Leverage

The first professor I ever worked for, a kind and humble man who passed away before his time, was once presenting some recent results to a gathering of scientists. "This preliminary data fits very well with what we're proposing for this new training grant," he said. "And the point of doing the science is, of course, to get more money."

Everybody understood, right away, that he was joking. That was ten years ago. Now, people are still saying the same thing, only they're no longer making a joke.

Another scientist I once worked for explained it to me like this: once upon a time, when he was young, professors never worried about funding. They were free to concentrate on their classes and their research. This freedom made some of them complacent, and they didn't do very much of anything. The modern climate with its constant scramble for funding has lit a fire under scientists and made them more productive. But there is a downside to it, and I, for one, argue that it has gone too far-- our research scientists now sound like hedge fund managers:

"A junior PI must take a limited amount of start-up funds and leverage it into long-term external financial support for an entire laboratory."

Unfortunate.