Commentary
The Talent Imperative in Science
By Garland L. Thompson
Oct 6, 2004, 12:48

If American science is to stay abreast, it will have to come to grips with the demographic tornado called diversity that is sweeping through the halls of Corporate America.

BEST, the public-private partnership, says it better than anyone: Scientists and engineers, a mere 5 percent of America's 132-million-strong work force, account for more than half of its economic growth. Drilling down to the research work force, the comparison is even greater: Bureau of Labor Statistics tables show engineers to be in the millions, but biologists, medical scientists, chemists, materials investigators, and environmental scientists amount to some 440,000. Add in the chemical technician force, without whom the vital work of discovery -- not to speak of production -- of the drugs, pigments, fibers, coatings, devices, and processes revolutionizing modern life would grind to a halt, and the total comes to 524,000.

Thus, it is appropriate that Career Communications Group, Inc., publisher of Science Spectrum magazine and its siblings US Black Engineer & Information Technology, Hispanic Engineer & Information Technology, and Women of Color Conference Magazine, now focuses on the research work force. Studies by the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health have rung alarms across the country: The percentages of America's 13 million college students pursuing science careers have been dropping for more than a decade, but the pool of talented immigrants available to make up the shortfall is drying up. The hysteria after 9/11, coupled with a newly competitive world economy, will make it harder and harder to recruit abroad for American careers.

Here's the story: One in five Indian students majors in science and technology, producing a huge array of talent, but that rapidly developing country's accelerating economy keeps many Indian graduates home, and lures many others, trained and experienced in U.S. industry's state-of-the-art techniques, back home to build their own highly competitive enterprises. One in five major in science and technology in Japan, too, and one after one, U.S.-based industries have lost market share competing against Japanese products. Two in five Chinese students are science and technology majors, prompting U.S. managers to take advantage of that Asian giant's generous offers of state-of-the-art facilities, low taxation and wage scales, highly automated seaports, and special trading status, locating plants and even major research facilities there. But technology transfer inevitably brings its own competitive challenges.

In business, partnerships last only as long as they are mutually beneficial, and that word does not always mean the same thing to all parties. Chinese managers are learning rapidly how the market-driven companies of the West make and sell industrial products. They clearly mean to be major players, competing on their own right with products whose quality, effectiveness, and pricing will match those of any other country, including the U.S.

The National Institute of General Medical Science held a major workshop exploring where America will get its next-generation science work force in an era of dwindling U.S. overseas recruiting allure: America's minority communities. Exploring this "Untapped Pool," the Institute scholars found that underrepresented minorities show interest in science and research careers but get precious little help sustaining that interest through four years of college:
"Data show that a large population of minority students who enter undergraduate programs lose interest in science in the freshman year…[but] Students who successfully make the freshman-sophomore transition are likely to stay in science. Furthermore, minority students who graduate with baccalaureate degrees in science are as likely to stay in science as majority students….

"The pipeline leaks at several places: the freshman-sophomore transition, baccalaureate graduates who choose a medical profession over a research career, and the transitions from Ph.D. to postdoctoral fellow and postdoctoral fellow to faculty.

"Biomedical scientists have the responsibility to convey the excitement and opportunities that a research career offers, and to convey the importance and relevance of research to society in improving the quality of life and reducing health disparities. The continuing dearth of minority faculty is a major problem that must be addressed…."

Amen to that. But it is not simply the biomedical scientists who should heed that message but all of the research establishment. For if American science is to stay abreast in a multipolar, multicompetitive world, it will urgently have to find ways to replace the generations of post-Second World War and Vietnam-era veterans now sliding off into retirement. And it will have to come to grips with the demographic tornado called diversity that is sweeping through the halls of Corporate America, sweeping out old attitudes as surely as it sweeps away artificial lines of resistance to change.

The Emerald Honors Conference, hosted by this magazine and its siblings, is designed both to celebrate the achievements of minority scientists and those far-seeing leaders opening doors for them, and to boost the promotion of research careers to minority students. The leaders of Career Communications Group feel keenly the responsibility to help "convey the excitement and opportunities" offered by science careers and have pledged a considerable investment to the task, along the way extending recognition to those forward-thinking managers and companies that have looked beyond the tired stereotypes of yesteryear to the advantages available when a truly multicultural, multidisciplined, multitalented team approaches a technical challenge.

The results are often astounding, as a look at the achievements profiled in these pages will show.

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