Career stage, benchmarking and collective research

This paper provides an answer to the puzzle of why, in a system where colla boration is increasingly important and life-cycle models provide a modest e xplanation of observable outcomes, the career stage of the individual remai ns an important concept, We argue that three factors are key to the explana tion of this paradox. First, the reward structure in science, particularly in academe, places great emphasis on the attainment of benchmarks in the co ntext of a career. Second, the funding mechanism by which university labora tories have traditionally been supported in the US places great emphasis on the individual and often is targeted to the career stage of the individual . Third, the funding regime which has evolved in the US encourages the use of doctoral students and post doctoral students as researchers in the labor atories. This provides for a system in which a fugue of life cycles plays o ut in the laboratory and a means by which networks are put in place as earl y career scientists leave the nest and go about establishing their own labo ratories or move to the laboratories of others.