1. Fewer Opportunities for Young Researchers
Left panel: The percentage of academic researchers under the age of forty who are funded by the NIH (solid red line) has been in steady decline over the past few decades, while those researchers over the age of sixty (blue line) has steadily increased. It has also grown more difficult for new investigators to win their first grant: the percentage of investigators under thirty-five years old at the time of their first award (dotted red line) was 15 percent in 2007, although new NIH policies resulted in an upward tick to 18 percent in Right panel: Researchers have been delayed in receiving their first grant (red line)–a critical first step in establishing a new lab–by roughly six years since The average age at first award in 2008 was nearly forty-two years, the same age at which scientists like Albert Einstein, Marshall Nirenberg, and Thomas R. Cech won their Nobel Prizes.
Source: National Institutes of Health Office of Extramural Research, “Age Data on NIH Principal Investigators, 1970–2006,” Includes age of stock, age of new investigators, age gap in funding, and age at reentry.
From Restoring the Foundation: The Vital Role of Research in Preserving the American Dream (American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 2014)