Trends in Research and Graduate Programs in Schools and Colleges of Pharmacy, Part 1: Programs

INTRODUCTION

The graduate education infrastructure in schools and colleges of pharmacy has been instrumental in producing scientists and leaders in academia, the pharmaceutical industry, federal government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and other science-based policy positions. Over the last two decades, the foundation of graduate education has been impacted by external and internal factors that have influenced its sustainability and accountability. This report series examines these factors in light of the significant increase in the number of schools and colleges of pharmacy, includingcurrent and emerging challenges and opportunities over the last 10 years that impact graduate students, science faculty members, graduate education, and research infrastructure in pharmacy schools; science faculty composition, including discipline identity, rank, tenure status, gender, and race and ethnicity; factors that support and hinder a diverse environment in pharmacy schools; graduate enrollment, degrees conferred and gender, race, and ethnicity over the last 10 years; and graduate student experiences (mentoring, career navigation).

In 1998, American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Commission on the Future of Graduate Education in the Pharmaceutical Sciences was charged to examine two major questions: What are the numbers and abilities of PhD graduates needed in the pharmaceutical sciences, and what should be the nature of the education and training of PhD students in the pharmaceutical sciences? The report’s major recommendations included: schools and colleges of pharmacy must offer students competitive research environments under supervision of highly qualified faculty mentors; pharmaceutical sciences faculty should be encouraged to engage in multi- or interdisciplinary research and graduate training programs within their own institution and with other faculty members within the university; graduate programs in the pharmaceutical sciences should establish, compile, and assess longitudinal databases of performance indicators to assess faculty, student, and program quality, and annually submit data for a common set of indicators to AACP; schools and colleges of pharmacy should provide “survival skills” (non-research) training to graduate students; and schools and colleges of pharmacy need to increase recruitment from non-pharmacy disciplines.¹ These recommendations are still timely, and should be considered appropriate for other “life sciences” disciplines that have emerged in schools and colleges of pharmacy over the last 10 years.

There have been significant changes to graduate education in schools and colleges of pharmacy. In 1993, nearly 40% of individuals who received their PhD two decades earlier were tenure-track or tenured faculty members. By 2008, this percentage dropped below 30%. The slope of this decline has remained steep.^2,3 Notably, the anecdote that most PhD trainees go into academic research has been incorrect for decades. Even for students receiving their degrees in the early 1970s, the percentage never exceeded 50% (once postdoctoral training had been completed). Today, more PhDs work in non-academic science-related careers than within universities. Some of these careers involve science policy or regulatory functions rather than research.⁴ Overall, there is a very low rate of unemployment among biomedical PhDs,³ and trainees move to careers in nonacademic sectors at a high rate. However, new graduates who secure positions in the private sector or government agencies may have serious difficulties adapting to a non-academic culture. The largely unacknowledged challenge today for graduate programs in biomedical sciences is to provide job skills and core competencies⁵ that will support the majority of trainees pursuing careers in nonacademic sectors, without compromising their rigorous training in basic biomedical disciplines.

Previous analyses incorporated into this report are based on biomedical research and graduate education reports released in the last 10 years, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Biomedical Research Workforce Working Group,³ the NIH’s Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) Working Group on Diversity in the Biomedical Research Workforce (WGDBRW),⁶ A National Analysis of Minorities in Science and Engineering Faculties at Research Universities,⁷ The Path Forward: The Future of Graduate Education in the United States,⁸ Rising Above the Gathering Storm Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5 from the National Academies,⁹ and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED).¹⁰ Many of the scholarly reviews of graduate science education focus on a number of changes that need to occur to ensure its sustainability, accountability, and success.

Each year the AACP Research and Graduate Affairs Committee (RGAC) examines various aspects of research and graduate affairs within the Academy. The 2014-2016 RGAC’s Report¹¹ recommended a competency-based model of graduate education and postgraduate education (including both basic and clinical postdoctoral training) for pharmacy schools, and the 2016-2017 RGAC developed six domains of core competencies for graduate education in the pharmaceutical sciences.⁴ Building on that model, the 2017-2018 RGAC¹² was charged to focus on reducing barriers to recruiting and retaining diverse and successful graduate students. The committee reinforced the need for training students in professional, non-research “power skills,” including leadership and management, and personal and professional development. Following those earlier efforts, the 2018-2019 RGAC honed in on the need to expand collaborative research and leadership development opportunities.¹³

