Individual development plans or IDPs—multi-part worksheets that help junior researchers asses their skills and map out possible career paths—are often touted as valuable training tools. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH), for example, “strongly encourages” IDPs for all graduate students and postdoctoral researchers funded through the agency, and many US institutions have made them mandatory. Read more
After spending nearly ten years of training in academia, I realized a year into my postdoc that this career path was no longer an option for me — I no longer wanted to be part of the vicious cycle of publications, grant money and experiment-bending to fit a bottom line. Read more
Both supply and demand have contributed to an research-and-development (R&D) career bottleneck, according to a 15 December Science article signed by the 10 research leaders, who call themselves the Coalition for Next Generation Life Science. US federal research funding, when adjusted for inflation, declined by nearly 20% from 2003 to 2016, according to the article. Meanwhile, PhD candidates continue to enroll in doctoral programmes. The result is that only one in 10 trainees will gain a tenure-track position within five years of receiving their PhD. Many PhD holders then spend longer than they had anticipated in postdoc training positions, sometimes taking multiple fellowships while waiting for academic job openings to materialize. And the ones who do land such positions are taking longer to secure their first independent grant. Read more
Job stability and a career in research are rarely put together. Science is a windy, grueling, uphill climb that might end abruptly at the edge of a cliff. Halloween is a particularly scary time for Australian scientists, as it signals the release of #NHMRC project grant results. Right now, many laboratories are facing difficult decisions due to rejected funding for next year. It’s not a surprise — we see it everywhere — yet it’s a shock that affects the entire scientific community. For early career researchers across the globe, it’s a timely reminder to carefully consider and plan for the future. Read more
Many of our scientific journeys began long before we stepped foot onto a university campus. We may have had lifelong fascinations with the natural world, a desire to make some positive change, or simply a love of learning. We aspired to become like our science heroes, the Marie Curies and Bill Nyes of the world, and so embarked on the path towards becoming a scientist. Read more
If you’re like me, you entered university with a plan: to follow a career path that many had followed before. This is common, because school trains us to follow directions. Earning a degree involves predefined steps: … Read more
US science and engineering PhD students are losing interest in academic careers because their career preferences change throughout their training, finds a study – not because of limited faculty-job availability. Read more
We’ve covered setting up your own lab before, but there’s an awful lot more for you to consider when you begin your tenureship. Here’s some more of the story. Read more
I knew I wanted to be a scientist when I was five. My dad worked for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and brought home pictures of Jupiter and Saturn taken from space. They were printed on poster paper with a glossy finish, and I would take them out at school and show them to everyone. Read more
