Firms Investing In Scientists Lead Science Careers’ 2012 Top Employers List

Employers topping the Science Careers best place to wrok list invest in scientists.

If you’re a scientist working for the right biopharmaceutical company you CAN have it all.

That’s according to the 2012 Science Careers Top Employers Survey.

The big biopharmaceutical companies that have prospered despite global economic turmoil have done so in part by investing in research and development and valuing and respecting the scientists who work for them, according to Science Careers.

Despite global economic gloom, many of the companies that made top employers list continue hiring scientists and investing in R&D, Science Careers reports.

In other industries layoffs, benefit cuts and hiring freezes are the rule. But the biopharmaceutical companies on this year’s Science Careers list concentrate as much on helping them it’s scientist lead balanced, healthy lives as they do on scientific discoveries and commercial success.

The Science Careers article poses this question:

–Is it possible to have a successful career in science, and have a life too?

Yes, if you’re working for the right company and you’re ready to ask for what you need, says Lori Morton, associate director of cardiovascular research at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which is number 1 on the 2012 Science Careers Top Employers Survey—after making the list for the first time ever, at number 2, last year.

“I really believe that having an engaged parenthood and career success are not incompatible ideas here,” says Morton, who has worked at the Tarrytown, New York-based biotech for 10 years and has two young children.—

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“We give our scientists much greater freedom to go where the science takes them to do innovative things; we’re not constantly hounding them about expenses and minor administrative details,” Ross Grossman, Regeneron’s vice president of human resources, told Science Careers.

Among Regeneron’s employee benefits is highly subsidized in-home or in-facility childcare and adult day care. Regeneron employees go to working knowing that their aging parents and or young kids are well cared for.

Other biopharmaceutical companies topping the list of the best place for life scientists were Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, Mass.; Genentech, South San Francisco, Calif.; Novo Nordisk, Bagsvaerd, Denmark and Monsanto Co., Creve Coeur, Mo.

About The Scientists Career Survey

Every year, Science commissions a survey to identify the top biotech and pharmaceutical employers and to determine which qualities scientists use to make this judgment.

The 2012 survey is based on 4,276 responses to a web-based survey. More than half of the respondents, 56%, work in biotech, while 35% work for pharmaceutical companies.

In part because their jobs require advanced degrees, most of the respondents, 85%, were over 30 and 37% posses a doctorate degree. Many of the survey respondents have been in job market for some time. A full 70% said they’ve been working at least 10 years.

The survey was also male-dominate — 58% male versus 37% female.

And then there were the 5% of scientists who declined to state a sex.

Nerds.

Click here to download a copy of a chart showing the Science Careers top employer for scientists