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Industrial Labs that Still Do Fundamental Research
An anonymous reader asks: "I am a graduate student of Mechanical Engineering at a reputed University in the United States. I have had a lot of fun working towards my PhD. I have published papers and done exciting research. I should be finishing up in the next few months or so, but I would like to continue doing the same kind of work that I am doing now. One option would be to take up a post-doctoral research appointment and find myself a faculty position. I am somehow not attracted to this option because of the tenure and grant pressure. My ideal job would be in something like the Bell Labs of yester-years. Do you know of labs that have that kind of environment? National labs are supposed to have such an atmosphere, but my stint in one of them makes me think otherwise. Google does seem to have such an environment but I am not a CS person. Does Slashdot know of labs where basic research in applied engineering is still done in the US, without the pressure of money and immediate results?"
I would not necessarily give up on academia. Granted, the last five years has been particularly hard on basic science research (especially in biosciences), but there are still good options for the best and brightest. In academia, you really need to have the PhD if you want the flexibility that you are looking for. That said, I've found academia to be a tremendously rewarding experience that does not preclude you from work in industry either. For instance, we've been exploring the commercialization of some of our technologies and I am pleased to say that you *can* have it all with academic environments and industrial aspirations. The trick is that you have to create your own company to do this or find an academic environment that will support independent commercialization.
With respect to industrial labs that do basic research, the pressure from any federally funded labs from the Bush administration has been away from basic research and towards applied research that has mirrored the trend in industry for the few years preceding this administration. Years ago there were more far thinking companies like Xerox, HP, SGI and Bell Labs, but they got lazy and were under more pressure from shareholders to focus more on short term profits and less on long term viability of the company. This effect has been reflected in the long term performance of each of these companies as their influence has withered away. There are some current companies that are starting to invest more of their dollars in true R&D which is being reflected in their performance, but i worry that the trend in this country is going to hurt our international viability in a variety of the sciences both commercial and academic.
P.S. The other thing that you should be aware of is that many industrial labs require some post-doctoral training period as well to obtain positions....... Of course it will depend upon the appointment, but a post doc is viewed as a useful thing not just in pure academia.
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My computer engineering group works rather extensively with IBM's T.J Watson research lab in New York (off the top of my head, we're working with them on two new architectures they are designing, and they used us as guinea pigs to test a new multi-threaded programming language they are developing). I can say first-hand that they do some really great work.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Navy Research Labs (NRL) and/or Army Research Labs (ARL) might be what you're looking for.
Regarding your desire to avoid sponsors: anywhere that you're going for DoD money, whether your at a university or in a lab, you're going to have to suck it up and try to get funding. On the bright side, once you have good relationships with sponsors, I'm told that getting money each year takes less time than the last year did.
NSF and DARPA money are reliably low-pressure. Sometimes money from MITRE is also low-pressure. NRL money can often be low pressure, depending on the program and sponsor in question.
Long story short, I think DoD labs can maybe offer the low-pressure you're looking for, if you can hook up with the right sponsors. Also, working as a civil servant, you'll have job security, vacation, and even pay levels that are better than most corporate research positions offer.
I got my PhD 4 years ago. Microsoft Research and IBM are the two widely respected industrial CS research labs. I'm not sure how you could get through a PhD program and not know this.
Google has a very small research lab. They don't publish much. If you want to remain part of the research community, do not go to google. They are well known as a black hole of ideas. They've published something like 2 OSDI papers, and that's it.
Research Triangle Institute, in the Raleigh / Durham NC area is a research organization founded by Duke, UNC, and NC State 40+ years ago. They are tied closely to academia which seems to be important to you, and are involved in research & development in just about any field you can imagine. They were even mentioned recently on slashdot.
:)
Disclaimer: I work for them
I recently got a job at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. The atmosphere there is very much like what you are looking for. Right off the bat, you might not be doing fundamental research but will get the opportunity to submit IR&D proposals probably within a year. They are loosely linked to academia and have a relatively laid back atmosphere because they are not-for-profit, and the stuff you do there even if it's not fundamental research, will be advancing existing technologies on the bleeding edge.
A second option would be MIT Lincoln Laboratory. They have a similar atmosphere. Very think-tank-ish. Also not-for-profit. I didn't like them as much because there's a lot of arrogance and apparently a high turn-over rate, but very interesting work.
Warning: these suggestions are useless unless you are a US citizen and can obtain a security clearance.
I know the parent post asks for labs in the USA, but there are plenty of options overseas - notably the government-funded CSIRO laboratories all around sunny Australia (disclaimer: that's where I work)*. If you are interested in computer science research, you can't go past the ICT Centre (/.). Specifically, if you're interested in cutting-edge robotics research, there's Autonomous Systems (who are frequent news items on ./), or if medical engineering is more your style, there's the BioMedIA lab. There are, of course, other research labs in Australia, but this is the one I know most about :)
:D
Australia offers a good place to carry out research, with many state governments (notably Victoria and Queensland) pouring millions into funding. Plus the lifestyle and standard of living is pretty hard to beat
* The usual oddities that associated with any large organisation (management & HR weirdness) are omnipresent, but these come and go and are par for the course.
