Best Places To Work for Postdocs: 2005
Who does the best job of nurturing the hardworking heroes of science?
The Scientist
02/16/05
Five government organizations, four universities, three private institutes, two cancer centers, and one hospital. Those are the US institutions that landed in the top 15 slots in The Scientist's Best Places to Work for Postdocs 2005, which is based on a survey of postdocs who rate their own institutions.
It is not clear why government and private research centers outranked academic institutions in this year's survey, but Keith Micoli, chair of the National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) says, "In general there's more incentive for government and for-profit institutions to take care of their employees." Lou Simchowitz, head of the fellows' office at the 15th-ranked National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), agrees: "Government institutions have recognized the need for change and have dedicated money, personnel, and resources" to addressing postdocs' needs.
Some benefits are institute-specific, such as NIDDK's grant-writing workshops and career-transition awards, which provide bridge funding to young scientists during career transitions. But postdoc offices throughout the National Institutes of Health also cosponsor programs, such as brown-bag career development lectures, with support from the NIH intramural research office, says Simchowitz, who previously worked at 10th-ranked Washington University.
Private institutes might have earned high marks because of their size, says John LeViathan, NPA executive board member and human resources manager at the J. David Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, which placed 12th in The Scientist's survey. "A smaller population is easier to manage, to elicit feedback, and to find out what [postdocs] are feeling," he says. "It's easier to be consistent in your practices." Many private centers have affiliations with larger academic institutions, he adds. For example, Gladstone has a relationship with the University of California, San Francisco, so postdocs get the best of both worlds.
Three of the top 15 in this year's survey – the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, and the Research Triangle Park campus of the Environmental Protection Agency – are located in North Carolina's Research Triangle, which encompasses Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. Melanie Sinche, director of UNC's Office of Postdoctoral Services, says that NIEHS, which ranked fourth this year and third last year,1 "really led the charge," but that postdoc advocacy has become a region-wide mission. NIEHS, UNC, and Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem work together to host career fairs, professional development workshops, and lecture series. "In this area, it's been easy to find support," she says.
Almost all the top 15 institutions have either a postdoc office, which mediates between administrators and fledgling scientists, or an association, which is an advocacy group run by postdocs themselves. In the past 15 years, the number of on-campus post-doc associations increased from 10 to almost 30, according to Micoli, a pathology postdoc at University of Alabama, Birmingham. He says that these organizations help facilitate dialogue between postdocs and administrators and raise awareness of postdocs' needs.
For places without an office or organization, postdocs are at the mercy of their principal investigators (PIs) or mentors to determine their salaries and working hours. "There's almost no quality control at the institution level," says Micoli.
Even at institutions with postdoc offices, young PhDs still face roadblocks to successful research careers. Some problems are directly related to the postdoc-PI relationship, and according to Sinche, success in that area depends on clear communication and mutual respect for career goals. "Make expectations clear. Keep talking. Discuss the PI's research goals with the postdoc and try to work on the postdoc's career goals," she advises. "You can take a look together and come up with a plan that works for both people."
Compensation has also historically been a concern for postdocs, who frequently feel that they're being used as a "cheap labor source," according to one survey respondent from the Children's Hospital of Oakland Research Institute in California. LeViathan says that the NIH postdoc compensation guidelines, which "tend to be on the low side," are only recommendations, not requirements, so many postdocs are underpaid. (According to the NIH, a postdoc with less than one year of experience should be paid $35,568, while one with seven or more years of experience should receive $51,036.) Others find it difficult to get paid at all. Simchowitz says, "It's virtually impossible for people to slip through the cracks [at government-run research facilities]. That's not true in academia."
Other complications lie outside the control of the PI or institution. Several survey respondents bemoaned the fact that if they receive independent funding, such as an NIH National Research Service Award (NRSA), they lose benefits and privileges such as health insurance, parking, and access to recreational facilities at their own institutions. In some cases, they're even removed from the university phone and E-mail directories, says Micoli. "At some places, if you're on a fellowship, you don't even exist at that institution." Unfortunately, that's not the fault of the universities; the wording of the NRSA prohibits institutions from classifying fellowship recipients as employees. "The NIH is working hard to rectify this," says Micoli, but meanwhile the 10% of all postdocs on these fellowships feel like they're being punished for their accomplishments rather than rewarded.
Such mixed signals only exacerbate another problem facing post-docs: the inability to assess their professional performance and make a smooth transition to independence. "It's very unclear what you're supposed to do to move on," says Micoli, "and it's very hard to monitor your progress." While the number of postdocs has almost doubled in the last 20 years, the number of tenure-track, faculty positions has not increased. Institutions are hiring more adjunct faculty, and less than 15% of the approximately 50,000 postdocs nationwide are landing tenure-track positions.
The doubling of postdocs in the United States is largely due to an influx of postdocs from other countries, as domestic postdoc numbers remained flat, according to Micoli. This influx of international scientists, however, presents its own set of problems. International travel is restricted because reentry visa stamps are hard to get, and some funding sources are limited to US citizens and green-card holders. The United States is now reliant on this "imported talent" for the future of its science and technology industry, says Micoli, and if these barriers aren't resolved, the United States may lose scientists to Europe, where travel between countries is getting easier and the visa process is "less antagonistic."
