Postdocs are looking for ways to change postdoctoral research and training.

In December 2014, Shaping the Future of Research: A perspective from junior scientists, by Gary McDowell et al was published in F1000Research. It’s a report based on the Future of Research meeting that was held in October that year. Its main message is that bioscience and biotechnology postdocs aren’t happy.

The report touches on many different problems that postdocs face, but the bigger problem is the culture within scientific academia itself, says Gregory Petsko, professor of neuroscience at the Weill Cornell Medical College and Chair of the National Academies’ report on the postdoctoral experience. “When I was a postdoc, it was the best time of my life. And many others my age could say the same,” says Petsko. “We had almost complete freedom, very few responsibilities and the particular career paths that we wanted to pursue were available to us (at least that was our perception). Now, the period of being a postdoc is enormously stressful.” Continue reading →