Providing the Opportunity to be Productive Posted on September 21, 2006 Paul A. Pilkonis (bio) shares his thoughts on supporting early-career researchers.

I think the critical thing for young people is to try to create arrangements for themselves that give them good and stable support over the initial stages of their career. I think what people need, given the long-term perspective we were talking about a minute ago, is some assurance that they can lead a reasonable life over the next five to eight to 10 years in a way that allows them to feel accomplished, that builds their sense of self-efficacy as researchers, as academicians, as scholars, and whether that's at the most prominent research institutions or at other places that encourage a mix of clinical and research activities - places, perhaps that provide only opportunities for teaching and secondhand awareness of some of these research activities, so be it.

But I think it's very hard for people to live lives that they feel are constantly in flux, particularly after a long period of training. And I think we should be trying to create circumstances that allow people early in life not just to have just a year or two of funding but probably a 10-year window in order to get launched. Without some assurances in that regard, I think people fall off the academic merry-go-round period. And the academic and clinical worlds get polarized as a result.

So I think the critical thing we ought to be aspiring for both on the personal side and the institutional side is how can you work with people over long periods of time to provide that kind of attachment, stability, support? It gives them the opportunity to be productive.

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