The National Research Council has released a report calling for for more professional masters degrees in scientific disciplines. They cited an increasing need for people in non-profits, business, and government who have a combination of scientific, business, and communication skills.
I’d argue that these same skills are needed by all doctoral students in the sciences. Referring back to the FASEB study I mentioned in an earlier post, while the number of tenure and tenure track positions in academia has remained constant over the last 30 years, the number of doctoral candidates in the life sciences has nearly tripled. According to the study, the majority of these “surplus” Ph.D.s end up in industry in positions for which they’ve received inadequate training. Graduate schools are doing their students a disservice by continuing to train them for positions in academia that don’t exist. The students’ expertise is too narrowly focused to serve them well in industrial or government careers.
For these reasons, the PhD must be “professionalized.” In addition to laboratory skills, these students need training in basic business skills, e.g. project management, accounting, economics, IP law, communications, entrepreneurship, and leadership. I’m not suggesting a curriculum to match an MBA in depth, but a year course or two designed to teach students the basic skills they will need to function in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and medical device industries. Such a program would also benefit those students who are lucky enough to continue on to tenure track careers in academia. They would have the skills to manage a laboratory efficiently, motivate and inspire students, and pursue commercialization opportunities for their research.
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The Professional Program in Biotechnology at Texas A&M is just this kind of program which encourages students to go into commercialization.