Across the great divide

Academicians and industrial scientists often regard each other with suspicion. But with some understanding, physiologists can move between the two spheres, according to PN Editor Mike Collis, whose own career has bridged the divide.

Michael Collis
Editor, Physiology News

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https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.92.32

There is a lot of interest from funding groups these days in ‘intersectorial mobility’. Moving between academic and industrial research environments is seen as a positive step to increase the breadth of a scientist’s experience and facilitate the exploitation of his or her discoveries. There are of course important differences between the two sectors and attempts to apply a ‘one size fits all’ approach to a scientific career would be a major error. We need blue-sky academic research to make the big discoveries that come unexpectedly ‘from left field’ and we also need the industrial scientist to translate those discoveries into practice. But are the environments that these two groups work in so different that one cannot move between them successfully?

Many academic scientists regard industry with suspicion laced with a fair number of misconceptions. A move from academic research (where we all start by doing a research degree) to industry is often regarded as an undesirable last resort. “Well if this grant isn’t funded then I could always go and work in industry” is a sentiment I have often heard expressed. This isn’t the case and if you are not successful in an academic science career then you are unlikely to cut the mustard in industry either. Industry (like academia) wants to recruit the best scientists and a lacklustre academic career will not impress. In both environments you need to make a strong enough case to get someone to support your research, in academia a funding body, in industry a research director or management team. Convincing people to fund your research is a skill that scientists need in both environments. Other misconceptions about working in industry include “You get told what to do”. Well that may be the case if you are a junior technician, but if you hope to make it as an industrial scientist, it’s you who will need to convince your research director of what you should be working on. If your project isn’t delivering, then you should be the one addressing the issues and even proposing closing it down, if the obstacles are insurmountable. In industry, as in academia, failure isn’t closing a no-hope project, failure is keeping it going too long. There are, however, unfortunate times in industry when major strategic changes in a company research portfolio are imposed from above and you do get told to work in a different area. This is disruptive and can be demotivating for those who find that their research project has been transferred elsewhere without them. In my experience, good scientists have no problem in transferring skills from one project area to another and often bring new insights because of their different background. “You can’t publish your work in industry” is a further misconception. In industry you are working towards a product that needs to be protected by a patent and this may delay publication of your work in the public domain. You may have to wait, but you can still publish. This type of time constraint can also apply in academic research, where there is a potentially valuable product or concept that you or your institution need to retain ownership of.

A positive facet of an industrial career in the past was better job security for scientists than in academia. Unfortunately this is no longer the case and a career in industry is as insecure as it is in academic research.

Misconception is not of course just one sided. Industrial scientists often regard academics as driven by ego, not used to meeting deadlines and vastly overvaluing the importance of their discoveries. In industry everything is measured and reward and progression are usually based on performance against agreed quantitative goals. Although there are attempts to measure academic performance (usually based on publications) the assessment of performance in academic circles is much less clearly defined and based on acceptance and acknowledgement by peers. Industrial scientists often think that academic project or strategy meetings are too long and involve much discussion but few decisions. Industry likes bullet points and quick decisions, academics like discussion. Do academic scientists have stronger individualist tendencies and find it harder to work in multi-disciplinary teams? Some industrial scientists would say yes to this question. But with the increasing trend to a research group approach in many universities, this is becoming less true.

In my own experience there are exceptional scientists working in both spheres of research, but they have different motivators. In academia the major motivation is publication and although the potential ‘impact’ of academic research figures high on funding council agendas, success in an academic career is still highly dependent on the quality and quantity of publications. The industrial scientist is motivated by the desire for a product from their research that can have a direct or indirect benefit to man. It is the project not the question that is king. This is not to say that academic researchers are not motivated by the application of their research, but it is rarely the primary driver.

Intersectorial mobility does not necessarily mean burning your boats and changing your career path permanently. Early in a career you can experience both academic and industrial research before committing to either by enrolling for a Collaborative Awards in Science and Engineering (CASE) PhD studentship. These are offered by both the MRC and the BBSRC and provide an excellent training in both research environments. The student benefits from having both an academic and an industrial supervisor and performs part of his or her research project (at least six months) at the industrial laboratory. This is an ideal way to get a taste of the way research is conducted in both academia and industry and is often a stepping stone to further academic–industrial collaborations and interactions for both supervisors and students.

For more established academic researchers, the research councils offer a number of fellowships and grants to facilitate collaboration and exchange between the two sectors such as Industrial Partnership Awards, Flexible Interchange Programmes from the BBSRC, and ‘MICA’ awards for collaboration and secondment with industry from the MRC.

But what about a permanent move from one sector to the other? This is more challenging than a short-term secondment or collaborative project. Some people are just better suited to one environment than the other and a permanent move would not suit them. However, moving from academia to a job in industry is certainly possible at most stages in an academic career. But as is the case with most change, it’s easier to do when you are young and haven’t become steeped in the ways that one sector operates. A stellar academic research track record in an area of interest to the industrial concern will certainly be a strong factor supporting recruitment. It is probably harder to move from industry into academia once you have become established in the former because the current system of assessment in academia depends so much on publications and successful grant applications – which may be less for the industrial scientist. (It is a pity that academic research assessment systems do not value patent applications and collaborative research more highly as this would encourage intersectorial activities and mobility.) However, these hurdles are by no means insurmountable and I have a number of colleagues who have successfully moved from industry to academia, either because they preferred the latter or because their industry employer moved their jobs to a different country. In Scandinavia, leading scientists often have joint appointments between a university and an industrial concern. This model seems to have worked well when one considers the medical innovations introduced by the Swedish pharmaceutical industry, but it is not a model that has been taken up in the UK to my knowledge. Serving two masters can be a tricky business.

My experience of moving between sectors has been a positive one; I have learnt from both and I would encourage others to do the same. This sort of mobility could be encouraged by industry helping academics to better understand their drivers, success rates and time scales, by having regular meetings with key academic groups and by organising visits to each other’s sites. An informed and pro-active academic liaison officer in industry can also help to put academic scientists in touch with counterparts in the company who have similar research interests as a starting point for collaboration and exchange. Academic institutions can help the process by pro-actively seeking collaborations and exchange opportunities, by facilitating contract discussions and, most importantly, by recognising that a significant industrial collaboration or a secondment to industry should be valued just as much as highly cited research papers when it comes to discussions of reward and promotion.