Awhile back, I posted a request for people to take a survey on internship (or similar entry-level) positions in their organization, whether paid or unpaid. I thank the 21 people (from a wide variety of projects and study areas) who took the time to respond to this. A summary of the results is given below.
Phil Clapham INTERNSHIP POSITIONS SURVEY: A SUMMARY OF RESPONSES ∙ Number of surveys returned: 21 ∙ Geographic areas represented: US/Canada, UK/Europe, Russia, Arctic, Brazil, Uruguay, Africa, New Zealand ∙ Size of projects annual budgets: everything from $2,000 to $4 million; the really big budgets were from state institutions (federal or state government) ∙ Sources of funding: direct government support (4), grants (18), donations/memberships (11), ecotourism/public outreach (8), merchandising (1) ∙ Is the PI paid as part of the project budget: 100% (6), no but paid as permanent employee of an institution (5), <50% salary (4), 0% salary (6) ∙ Species studied: cetaceans (20 projects), pinnipeds (1), sirenians (1), other (5) ∙ Projects involving endangered or threatened species: 14 ∙ Projects taking on interns or similar positions: all 21 ∙ Number of interns taken per year: anywhere from 1 to 20 (average 6.5) ∙ Interns receive: accommodation and/or food (19 projects); pay always (3), pay for some (7), interns are self-supporting (6), interns pay a fee to be part of the project (6); some combination of the above (16) ∙ Value of interns to the organization: essential to the work (12), important (6), unimportant (3) ∙ Time spent training interns: anywhere from 10% to 80% (this question was interpreted in different ways so the numbers don't mean much - basically all interns require some investment of effort to train) ∙ What percentage of interns turn out to be worth the effort of training (i.e. they come to represent a useful addition to the project): 10% to 100% (average 68.7%) ∙ What do interns gain from the work: experience with research (all 21 projects), field work (20/21), college credit (13 projects, though not necessarily for all interns), management experience with an NGO or other organization (2), data for the intern's use in graduate or other study (8), mentoring for graduate or other work (4), experience with public outreach (3), combinations of some/all of the above (all 21 projects) ∙ Sex ratio of applicants: heavily biased towards women. One project reported a 50/50 female/male ratio, but all the others were 70-90% female ∙ Ethnicity breakdown: one project (in Africa) reported 50/50 white/black, another (in Mexico) had 80% hispanic interns; but other than that most project interns were predominantly white (60-100%, average for all projects 85.5%) ∙ Positions advertized on: MARMAM (14 projects); Society for Marine Mammalogy (3); other, such as a website, university, social media, other listservs etc (11) ∙ Impact of a ban on unpaid ads on the institution's work would be: little or none (5 projects), significant (5), critical (4), unknown or no answer (7). Eleven respondents felt that the impact on individual opportunities would be significant or high, but the question was probably too vaguely worded to put too much stock into these answers. ∙ Principal Investigators who started their careers in an unpaid, volunteer position: 20 of 21 ∙ Value of that experience to the person's career: pivotal (17 of 20), important (1), unimportant (1) ∙ What is the bare minimum that should be offered to interns (other than research experience): bed and board (10), pay for all (2), pay for some (2), pay and benefits for all (1) *Some observations* 1. Those respondents who believed that all interns should be paid all worked for state institutions with large budgets (i.e. in at least some cases they presumably don't have to spend a lot of time raising money for their projects). 2. Not surprisingly, the ability to pay interns - and their importance to the project's work - was a function of the budget; small NGOs where the PI and other staff were not paid, and for whom funding went into project operations, were consistently unable to offer support to interns, who were also usually deemed important or essential to the work. Many of these projects, however, provided at least accommodation and food when in the field (though of the 19 that did this, six charged people a fee to participate, so it's really only 13). Some institutions provided ongoing support for interns after their time was finished, either through graduate study help or (in a few cases) hiring good interns back later on as members of the research team. 3. Most of the less well-funded institutions said variations of the same thing: that they wished they could afford to pay interns, but the budgets wouldn't support that. It is interesting that most project PIs felt that accommodation and food should be a minimum requirement, at least when on field work. However, some also made the point that they didn't see why they should be spending scarce resources to pay someone inexperienced and untested; while acknowledging that there was obviously a bias towards interns who could afford to volunteer, many felt that the exchange of labor for the chance to participate in research and "try out" a career was a fair trade (some had very strong views on this!) 4. It is certainly significant that almost all the Principal Investigators involved began their careers with a volunteer position, and that the majority of those said the experience was pivotal to their careers. 5. This is not news, but marine mammal research continues to attract far more women than men, at least at the level discussed here. 6. Again, not news... but obviously marine mammal research continues to be predominantly a white field. The only deviations from this trend among respondents were projects in non-white countries which prioritized local involvement in research. 7. One PI in a developing country made the interesting point that using western volunteers tends to limit buy-in from local people to research and conservation efforts. Again, thanks to those who responded.
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