Moo.
To Further elaborate on SwRI:
It is the 2nd largest independent, nonprofit applied research and development organization. The staff of 3,000 specialize in the creation and transfer of technology in engineering and the physical sciences. The Institute occupies more than 1,200 acres in San Antonio, Texas, and provides nearly two million square feet of laboratories, test facilities, workshops and offices. SwRI's total revenue for fiscal year 2005 was $435 million.
Research Areas include:
Applied Physics
Automation and DATA systems
Ballistics and Explosives Engineering
Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
Engine, Emissions, and Vehicle Research
Fuels and Lubricants Research
Geosciences and Engineering
Materials Engineering
Signal Exploitation and Geolocation
Space Science and Engineering
Your questions are interesting in that I know of, and have helped hire, a great number of refugees FROM private research labs (AT&T Research, Lucent, DEC/Compaq WRL...) who are interested in moving TO academia. I get the impression that a number of these traditionally great private research labs (notably the New Jersey ones, heirs of the storied Bell Labs mantle) have become less than great places to be. There has been mass exodus of top researchers from those places to academia. Why? The ones that I know well haven't liked the changes and don't want to be the last ones going down in a sinking ship. Overall, there has been less freedom about what kinds of projects they can put energy into, and more cost-justification/compromises made by short-term market-minded thinking. There is a great deal of uncertainty about the long-term direction of these labs, even those that have been great places to work recently. I think it's more than the usual "grass is greener on the other side" effect as some of these folks had been in academia before working for the various labs. For my university, it's been a great windfall, as we've had multiple strong hires in the last five years from the research labs- people who are quite senior and aren't too worried about the less-than-fantastic university salaries, but aren't interested in leaving the New York area, for a variety of reasons.
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
what you want is a CERN like facility, with sufficient funding and excellent oppurtunities.
OK, I'm a mechanical engineer with a PhD myself, and have been in a similar position so I think I can provide some ideas and/or advise. I did a couple of postdocs after finishing, realised being in the lab was not what I wanted and am now working in technology transfer which I absolutely love.
Firstly, I think it is important to distinguish mechanical engineering (probably include civil engineering too) from computing/software/IT type engineering. I'm don't want to get into arguments about why and I'm not trying to be controversial or put anyone down, but I do think the CS situation is not particularly relevant.
One of the things I would ask is what you enjoyed about the PhD. Did you do genuine blue sky research? Or was it industrially relevant (was there an industrial collaborator)? What did you enjoy - was it being able to go down every avenue and just "try stuff" to see what happens? This kind of freedom to research only really happens in (1) academia or (2) very very large (and rich) companies who often have research labs encouraging this kind of research in the areas the company operates in, e.g GE healthcare (Germany), Rolls Royce have an aero/turbine research lab (UK/Europe), Ford have an environmental research lab (UK).
If you're looking for industrially relevant engineering research, which is based on commercial decisions and reasons, then look to industry.
One thing to keep in mind with academia is that many research groups have partnerships with industrial companies whose input can vary from anything to just simply providing cash/resources to actually genuinely driving the research direction based on the company strategy. Many large research groups have a person who might act as the liason with the engineering company, project managing the research and reporting progress to the company, effectively acting as a company voice within the research group.
Hope that helps a little.
"Because it's there." - George Mallory, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest, March 18, 1923 (New York Times)
At least in the biomedical sciences, the major alternative for academia is the not-for-profit research institute. The majority of these are run like academic labs, with PI's, post-docs, and staff researchers (and techs), but the funding for these labs is through collaboration with large pharma and biotech firms. That nearly eliminates the need for grant writing, and in these environments, creativity and ingenuity are still respected.
http://www.mitre.org
MITRE is a blast. Ideal for research types and applied geeks alike. From nano-tech to the DARPA grand challenge, MITRE has something for every college-educated nerd.
Pay is good. Pressure is light, if any. Funding is near limitless. The work environment is modern, well-equipped, and relatively spacious compared to most similar orgs.
MITRE has been one of Fortune's "100 Best Companies To Work For" 5 years in a row (ranked 66 this year) and one of IDG / Computerworld's "Best Places to Work in IT" for 2 years (ranked 8 this year). Check out the Fortune writeup HERE.
The biggest challenge you will face at MITRE is getting hired. Apparently, there were only 191 NEW jobs + 250 or so job openings due to voluntary turnover... and nearly 25,000 applicants. Yikes.
Anyway, here's a list of FCRCs. Maybe you'll find a home with one of them. Personally, I think you'd do better to rethink your position on academia. http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/fedfunds/pubs/ffrdc/ ffrdc.txt
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey