Senior Scientists Quit Europe

©Paul Barton, Corbis Rigid retirement policies are prompting scientists to flee Europe at the height of their professional lives to start second careers in the United States. Many of these researchers are still conducting experiments and are in no mood to slow down. But because nearly all European universities are government run, professors are left little choice when they reach mandatory retirement age, which in most countries is 65 years or even younger. Some scientists leaving for the United States are well known internationally, and US institutions extend them generous offers. Others may not have big-name recognition beyond their fields, but are still dedicated to their work and eager tocontinue to contribute in some way. They often bring their European pension plans and are happy to work for minimalcompensation in the United States. From countries such as Germany, Switzerland, France, Netherlands, and Britain, scientists repeatedly stress that obligatory retirement is a source of extreme frustration and demoralization among their older colleagues. "It's a never-ending topic of discussion," says Klaus Rajewsky. "The pressure to finish up projects and leave your space to younger successors hangs like a dark cloud over those last years of one's professional life." AWARDS OF WORK Rajewsky, one of Germany's most prominent geneticists and a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1994, decided to escape from under that cloud. Two years ago, at the age of 64 and a year away from having to vacate his labs at the University of Cologne, he accepted an offer from the Harvard University-affiliated Center for Blood Research. Today he's a principal investigator at that Center. He continues his work on B-cell genetics and the modeling of human diseases in mice, research that he had pursued for almost 40 years in Cologne, and for which he has received numerous awards, among them the Robert Koch prize. Paula Stephan, a professor of economics at Georgia State University, studies the professional lives of scientists, and has learned from her French contacts that forced retirement is perceived as a "tremendous burden" by European professors. The fear of being sidelined due to age is an old one among scientists, she says, quoting a poem by physicist Paul Dirac to prove her point: Age is, of course, a fever chill That every physicist must fear. He's better dead than living still When once he's past his thirtieth year. The rhyming physicist got it wrong, Stephan says, but Dirac should be excused for his mistake, as he received the Nobel Prize at the age of 31 (in 1933, with Erwin Schroedinger). "There's a popular belief that science is a young person's game," explains Stephan. "But that's not true. Not in physics and even less in the life sciences. In my research I found that in the more observational fields, productivity does not decline with age. That's especially true for very productive people." It's a smart move by Harvard to lure top talent such as Rajewsky, Stephan asserts. "A life sciences lab is a big investment [for an institution] to make for a 65-year-old, but well-known names are a big enhancement for a university's reputation," she adds. Harvard spent more than $3 million (US) to accommodate the German geneticist and eight younger members of his team from Cologne. Other stars of science come with an even bigger price tag. World-renowned virologist Luc Montagnier moved to the United States five years ago, at the age of 65, to head the newly founded $21 million Center for Molecular and Cellular Biology at Queens College in New York City. Although the French codiscoverer of the AIDS virus remains active at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, where he spent most of his professional life, he now conducts the majority of his research at Queens College. In other cases, the amount of money needed to entice European scientists to continue working in the United States is negligible. Manfred Winnewisser, a chemist from Giessen University in Germany and recipient of the prestigious Max Planck Research Prize, moved to Ohio State University when he had to retire three years ago. He had collaborated with colleagues in Ohio over decades, and he gladly accepted their invitation to tutor students and hold seminars in return for being able to conduct research and continue to publish. "My contract is renewed annually by the department as long as I remain productive," he says. "It would have been close to impossible to make similar arrangements in Germany; the red tape would have been a nightmare." A GRAYING EUROPE For American universities, the European "gray brain drain" is a win- win situation. They get experienced professionals at a reasonable price. Europeans, however, lose their seasoned researchers and are subsidizing American higher education with European taxpayer money. It's a development that Hartmut Schiedermair, head of the Association of German Universities, finds exceedingly troubling. "We already have far too few professors for too many students," he asserts. "The dearth of expertise is threatening our competitiveness internationally. For a vibrant university life you need the right mix of experienced older and dynamic younger people." That imbalance is sure to get worse in the coming years as baby-boomer professionals all over Europe will reach retirement age in increasing numbers. The Association of German Universities has petitioned the Berlin government to ease retirement laws for professors, but so far to no avail. "We prefer to leave pension laws unchanged," explains Reinhard Huettl, head of the Science Commission of the Research Advisory Board of the German government. "We need to focus on accommodating junior researchers at our public universities." Nevertheless, Huettl adds, there has been a change of perception in the last years about the value of retaining older experienced talent: "We have created many possibilities for excellent emeritus professors to keep on working as members of academies or privately financed institutions. It does take a lot of initiative on the part of the individual, though." It's hard to say how many scientists are fleeing Europe because of mandatory retirement. "It's not something we are proud of, so we don't announce it publicly with big fanfare," notes Ekes El Pair of the Dutch Information and Communication Technologies Task Force, who follows science policy in the Netherlands. The departure of well-known scientists does on occasion lead to public hand wringing, especially when the graying European expatriates drive the loss home by making headlines with big breakthroughs or winning coveted awards for their latest research. A typical example is the Swiss organic chemist Albert Eschenmoser, who at the age of 77 won the Oparin Medal last year for his work both in Switzerland and the United States on the chemical origins of life. Since his retirement, Eschenmoser has been doing most of his work at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif. Another valuable addition to the American research community is molecular biologist Sydney Brenner, who was born in South Africa and spent most of his working life in Great Britain. He came out of retirement in 1996 to become director of the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, Calif. After that institution shut down two years ago, he took a position as distinguished research professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., at the age of 74. "I don't want to retire to play golf," he says, reflecting on his latest move. "Science is one's hobby and one's work and one's pleasure." He is best known for his work with C. elegans. More recently he has been part of a team studying vertebrate genome evolution using the Japanese puffer fish as a model. He's won the Lasker Award twice and was one of three recipients of the 2002 Nobel Prize in medicine. Yet another of the 2002 Nobel laureates will relocate from Europe to California in 2004. Biophysicist Kurt Wuethrich of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, who shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry, plans to continue his research at Scripps. He's turning 65 this year and has been preparing for his move for some time, establishing a lab and a team at Scripps. "Our results in the last five years have been better than ever," he explains. Wuethrich has been at the ETH for more than 30 years, exploring the structure of proteins and prions. The university was as accommodating as it could be under existing laws, making it possible for him to continue overseeing prion research at his lab in Zurich after his retirement. Wuethrich's planned departure caused a public outcry in Switzerland last fall and a change of law that went into effect in March. For "extraordinary personalities," the quirky legislation stipulates, pension laws can be suspended. The law applies to the ETH only. "That's the extent of what's possible given the decentralized nature of the Swiss public university system," says Gerard Escher, a member of the Ministry for Science and Research. The change came too late to keep Wuethrich in Zurich. Beginning next year, he will spend eight months of the year with his team in the United States. The Scripps Research Institute has been generous, supplying him with all the necessities for conducting first-class work, but the Nobel laureate does not come empty-handed: He'll invest the $500,000 from the Nobel Prize in his new lab in California. Silvia Sanides (sanides@cs.com) is a freelance writer in Charlottesville, Va. function sendData() { document.frm.pathName.value = location.pathname; result = false if (document.frm.score[0].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[1].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[2].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[3].checked) result = true; if (document.frm.score[4].checked) result = true; if (!result) alert("Please select") return result; } .myradio{background-color : #94bee5} Please indicate on a 1 - 5 scale how strongly you would recommend this article to your colleagues? Not recommended 1 2 3 4 5 Highly recommended Please register your vote

Senior Scientists Quit Europe

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