considering the US National Institute of Health (NIH) to limit postdoctoral researchers to a maximum of five years of financial support from the agency. The idea is an attempt to improve the working conditions and job prospects of young researchers, but has triggered a heated debate about their possible effects.

Some researchers say that the five-year limit and other restrictions that the agency are considering could maintain inequalities in the biomedical world of work and to prevent researchers from staying in science. Rigid time limits also send out the message "that science has to be done very quickly," says Anna Cliffe, a virologist at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville. "Science is not always quick."

The Nih based in Bethesda, Maryland, published an inquiry for feedback on the ideas on July 25 and recognized the concerns expressed so far. The goal is to "accelerate the career transition of these researchers into flourishing biomedical research careers," says a spokesman for the agency's office.

filling the talent pool

The request of the NIH comes at a time when biomedical doctoral students increasingly choose positions in industry, which has caused many main investigators to express concerns and say that they have difficulty filling postdoc positions. In order to find solutions, the agency asked a working group of NIH researchers and external scientists what the agency could do to promote talented post-doctoral students.

presented in December. Data-label = "https://acd.nih.gov/documents/presentation/12152023_postdoc_working_group_rort.pdf" Data-Track-Category = "Body Text Link"> Report recommended that NIH-funded postdoktorands were a minimum content of 70,000 Get US dollars with annual adjustments for inflation. Since then, the agency has moderately increased the postdoc salaries and said that it intends to achieve the recommended goals by 2029 at the latest if the financing allows it.

The panel also recommended a five-year limit for the financing of postdoc positions and changes to a key scholarship called K99, which serves to help postdocs find their ankle cuffs while looking for faculty positions. Researchers can currently apply for a K99 if they have less than four years of experience than postdoc. The panel recommended that the application be restricted to people with less than two years of experience.

Senior postdocs should be promoted to an intermediate position instead of the continuation, sometimes referred to as 'research scientists' or 'laboratory assistant', which is associated with higher salaries, says Shelley Berger, an epigeneticist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, which was headed by the NIH panel. The working group recommended that the agency expand the support for these intermediate roles within a year after the report has been published.

The panel recommended these changes to encourage researchers to switch to more permanent positions instead of getting stuck in postdoc positions whose salaries do not correspond to their skills, says Donna Ginther, a member of the working group and economist at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, who studies the composition of the scientific workforce. "You don't want people to spend their most productive years in a postdoc," she says.

But the agency has not yet implemented the recommendation for additional funds for intermediate positions or feedback is obtained, says Berger. This lack of action is "very disappointing," says Berger, and adds that it would be logical to implement this in parallel with the five-year limit for postdocs.

Financing compensation

To encourage

Senior postdocs to switch to positions that offer the salary they are entitled to be a nobles, says Tiffany Ho, a clinical neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. But she fears that without additional funds for such positions, well -equipped laboratories would be able to attract and keep such people as research scientists. That would maintain the inequalities between the best -out laboratories and those with more modest support, she says.

The border could also prevent researchers from pursuing several postdoc positions in various laboratories, as some do. Cliffe who studies herpes viruses says that the border would have prevented it from making a second postdoc position in a neuroscience laboratory that was "completely different" than the area in which it was trained. "But it allowed me to be creative, combine my expertise and build a really new research area," she adds.

In addition, a halving of the authorization period for the K99 would deter international scientists, says Ho, since it is the only NIH financing especially for postdoc support that is available for non-US citizens. "US citizens would be strongly preferred because they already have the networks and communities to get started immediately," she says. This could counteract the efforts of the NIH to train researchers from underrepresented groups in the biomedical sector, says Camila Coelho, a virologist at the Icahn School of Medicine on Mount Sinai in New York City. "They promote a system in which they prefer people who are already preferred," she says.

The NIH hopes that researchers will react at his request for feedback, "so that we can learn more about these concerns" and "can ensure a sustainable, diverse future workforce," says the agency's spokesman.

stagnating household

These suggestions come at a time scarce budget for the agency: The NIH budget for 2024 remained essentially unchanged at $ 47.1 billion, which means a net desire if into account inflation, says Berger, and The household for 2025 is expected to be about the same . The increase in postdoc salaries will probably mean that cuts have to be made elsewhere, says Ginther.

HO says that the precarious situation for postdocs should trigger a discussion in the scientific community about how more can be invested in "early researchers, even if it would probably be at the expense of researchers like me". In 2017, a proposal was made, which was not implemented, the who would have limited NIH financing to a single scientist . "If we as a community can decide that this is okay because we are investing in the future, it may be a viable solution," says Ho.