Industry - Academy Mismatch

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Date
Martin's comments on the skills successful consulting and managing oil
industry paleontologists must have are very interesting, especially insofar
as many (most?) academic paleontology programs have been rapidly moving
away from this type of training for several years now. Maybe I'm wrong, but
I see a problem here. Granted, the oil business has played a large role in
forcing academic paleo. programs out of stratigraphy via allowing the job
market in this area to collapse. That having been said, it wasn't the
palaeontologists inside the industry who made those decisions. Indeed, at
this juncture many of those people can rightfully say "I told you so,"
though I suspect it gives them little comfort to be proved right. Still,
we're left with a very interesting and unstable situation. If the academy
isn't able to train new palaeontologists in the stratigraphic and
systematic skills that industry needs, where does industry think it's going
to get people to fulfill these roles? My suspicion is that for the last 10
years or so most oil companies have been "living" off the people they laid
off [Note: Were do the people who currently population the consulting
agencies come from? What are their backgrounds; especially the young
people? Are there any young people in paleo. consulting?]. Regardless of
whether you think those layoffs were a good or a bad idea, this situation
can't last forever. Is industry concerned about this? Is it able to do (or
interested in doing) anything? On the academic side, what is it going to
take (realistically) for applied-paleo. degree programs to be re-created.
Given current levels of "support" for paleo. within academic settings, are
such changes even possible at this point? My impression is that due to the
extreme boom/bust economic cycle of energy producers during the 70's and
80's industrial and academic paleo. became decoupled from one another. If
we can't re-establish this connection, I think we're looking at a lose-lose
situation that may well have implications beyond the field of paleontology.


Norm MacLeod



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Norman MacLeod
Micropalaeontological Research
N.MacLeod@nhm.ac.uk (Internet)
N.MacLeod@uk.ac.nhm (Janet)

Address: Dept. of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum,
         Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD

Office Phone: 0171-938-9006
Dept. FAX:  0171-938-9277
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