Addressing systemic problems in the biomedical research enterprise

Last spring, the four of us published an essay in PNAS in which we described the severe problems now faced by scientists working in the US biomedical research system, recommending several steps that might be taken to improve the situation (1). As a follow up, we convened a two-day workshop in August that brought together 30 relatively senior individuals engaged in various aspects of biomedical science, including social scientists and others who are knowledgeable about the training pipeline. Attendees were asked to assess two central issues: the validity of the case that we made in our article (1) and the prospects for convening a much larger and more inclusive meeting to produce a concerted plan for remedial actions. There was near unanimity among the attendees that the system is under tremendous strain, which threatens the vitality of science in the United States. To paraphrase one attendee, the root cause of the problem is the fact that the current ecosystem was designed at a time when the biomedical sciences were consistently expanding, and it now must adjust to a condition closer to steady state. Another way of stating the problem: today too many people are chasing too little money to support increasingly expensive research. It was generally conceded that without some concerted action, this problem will only get worse. Most attendees agreed that a major consequence of the current imbalance is a hypercompetitive environment that reduces both the time available for thinking creatively and the likelihood that scientists will take risks to pursue their most imaginative ideas. Of even greater concern to the group was the dramatic change …