Is the research career losing its appeal?

When excellent young researchers like Jorge Aranda decide to quit their research career, one must wonder what we are doing wrong.

Jorge explains his reasons in this post (mandatory reading!) but he is not alone. In the last couple of years, other researchers have used similar arguments to turn down my postdoc position offerings and move to the industry. And I do believe that the problem goes beyond the fact that in the current economical context the perspective of getting a permanent position at some point in time tends to zero (still possible though if you are not looking to get a position in a specific city/country) since companies do not offer any kind of job security either.

While I agree that one of the missions of universities is to train people so that they can later transfer their knowledge to the industry, we should be able to keep at least some of them!!