A proposal by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to boost stipends annually by 10–12% could make the postdoctoral experience more pleasant. But hiking stipends still won't encourage young researchers seeking academic positions. Although several years of double-digit increases in the overall NIH budget have pleased principal investigators, it hasn't increased their number. Instead, it has resulted in larger grants to cover the stipends of more postdocs.

Many postdocs have been frustrated in their attempts to find secure employment in academia because fewer than half of all jobs for US science PhDs are in universities — yet most postdocs still aim for academia. A recent report by the US Education Department (http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2001/2001152.pdf) underscores their disgruntlement, revealing signs of erosion in the number of tenured jobs in US universities from 1992 to 1998.

There are two resolutions to this supply-and-demand situation. The active option is to create a new kind of university position, perhaps called 'staff scientist', that would be paid more than a postdoc — even after the NIH adjustment — but less than a principal investigator. This would help supply principal investigators with the skilled people necessary to carry out their research. It would also give young researchers a fair wage and a more certain future. The passive option is to hope that ageing senior researchers retire in droves and that universities keep those positions as full-time, long-term appointments.

But the passive approach to the postdoc problem has probably kept some people from considering a scientific career. Waiting further may discourage more. If so, principal investigators may discover that dealing with a shortage rather than an abundance of young talent is a high price to pay for the inexpensive labour they've enjoyed up to now.