Life of a Scientist: Door's Still Glued Shut.

One of the challenges of getting a research career moving is starting and/or getting involved in a thought line that is of current interest. If your interests lay in areas that are not particularly active, getting funding (much less a job, if you're not a tenure-track professor) is going to be tough. The congress does not pay agencies to study things that are not considered important. The NSF and NIH have agendas. Private endowments have their focuses. In other words, research dollars almost always have an end-result in mind. Cold fusion and acid rain are examples of topics that are currently pasé. Unless you have something earth shaking to add by studying these topics, it is going to be a tough road to do anything.

So, it's important to know where the community is going, and develop connections with top researchers you can use as mentors and leasons. While some of these routes you can figure out on your own (personal communications, conferences) there are other activities that really give people the opportunity to interact and share information. Long, well funded post post docs, visiting scientist positions, and colloquia are examples.

I know numerous people whos careers were launched or otherwise highlighted by these more specialized opportunities. To some extent, I had been looking forward to one or two. However, over the course of a generation, the number of applicants has grown while the funding has shrunk. I have personally been rejected from things in ratios in the range of 12:1 to 4:1 for slots. Yet another area where it is obvious that there are too many scientists.

It's frustrating, just a bit, because the tools and experiences my advisors had seem unreachable and unreplaced.

We'll have to invent our own road, I guess.