For this investigation, AACP institutional research data were mined regarding extramural research funding, graduate student enrollees, number of PhD degrees conferred, and faculty composition, including discipline, rank, tenure status, gender, and race/ethnicity. These data are reported annually by pharmacy schools and compiled, analyzed, and summarized by AACP. Per AACP’s statement entitled “Pharmacy Faculty Research Grant Data Collection: Process and Methodology,” research grant data are a combination of NIH and external funding, as follows: AACP annually requests from the NIH a complete report of NIH-funded research grants awarded to principal investigators at schools and colleges of pharmacy during the past federal fiscal year (October 1-September 30). The AACP staff populates the NIH research grant data into a report form and sends each report to the school or college’s CEO Dean of record for verification, modification, deletion, or addition based on their own funding record. The deans are then asked to report awards from other federal agencies and non-federal sources (nongovernmental organizations such as the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), state-level agencies, associations and foundations, pharmaceutical industries, etc), as well as collaborative PI subcontracts (an investigator who received a flow-through NIH or other federal or nonfederal subcontract from the PI/project leader of a parent grant, which was awarded to another college or school within the same institution or from a different institution). The AACP verifies the submitted reports using uniform criteria to validate that the grants are investigator-initiated, competitive, and peer-reviewed.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this comprehensive analysis of graduate education infrastructure, aligned with pertinent insights and strategy from national reports on graduate education and biomedical research, is to inform change in the culture and structure of graduate programs in pharmacy schools into the future.

FINDINGS

Research and graduate education in pharmacy schools are financially supported by state investments, tuition revenue, and research grants and contracts. A 10-year composite overview of the AACP Institutional Research Data from schools and colleges of pharmacy from FY2008 to FY2017 is provided in Table 1. This is a collection of all external research funding data from the NIH and “other” external research awards. Between FY2008 and FY2017, there was a 31% increase in PI-only NIH dollars awarded to schools and colleges of pharmacy (from $262M to $343M) and a 41% increase in NIH total funding (from $290M to $410M). Because of a change in AACP’s methodology since FY2011, in which more types of non-federal funding (specifically industry funding and state agencies) are included in the totals, it is difficult to compare total research funding across the 10-year period. That said, there was still an impressive 97% increase in non-NIH funding (from $97M to $191M) and a 41% growth in total funding (from $427M to $601M) between FY2011-FY2017. This indicates a new and expanding research portfolio for schools and colleges of pharmacy, and displays the importance of diverse funding sources as a major driver in enhancing the research infrastructure within these institutions.

Although the total dollar amounts have increased substantially over 10 years, it has not been commensurate to the significant increase in the number of pharmacy schools and funded faculty members during the time period. From FY2008 through FY2017, the total number of schools reporting research awards increased 52% (63 to 96). However, the mean NIH funding per school actually decreased by 7% ($4.6M to $4.3M), and the mean total awards per school increased by 18% ($5.3M to $6.3M). Because of changes in AACP reporting, changes in the numbers of funded faculty members and funding awards can only be examined over the last seven years (FY2011-FY2017). In that period, the number of funded faculty members increased by 45% (998 to 1448) and NIH-funded faculty members increased by 25% (698 to 874). However, the mean NIH funding per funded faculty member decreased 14% ($330K to $283K) and the mean total funding per funded faculty member decreased 3% ($428K to $415K). Although an increase in the number of funded faculty members potentially serves as a good indicator of the job market for biomedical science faculty members, the per-faculty dollar amounts demonstrate that available funding has not increased commensurately and, if it continues on the current trajectory, could hamper the establishment of strong research programs.

The vast majority of funded faculty members are at public institutions, although private schools and colleges have expanded their funded research in the last 10 years. In FY2017, 12% (173 out of 1448) of funded faculty members were at 35 private institutions. The proportion of NIH-funded faculty members to total funded investigators are 46% at private institutions (81 out of 173) and 62% at public institutions (793 out of 1275). The percent of NIH funding to overall funding is 57% ($20M out of $35M) for private institutions, and 69% ($389M out of $566M) for public institutions in the same time period. Proportionately, private pharmacy schools received just 5% of NIH funding ($20M out of $410M) and 6% of total awards ($35M out of $601M). Of note, just 15 public pharmacy schools received more than half of the combined FY2017 NIH funding and total funding, while the other 81 public and private schools shared in the remaining funds. Taken together, these data demonstrate the critical importance of diverse funding sources as a major driver in enhancing the research infrastructure in pharmacy schools, particularly at the largest research-intensive public institutions.

