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As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

science.org

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Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#11

Post by chrisseaton »

refurb wrote: post #10

Supply and demand. We produce more PhDs than needed by either academia or industry. Hence, the burden of post-docs just grow (I was talking to a biology PhD who said 5-6 years of post-doc was typical, for chemistry I've seen people do 2).

> We produce more PhDs than needed by either academia or industry.

I don't think so - industry can't hire enough PhDs. In my field (programming languages) shortage of qualified people is a bit of a problem at the moment! We wish there were more being produced.

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#12

Post by sseagull »

microtonal wrote: post #4

If you pay much lower than the industry and only give people temporary positions, it's not surprising people go elsewhere when they can. The solution is also quite obvious...

I hate the trivialization of this. The solution is not obvious. Paying more/longer requires more money. Where does that money come from?

At least in my areas of science (chemistry), most of this money comes from grants, which comes from the NIH, DOE, or NSF depending on the project. Ultimately it comes from taxpayers, and portioned out by Congress.

So the solution is either to get Congress to really care about this (ha!) or re-architecture funding of all of higher education.

Neither of these is simple.

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#13

Post by doliveira »

baka367 wrote: post #3

I spent 4 + 1 (extra year) going for the PhD. Getting funding for anything was nothing short of nightmare and the workload was (obviously) very high. Eventually I decided to scrap those 5 years for a triple salary as a junior developer and had a successful career since. Is casual coding more interesting than research/teaching - no, but staying in academia requires way more altruism than I could find in me. I also sti…

Yeah, I quit after my Masters. I do miss the challenge, the feeling of achievement when you crack something, just the whole feeling of being close to the edge of human knowledge, it's all so much more exciting than development where you know your answer is basically already out there.

But yeah, you gotta do what pays the bills. I'm not making triple figures in dollars, but in my country it's six times what I would get during a PhD program.

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#14

Post by bachmeier »

refurb wrote: post #10

Supply and demand. We produce more PhDs than needed by either academia or industry. Hence, the burden of post-docs just grow (I was talking to a biology PhD who said 5-6 years of post-doc was typical, for chemistry I've seen people do 2).

Are you saying the article is wrong? They talk about evidence exactly the opposite of your comment.

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#15

Post by blackbear_ »

PhD student looking forward to graduate and move on. I think one can make a decent living with a German salary, which is still 50% lower than an industry position, the reason why I want to leave is the insane competitiveness and inherent up-or-out structure of academia. If I could have a permanent position with the same salary I currently get I would seriously consider staying.

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#16

Post by bachmeier »

My impression (from the inside of the university) is that academia is simply not a great employment option these days. There's an attitude on the inside that those who have academic jobs have won the lottery. No doubt, in a few fields that's still the case, but academic jobs are mostly bad working conditions and low pay combined with limited job security.

It was trending in that direction for many years, but the pandemic was a major structural change. You should consider any kind of academic job as a backup rather than a destination.

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#17

Post by adam_arthur »

__jambo wrote: post #8

I never know what to think about reports on labour demand anymore, I have heard "there are no jobs", "there are lots of jobs", "noone is working", simultaneously all year. I guess it all comes down to who is saying it. I guess most of the time it's the fact that the jobs are crap, but employers don't want to shift the social contract that creates the apparent contradiction, but who knows.

Job openings vs labor supply tells you most of what you need to know.

Job openings exceed job seekers by a record amount. Unemployment is close to a record low.

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#18

Post by Moggie100 »

Current UK CompSci PostDoc here - and yeah, pretty much what everyone says here is correct. My contract is 'contingent on funding' (so casual/short-term by any other name, but 'perminant' so HR can fudge their short-term employment numbers down) and my pay is well below what I could get in the wider industry.

I stay because I'd like to think I can improve things (I'm very active in management talks, where I can be) but as we're now at 6 (? Maybe 7) years of below-inflation pay adjustments, and with no progression possible at my grade unless I make the leap to lecturer or equivalent I'm just stuck here and its getting tiresome, and every year I look at my bank and go 'why am I doing this?'.

One day I'll stop asking why and leave, but I like what I do - its just not economical.

... and for the curious, I've made the case for promotion and applied for it a number of times, but as no-one ever retires in the industry (profs forever?) the next grade up is stupidly over-subscribed, so my chances are extremely low.

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#19

Post by dagw »

chrisseaton wrote: post #9

> Postdocs in general aren’t paid well Sounds like everyone understands the issue... so why don't they respond by meeting the market price? If you want to buy something like a tissue sample for an experiment in a lab then you pay the market price. You wouldn't think to offer 20% of the market price and then be puzzled when nobody will sell it to you - you just pay the going price, and it's part of the cost of doing r…

If you want to buy something like a tissue sample for an experiment in a lab then you pay the market price

Academic researchers often pay either zero or get a massive discount on all kinds of stuff (hardware, software, data, samples etc.) for their research that people in private sector pay a huge premium for.

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#20

Post by jzer0cool »

I think there are certain "fundings" that could be higher or lower depending on the project commensurate with hiring with high pay. Post-docs should be paid well in my opinion. They are our future leaders, educators, innovators, and to me, the ones who teach "how" to fish. The same goes for salary in certain fields in teaching.

Something seems backwards.

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