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Say, “I’m tenured,” and most people think you have a lifelong job guarantee. It is a rare luxury; you would be hard-pressed to find the security that tenure promises beyond academic walls. However, as a mid-career (N.Y.) and junior professor (N.S.) in biotechnology, we challenge academic institutions to rethink the existing tenure model. In short, we are ready to leave the perceived safety of tenure to become ‘tenure time loopers’ who instead undergo tenure renewal every five years throughout their career. This proposed model would focus more on the long-term evolution of research programs and include peer reviewers at all career stages.
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Acknowledgements
We sincerely thank Carl de Boer, Anna Blakney, Samuel King and Carolina Tropini of the University of British Columbia, Dayag Sheykhkarimli of the University of Toronto, and Toshio Tsukiyama and Robert Eisenman of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center for shaping our view.
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Yachie, N., Shakiba, N. Tenure time loopers.
Nat Biotechnol (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-023-01924-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-023-01924-3
