gained during my PhD I will continue my postdoctoral research training with the aim of building a strong publication record Most of those still in research are post-docs, and most were not looking too far ahead. They recognised the need to think about their long-term career, but were currently focussed on doing good work, with the aim of publishing well. The challenges of a research career Some of our graduates have moved into non-research posts. We asked why they had decided to leave academia and pursue another career. Most clinical fellows had left research immediately after their PhD because of the requirements of their clinical training. However, many want to carry on their research career in the future: It was always planned that I would leave to complete my clinical training - I hope shortly to get back to a part-time research position The competition for funding is fierce especially with funding bodies cutting their funding For non-clinical PhD students the reasons for leaving academic research were more diverse. Many cited the lack of career stability and the risk of insecure future funding. All the former students recognised that a research career path can be difficult to navigate, but 40% said they were positive about the prospects for their next roles in academic research. One former PhD student, when asked what they planned to do over the next 12 months, said simply: Keep going! P a g e 7