Dental academics: Our future dental academics

Sir, I am writing with concern with regards to the state of research funding for dental academics in the UK. Research from the Medical Research Council shows that the number of doctoral fellowships for dentists to be lowest across medics, allied health professionals, nurses and midwives, despite the number of pre-doctoral fellowships increasing five fold over eight years (2009–2017).1 One has to ask why this is the case.

As a dental academic, I believe the root of the problem to be multifaceted. However, the key areas that require consideration are the lack of a well-established academic pathway and a general lack of research funding opportunities for dental doctoral fellowships.

Our medical colleagues have a plethora of potential sources of funding – charities, royal colleges, and national and international societies. However, the dental academic has a much smaller pool of funding from which to draw.

For a dentist, ultimately, the possibilities of receiving funding for a PhD fellowship fall frequently to the large research councils, where dentists are pitched against all healthcare professionals and medics. This has its own challenges as we are branded on-par with medics, who have a well-established successful academic pathway for trainees, including possible F1/F2 academic positions, meaning a better chance of getting meaningful research experience, publications and outcomes.

Academic DCT posts have only recently been introduced in dentistry, along with NIHR-funded ACF posts, but the pathways for dentists are often not well understood by the dental and research communities, preventing academics from reaching their full potential within the fellowship.

In addition, the possibilities for intercalated degrees within the dental undergraduate curriculum is limited compared to our medical colleagues, resulting in poorer uptake and as such, a lack of research experience at undergraduate level. In addition, with rising tuition fees and costs of living, the possibility of undertaking a PhD outside of a fellowship is an unrealistic option for many clinicians.

In addition to the lack of funding, it is difficult to impress the importance of oral health and its inextricable links to general and mental health when pitched against research into more emotive themes such as degenerative diseases and vaccines, which are usually better understood by grant panels.

Compounding this issue is the lack of senior dental academics, with 66% of dental schools reporting difficulties in recruiting certain academic positions,2meaning fewer supervisors for research-keen students and staff at all levels. This lack of senior academics also weighs into poor provision of role models for young academics.

Going forward, I would urge research councils to look into and consider the challenges and barriers faced by the dental community in undertaking research. Stakeholders should be looking more closely at the medical academia models which are working far more successfully than our own pathways. We should also be encouraging young dentists to consider academia as a potential career to steer and instigate change for the future.