Research grants to decline

• By JORDAN BLUM
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Oct 12, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:00 a.m.

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As soon as Kurt Svoboda came to LSU in 2002, the clock started ticking on the junior science professor to fight for research funds in the increasingly competitive arena of federal grant dollars.

But nearly five years of already flat-lined federal research grant budgets could worsen with dollars spent for the Wall Street bailout, researchers said.

The tough environment is pushing more professors into private industry and confounding a generation of frustrated junior faculty members struggling to acquire funds, said Kevin Carman, LSU College of Basic Sciences dean.

“The overall concern is, if this trend persists, we’re going to have a lot of talented researchers who can’t stay in the business,” Carman said, speaking of LSU and research universities nationwide.

In the academic world, grants fund research, which leads to publications, which are essential — along with teaching —  for faculty to gain job security and academic tenure.

The average age is now 42 for researchers getting their first grants, Carman said, which is a “considerable” increase from past years.

Yet faculty members go through the tenure process typically after five or six years. And the timeline isn’t changing, LSU administrators said.

It’s simple math and the numbers don’t always compute.

Svoboda, 41 and assistant professor of biological sciences, finally received a $1.8 million National Institutes of Health grant last year in the nick of time after several failed attempts that he dubbed “brutal” experiences.

Svoboda said he hears, “This isn’t worth it,” from many of his colleagues nationwide.

“If I had to do it again, I probably wouldn’t do it again,” Svoboda said. “I maybe would have gone into private industry.”

“But I do love my job at LSU,” he said. “This is not an LSU phenomenon. This is a national phenomenon.”

LSU recently sustained a blow when widely known researcher Robert Hammer, the William A. Pryor professor of chemistry, decided to leave academia for the job of chief scientist at a New England polypeptide company.