Piret Pikma, director of the Institute of Chemistry at the University of Tartu, said that experimental science has seen a sharp rise in the cost of all types of chemicals and consumables. “If we are talking about personal protective equipment, which is needed in all laboratories, such as gloves and goggles, then the prices are rising by an average of 20 percent every year,” Pikma said.
The rise in prices for various types of protective equipment was initially triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. “Nitrile gloves, for example, were in high demand at the time. Before the pandemic, a box of gloves cost €3.30, but during the pandemic the price went up to almost €19 a box. But we can’t do our work without them,” the researcher pointed out. Although prices have since normalized, they still cost a few euros more than before.
“However, when it comes to chemicals, the prices of certain substances are increasing by as much as 30 percent a year. I myself am an electrochemist and work with ionic liquids. Those prices have risen by 100 percent in the last two years,” she added.
Similarly, according to Pikma, the price of laboratory equipment, which has risen by as much as 25 percent in recent years, is also continuing to increase “There are a general lack of funds to upgrade this equipment. The group grants from the Estonian Research Council are not enough,” Pikma said.
Salaries growing faster than grants
However, Pikma stressed that the most important resource when it comes to lab work, in addition to the equipment, chemicals and protective equipment, are still scientists themselves emphasized-. “We have people with PhDs working in our laboratories who ought to earn a salary commensurate with their education and experience.”
“At the University of Tartu, there is a compulsory pay rise every year, however, the salaried people get paid come from grants. If we are talking about a five-year grant, that does not take into account the fact that everything is going to go up by 20 percent each year, in addition to the salary increase,” Pikma said.
Angela Ivask, professor of genetics at the University of Tartu, also drew attention to the issue of pay. “Usually, a small salary increase is always taken into account in grant applications, but you are still working on the basis of how things are in the current situation. A grant can be four to five years long. Now, however, salaries have moved on at such a fast pace that you couldn’t have known that when you applied,” she explained.
According to Ivask, the jump in salaries happened in 2022, for which the research agency had to release a small top-up amount. “There have been cases where it has been said that the minimum wage for a person working in one or another position is now at such a level that the means have to be found to implement this increase,” Ivask said by way of example.
In cases like this, team leaders are left with two options: raise a person’s salary or reduce their workload. “We don’t want to do the latter. With limited financial resources, this tends to be a problem,” said Ivask.
By the same token, Ivask added, it is not possible to retain workers by paying them the minimum wage as they are no longer motivated to stay. In research grants, however, salaries and funds required needed for scientific experiments are taken from the same source. In other words, a potential salary increase is likely to come at the expense of the experiments and analyses that labs carry out.
Trying to make do with less
The number of experiments cannot simply be reduced, as they are the basis for validating and publishing scientific results, said Piret Pikma. At the same time however, the increases in the amount of research funding and the size of grants are not fully in line with the rising costs of carrying out experiments.
“We can’t do just one experiment and say that’s the result. It doesn’t meet the scientific standards. However, I know people who have redesigned their own measuring equipment and experiments to reduce the cost of chemicals. They are also looking for ways to source these substances more cheaply,” she said.
Just as Estonian society in general is becoming more cautious about consumption in the face of rapidly rising prices, Pikma senses a shift in thinking in science. “I can certainly not say that scientists have ever been complacent. We’ve always been a sector that has to be frugal. However, I feel that researchers are thinking even more now about how to get by,” Pikma said.
“They are trying to do more to improve the apparatus themselves and looking for simpler solutions. If they have outdated equipment, they seek out partners who want to buy the same equipment, or they go somewhere else in the world to take measurements. This is not really a sustainable solution,” Pikma added.
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