Archive by tag | survey

The three-year PhD program: good for students? Or too good to be true?

Posted by Jack Leeming | Categories: , , , , , , , , ,

It will be harder to get PhD extensions under the new model.

PhD students are the backbone of the research industry, often responsible for compiling precious datasets for their lab and learning the cutting-edge techniques required for analysis. But completing a PhD is hard, and getting harder as scientific standards creep steadily upwards. It takes over a year longer for current students to publish their first scientific paper than those 30 years ago because of the increasing data requirements of top journals. Across Europe and Australia, this is one reason why students are taking an average of four to six years (or longer) to complete their PhDs, despite candidature contracts usually being a maximum of four years, and government scholarships lasting at most three and a half years.  Read more

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Why should we work so hard to make our work reproducible?

Posted by Jack Leeming | Categories: , , , , , , , , ,

Why should we work so hard to make our work reproducible?

The call for reproducibility has never been stronger in the history of science. Since two major pharmaceutical companies, Amgen and Bayer, reported in 2011/12 that their scientists were unable to replicate 80-90% of the findings in landmark papers, scientific news outlets have caught up on the issue. Their reports have catalyzed conversations among stakeholders (policy makers, funding agencies and scientists) to improve reproducibility in science.  Read more

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Career paths: Tracking PhDs

Posted by Julie Gould | Categories:

Melanie Sinche

Dr Melanie Sinche is a nationally certified career counselor focused on STEM careers, currently serving as a Senior Research Associate at the Labor and Worklife Program in Harvard Law School, studying employment patterns of science PhDs. She formerly served as Director of the FAS Office of Postdoctoral Affairs at Harvard University. She is an accomplished career counselor, trainer, and speaker. In addition to building three career centres for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, she has delivered career development presentations and training sessions for universities, government agencies, professional associations and non-profit organizations across the country on career-related topics for graduate students and postdocs. Her current focus is to improve data collection on PhDs and postdoctoral scholars across the U.S.  Read more

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We want to know: What do researchers do next?

Posted by Julie Gould | Categories:

We want to know: What do researchers do next?

In May this year, Vitae and Naturejobs co-launched a survey: What do research staff do next? The goal of this survey, according to Dr Janet Metcalfe, Chair and Head of Vitae, is to “create a range of career stories of former research staff that reveals their career journeys and explores what were the tipping points in their careers.”  … Read more

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What do research staff do next?

Posted by Julie Gould | Categories: , , ,

On this Naturejobs blog we’ve looked at quite a few things on moving from academia to industry: we spoke to Nessa Carey from Pfizer on her transition from academia to industry, we’ve written about transferable skills that are needed, we’ve been through our archives to find you some great reads on our Windback Wednesday round-up: From academia to industry. We’ve even looked at how to find your path when leaving the academic track.  Read more

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US scientists have their say on plans for biomedical workforce

Posted by Rachel Bowden | Categories: , , , , ,

Posted on behalf of Gene Russo, Nature Careers editor US biomedical scientists recently had a chance to set their field’s priorities. And what was the most pressing problem they reported? The very real possibility that there are too damn many biomedical scientists. The balance between the supply of biomedical researchers and the demand in terms of available career opportunities should be the biggest priority for reforming the US biomedical workforce, according to a survey response issued by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Other big priorities that scientists highlighted were PhD characteristics (i.e. PhD curriculum, length of the PhD training  … Read more

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