Training the scientific workforce: Does funding mechanism matter?
研究发现美国国立卫生研究院（NIH）的研究助理资助方式更有利于博士生毕业后留在美国从事研发工作，而增加培训金和奖学金虽能扩大招生，却可能意外削弱科学劳动力参与。
• NIH-funded research assistantships disproportionately support foreign students. • Graduate students’ funding mechanisms affect their early-career job choices. • Research assistants are more likely to take U.S. R&D jobs after graduation. A National Institutes of Health (NIH) taskforce recently recommended decreasing the number of graduate students supported on research assistantships, and instead favoring traineeship and fellowship funding mechanisms. Using instrumental variables estimation with survey data collected from U.S. PhD-granting biomedical sciences departments and their newly-minted PhDs, we find that increases in these programs’ NIH-funded traineeships and fellowships do significantly increase programs’ total graduate enrollments, particularly of female students. However, PhDs who were funded primarily as research assistants are significantly more likely to take research-focused jobs in the U.S. scientific workforce after they graduate, as compared to PhDs who were primarily supported as trainees or fellows. The suggested policy changes thus may have unintended, negative consequences for scientific workforce participation.