DISCUSSION

There are significant internal and external factors that impact the recruitment, retention, and success of science faculty members in schools and colleges of pharmacy. These include the timeline associated with training for a faculty position, pursuit of research funding to support laboratories and trainees, the role of tenure, and the challenges in increasing diversity among graduate faculty members.

The challenges of attaining a tenure-track faculty position are often exacerbated by the general expectation that a candidate have significant research experience acquired through postdoctoral training to enhance their research skill set. Obtaining these experiences can require an additional three to six years after completion of a PhD. Upon securing a tenure-track faculty position, the expectation for obtaining external funding, usually federal, is explicit. Thus, science faculty members must develop and sustain their research funding and laboratory in order to achieve tenure and to maintain their research programs.

Although the institutional research dollars for pharmacy schools, specifically funds from the NIH, have increased significantly since FY2008 (Table 1), the landscape of funding in terms of competitiveness and sustainability continues to be challenging to navigate.^2,18 This is especially acute for junior science faculty members. According to the NIH Biomedical Research Workforce Report,³ the percentage of NIH grant holders with independent R01 funding who were under the age of 36 years has fallen sixfold (from 18% to 3% of all funding recipients) over the last 30 years. Complicating this is the minimal increase in federal research funding opportunities during a time when both medical schools and pharmacy schools are increasing the number of biomedical scientists on their faculty. This clearly results in an unsustainable, overly competitive environment that may substantially impact the ability for growth in the biomedical sciences and reduce research dollars that support science faculty trainees. Junior faculty members, even those with significant research potential, tend to be trapped in the milieu of endless unscored grants or poorly scored resubmissions, resulting in professional frustration and career stagnation. This not only impacts their success as science faculty members, but also presents a career in academia in a negative light to graduate students and postdoctoral trainees.

Today, only 14% of faculty members with a PhD in the life sciences hold tenure or tenure-track faculty positions five years after graduation,¹⁹ and scientists pursuing an academic career face a significantly elongated path to achieving tenure. In most instances, tenure is dependent on the faculty member being awarded a federal grant (NIH, NSF, etc) for which they are the principal investigator. Today the average age of a first time R01 awardee is 42 years.²⁰ This timeframe may exceed the “tenure” clock; thus, attaining tenure may be elusive. In line with these findings, the tenure-track position as a career destination has decreased and a review of tenure status of science faculty members in schools and colleges of pharmacy is needed.

Some of the most encouraging data observed during this analysis was the growth and representation of women science faculty members in pharmacy. As stated before, there has been an increase in female science faculty members who are tenured or on a tenure track.²¹ However, in 10 years the total tenured and tenure-track science faculty members increased by 269, nearly equal to the total of 247 nontenure-track science faculty members or those at nontenure institutions (Table 5). This same trend has been reported across academia where the number of tenure-track positions has not increased with the number of new PhD graduates.²² Although the proportion of science faculty members in non-tenure track positions and at nontenure institutions to total science faculty members has grown from 20% to 26% between FY2008 and FY2017, the percent of tenured science faculty members has slightly declined over the past 10 years from 55% to 50%, and the percent of tenure-track faculty members has declined from 25% to 24%.

SUMMARY

Increases in institutional research funding over the last 10 years indicate an expanding research portfolio for schools and colleges of pharmacy, with diverse (ie, non-NIH) funding sources as a major driver in enhancing the research infrastructure. However, a decrease in the average amount of research dollars allocated per faculty member could hamper opportunities for individuals to establish and maintain strong research programs.

Graduate programs have evolved beyond the traditional programs of pharmaceutics, pharmacology, and medicinal chemistry to include interdisciplinary programs that are increasingly aligned with departments or schools of medicine and engineering. With the advent of niche areas and more translational/interdisciplinary areas, pharmacy schools may need to redefine or expand disciplines to cover areas that are now relevant to the pharmaceutical sciences.

Trends in the rank, gender, and discipline of faculty members in schools and colleges of pharmacy indicate that number and proportions of female scientists in biological sciences and social and administrative science are increasing in pharmacy schools. However, the overall percentage of female faculty members in pharmacy schools has only increased by 5%, and the proportion of male to female pharmacy science faculty is still more than two to one overall. Further investigation into what motivates female scientists to enter academia, as well as what is essential for them to overcome the perceived challenges and obstacles to maintaining academic careers as women.