GIGO

The Search for Work

I caught up with an old friend of mine this month. He's been overseas slogging along the post-graduate, post-doctoral fellowship trail. It's one of the hazards of an academic lifestyle, it seems.

Of course, choosing to work in relativistic physics didn't do much for his employment prospects in New Zealand. There's a limited number of places and, with university tenure systems being the way they are, he's limited to waiting for someone to die or move on before he's got a chance to return from academic exile.

He's been all over the place. The ancient traditions of Cambridge apparently didn't clash with superstrings, black holes and tutorials with Steven Hawking. Then came the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Trieste, then back to England for a couple of years and yet another fellowship. Now it's Australia for two years and after that, who knows?

All the time it gets more difficult to uproot, move the family and meet a whole new set of colleagues. He's not the only one in this situation by any means. Each year New Zealand sends a great number of its best and brightest overseas.

The experience is good for them. They learn more of the world. They get to participate in international science. They form valuable relationships, both professionally and personally. But it's regrettable all the same that so many are forced to leave.

For those in this predicament, there's hope for the future, albeit based on a faintly callous look at the scientific community of today. We are losing our scientists. Not just the ones who've been made redundant during this economic depression, but also the ones who've been the backbone of the scientific community here for the last 20-30 years, who are now facing retirement. Bluntly put, they're a dying breed.

It's a worry worldwide. Roy Geddes, Dean of Science at Auckland University, says that the Australians are concerned about a projected 25,000 shortfall of scientists and technologists by the year 2000. That's not half a century away anymore, it is just nine years from now. The Americans expect to need 300,000 extra scientists within 15 years. We've already become familiar with shortages of science teachers in our schools, but the problem is spreading.

Some lay the blame on the soft education of the 60s and the greediness of the 70s and 80s. Science became an enemy, something to be equated with acid rain, nuclear disasters and rampaging technology. Students took Law and Commerce as everyone struggled madly to cash in on the MBA ticket.

Given the projected shortages and the increasingly important role science and technology play in our lives, science could be the growth area of the 90s. We may well see universities and research establishments actively competing for staff, luring them with high salaries, excellent facilities and -- I hope -- plenty of post-doc fellowships.

Vicki Hyde is the editor of New Zealand Science Monthly.