Academic science is a tournament. The number of open faculty positions is always limited. Only a handful of them in the major league places like Harvard, Scripps or MIT. University education, PhD and postdoc work are all stages in the competition to land a job in the academia. Making tenure is a hard-earned success for a scientist. But it only marks the end of the qualification rounds. The game is just beginning.
How does a professor succeed in the academia? What is the competition for? Three things.
1. Funding. The money, which mainly comes from research grants. It is given out on a competitive basis. I like to call it monopoly money, because it can only be used "in the game". Professors can not cash or pocket it. This money is used to buy things (equipment, supplies, reagents) and hire people (PhD students, postdocs, technicians, secretaries) for the lab.
2. Manpower. Graduate students and postdocs, that is. They drive the research forward. Their power comes not only from numbers, but from individual fitness as well. The good ones do not require higher pay, but are more picky when choosing professors to work for. Productivity is affected by the professor's approach to workforce management and motivation.
3. Name "size". As they say, you have to "get your name out there" and "make a name for yourself". Successful professors have "big names". This one refers to professor's personal credentials, reputation, recognition and fame. It is affected by presentation and marketing of research accomplishments to the rest of the scientific community.
To survive and succeed, a science professor has to compete in all three "events". Neither can be disregarded. What's more, they are tightly linked: each one affects the other two. A loss of funding, for example, results in inability to support a larger research group and attract better students. Less money to do research also means fewer accomplishments to put your name on. Reputation of a star scientist, on the other hand, gets a professor the best students and helps to secure handsome funding. And so on.
It can be referred to as the FMN triangle (Funding-Manpower-Name). This is what the game is about. And it has profound consequences for everyone in Academia, the advancement of science, and taxpayers around the globe.
comments for this post
I've been a student of science for over 10 years. Most of that time I worked in academic research labs. The last and the longest time – in the laboratory of Dr. 
Can't wait to hear about the next post. I hope you don't turn this blog into an angry tirade about the unfair nature of graduate school or the system - life is not fair and we don't live in a utopia. Focus on your original topic: PIs who are cruel to their students by habitually not publishing their work. People that are paid to do a job and don't do it. Focus Andrei.
no one likes an angry tirade. if you have legitimate beef, prove your point. no one likes a thoughtless oration. let andrei meander.
I fully agree with the comment above. I really hope this does not turn into one more angry rant about the unfairness of academia. How is Reza Ghadiri related to your "FMN triangle"?
Also, news at 11: a deep insight into the very heart and soul of corrupt academic community! Stay tuned!
Well, Dr. Reza Ghadiri is a science professor (obviously). I will be getting into the specifics of what effects this FMN situation is bound to have on the choices professors make.
So far I have not said anything about the academic community being corrupt. Will I say something later on? You do need to stay tuned. )