Sir

The present financial crisis is putting many early-career scientists in a complicated situation, as noted in your News Feature 'Closing arguments' (Nature 457, 650–655; 2009) and the Editorial 'Crisis of confidence' (Nature 457, 635; 2009). I agree with the Editorial that “doctoral programmes should build better career counselling and training into their curricula from the start”, but I also believe that universities cannot continue to expect professors to do research and apply for grants and patents, as well as teaching.

People often choose an academic career for the freedom and creativity of doing research. Overburdening them with administrative tasks means that their creativity is hardly used. One solution might be a 'grant-writing' office that would know all about the availability of grants, how they might apply to specific topics and what they should contain.

See also: Diversity of funding sources and topics is key to survival  We need more insight into what's worth paying for  Backlogged system in Australia shuts out new investigators