New data released by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) reveal a sharp drop in the number of U.S. citizens working as postdocs, especially in the biological and biomedical sciences. The trend underscores concerns that the academic community is facing a postdoc shortage and that early-career scientists are increasingly favoring higher paid positions outside academia.
“It’s an unfortunate situation if domestic researchers are turning down postdoctoral positions because they’re inferior to positions in government or in industry,” says Tom Kimbis, executive director and CEO of the National Postdoctoral Association. “It’s not a situation that’s good for the country.”
The data come from NSF’s Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering, which compiles employment data from academic institutions and estimates the number of STEM graduate students and postdocs across the country. According to the latest data release, 62,750 postdocs were employed at U.S. institutions in the fall of 2022, a 1% drop compared with the year before. But the trend diverges sharply by citizenship. From 2021 to 2022, the number of U.S. citizens and permanent residents working as postdocs dropped from 29,755 to 27,289. The 8% change is the largest year-to-year percentage-wise drop in the history of the survey, which has collected data since 1980. Meanwhile, the number of postdocs with temporary visas increased by 6%, from 33,573 to 35,461, about the same number as in 2020.
Much of the shift can be attributed to employment numbers in the biological and biomedical sciences, which saw a 3% drop in the total number of postdocs from 2021 to 2022 and a 10% drop in the number who were U.S. citizens and permanent residents. It’s not clear from the recent data release what’s driving the trends. But the declines coincide with a boom in hiring at biotech companies. And data from a separate survey released by NSF last year indicated fewer U.S. Ph.D. graduates in the life sciences are pursuing postdocs than ever before, with an increasing number heading to industry.
“The trend we’re seeing in biomedicine is significant,” says Donna Ginther, a professor of economics at the University of Kansas who studies the STEM workforce. But the data don’t surprise her given that Ph.D. graduates can command much higher starting salaries if they take a job in industry.
The numbers also don’t come as a surprise to Gary McDowell, CEO of Lightoller LLC, a consultancy providing expertise on science training in higher education. “My personal experience is that Americans were always less willing to put up with conditions that foreigners like myself had to put up with,” says McDowell, who moved from the United Kingdom to the United States for a postdoc in biomedicine. But he adds that the postdoc numbers should be viewed with some caution because data collection for the survey isn’t consistent across universities, leading to variation in the completeness of the data. (McDowell and his colleagues posted a preprint in 2017 pointing to problems with some universities not reporting data.)
Website: International Research Scientist Awards
#researchscientist#Professor,#Lecturer,#Scientist,#Scholar,#Researcher,#Analyst,#Engineer,#Technician,#Coordinator,#Specialist,#Writer,#Assistant,#Associate,#Biologist,#Chemist,#Physicist,#Statistician,#DataScientist,#Consultant, #Coordinator,#ResearchScientist #ResearchScientist,#ScientificResearch,#ScienceInnovation,#STEM,#ScienceMatters,#ScientificBreakthrough,#FutureOfScience,#ScienceTechnology,#ScientificDiscoveries,#AcademicResearch,#ResearchExcellence,#ScienceAwards,#InnovationAwards,#ScientificAchievement,#ResearchGrants,#FundingForScience,#GlobalResearch,#ResearchRecognition,#YoungScientists,#WomenInScience,#Research,#Science,#Education,#Biology,#PhD,#University,#Technology,#Scientist,#PhDLife,#Thesis,#Health,#Innovation,#Dissertation,#Medicine,#Chemistry,#Researcher,#Engineering,#Nature,#Laboratory,#STEM#BiomedicalResearch,#AIResearch,#DataScience,#EnvironmentalResearch,#PhysicsResearch,#NeuroscienceResearch,#MedicalInnovation,#ChemistryResearch,#Genomics,#MachineLearningResearch,#ScienceCommunication,#OpenScience,#SciComm,#ScienceCommunity,#ScientificNetworking
More Details:
Tilte: International Research Scientist Awards
website: researchscientist.net
Visit Our Award nomination: researchscientist.net/award-nomina...
For Enquires : research@researchscientist.net
Get Connected Here;
--------------------------
--------------------------
www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61...
www.instagram.com/researchscientist8/?next=%2F
x.com/scientistaward
in.pinterest.com/ResearchScientist...
www.blogger.com/profile/0625116998...
www.tumblr.com/blog/researchscient...
Kimbis hopes the new numbers spur funding agencies and institutions to think about how to make postdoc positions more appealing. In December 2023, an advisory group to the U.S. National Institutes of Health released a set of recommendations for how the agency could better support postdocs, including a $14,000 boost in the minimum postdoc salary, enhanced benefits, and increased professional development support. But the agency has yet to release information about whether and how it plans to implement the recommendations.
“These are the types of changes that get down to the root of why numbers may be dropping,” Kimbis says. “We’re hoping that those are implemented.”
No comments:
Post a Comment