Dependency and uncertainty

In this current economic climate many people are fearing for their jobs, looking at their future and wondering what is going to happen. For a scientist, unless you are very lucky, this is a regular thing. To have a three year contract is rare, and a permanent post almost unheard of unless you are a university lecturer.  In the later case this means a dependency on regular student contact and a movement away from the research which is probably the reason for originally getting into science.

As a researcher, as I have hinted, you are constantly looking to see where your next project will take you. A one year post-doctoral position will require the writing of grant proposals and making plans for the following year almost before you have started and certainly before you know what sort of results you are likely to get.  Add to that the difficulty now of securing funding that includes the overheads demanded by a university and you wonder why anyone goes into research at all. For the love of it...?

Currently I am trying to decide whether to continue in research, while also building all my skills and my CV up. Gaining sea experience is useful in the career I seem to have been developing, but that is heavily dependent on spaces being available on the ships. Science comes first in that respect and industry require the best people for the job. Bigger projects, such as posts gaining an input from fishermen into the current fish quotas and the science governing them, are at the whim of government agencies. If the government changes then the plug may be pulled on any recent policies of the opposition whether they were a good idea or not, because they were 'their' idea. As a scientist - how frustrating!!!  Ditto government funded national parks - funding secure until the next election, at which point who knows what will happen.

Joined up thinking requires joined up funding and commitments... maybe the public is content to live for tomorrow and cope with the consequences, rather than planning for change and pre-empting it? They shouldn't be!