Proposals for Changing the Postdoctoral Experience

Proposals for Changing the Postdoctoral Experience

The postdoctorate brings benefits to individual scientists, the scientific community, and the nation as a whole, and these benefits should be protected in policy initiatives affecting the postdoctorate. At the same time, the postdoctoral experience can be made much richer and more useful through modifications of existing programs, the development of new models, and better information about the status and prospects of postdocs.

A. Strengthening the "Traditional" Postdoctorate

The "traditional" postdoctorate conducted at a research-intensive university serves many people well, but these appointments could be strengthened and enhanced by taking several key steps.

According to workshop participants, the postdoctoral experience essentially should begin in graduate school and extend through a person'’s first job. Every graduate student should receive career counseling that would describe the range of career options available, the advantages and disadvantages of the postdoctorate, and the need to develop skills beyond research. Graduate students should gain an understanding of whether they should enter into a postdoctoral appointment and what they need to achieve through the experience. This career counseling should continue throughout the postdoctorate so that postdocs take advantage of the full range of learning opportunities available during their postdoctoral years.
Workshop participants pointed to serious problems that can stem from the recruitment of postdocs. The placement of postdocs often occurs through personal contacts among established researchers. This reliance on personal recommendations can cause researchers to overlook equally qualified or more qualified candidates, including minorities underrepresented in science.
A central database that lists individuals who are looking for postdoctoral appointments could help open up the self-contained networks that generate many such appointments today. Partnerships between research-intensive universities and minority-serving institutions also could help channel minority Ph.D.s into postdoctoral appointments, as could targeting of graduate students in settings with substantial minority populations. Collaborations with organizations serving underrepresented minorities, women, and scientists with disabilities also can serve these ends.
In their role as mentors, individual faculty members are as critically important in guiding the career development of the postdocs they oversee as they are in offering guidance to their graduate students. However, faculty members are usually most familiar with the world of academia and know less about other career options. They therefore should not be the only source of career information for graduate students and postdocs. Departmental meetings, institutional postdoctoral associations, and local and regional workshops and meetings of graduate students and postdocs can provide opportunities to pool experiences and share information. Supplemental funds allowing graduate students and postdocs to travel to conferences can support essential elements of their education. Such conferences can be focused on science while also including sessions on teaching, institutional governance, running a research program, professional ethics, and the many other issues postdocs will encounter during their careers. Professional organizations should be strongly urged to include these themes in their programming.
At the beginning of a postdoctoral appointment, the expectations of both the postdoc and the advisor should be spelled out in some sort of contract. Such a document, whether formal or informal, could address such issues as sources of financial support and benefits, policies on authorship and intellectual property, and responsibilities and opportunities for both research and other activities. To facilitate this step, templates could be devised, perhaps by professional associations or funding agencies, and made available to institutions, which could tailor them to meet specific institutional or departmental conditions. Contracts could be reviewed and modified by mutual agreement during regularly scheduled evaluations and progress reports. These reviews and evaluations also could provide funding agencies and other institutions with information about the outcomes of a given postdoc's experiences.
Institutions also need to be integrally involved in the professional development of postdocs, including career counseling, development of management or teaching skills, attention to ethical and intellectual property considerations, and other issues discussed elsewhere in this report. One way to heighten such involvement would be for funding agencies, including NSF, to provide grants to institutions or departments specifically for postdoctoral advising. Such grants also could support graduate student mentoring and advising, perhaps through institutional centers for teaching.
A cognizant institutional officer should be charged with oversight of the postdocs on campus. As one workshop participant pointed out, most institutions pay more attention to the condition of research animals than to postdocs. This authority could be divided among individuals, but one should have final responsibility for postdoctoral affairs beyond the research itself. A growing number of institutions have created such positions and offices.[15]

At the same time, postdocs should be involved in the governance of their institutions, especially by serving on institutional committees. This would help develop leadership in the scientific community and provide a way to bring the concerns of postdocs to the rest of the institution.
Postdocs should be encouraged to participate in postdoctoral associations, both within institutions and across institutions. These associations can build a sense of community and provide a mechanism for advocacy and education. They can be particularly valuable for underrepresented minorities, who otherwise can feel isolated in a given lab or institution.
Investigators who apply for grant renewals at NSF are now required to describe "any contribution to the development of human resources in science and engineering." NSF-supported researchers also have to provide information about the "broader impacts" of proposed research on social, educational, and minority issues. NSF needs to emphasize and vigorously enforce the use of this "second criterion" in its requests for proposals and in reviews by requiring that requests for postdoctoral support document previous mentoring and successes of postdocs in the applicant’s laboratory. Such requirements would provide incentives for researchers to act as strong mentors and advisors to postdocs. Grant applications also could have a section on institutional programs designed to enhance the educational components of the postdoctoral experience.
Pay, benefit, and status levels for postdocs need to rise. Workshop participants felt that NSF should forcefully support a policy of fair compensation for postdocs. NSF also should work to ensure the provision of health insurance and other benefits for all postdocs.[16] And policies need to be established that ease the tension between the postdoctorate and family responsibilities; examples include the provision of childcare assistance and the establishment of programs that make it easier for couples to live in the same location. As one workshop participant put it, "Postdocs are people, too."

Only by fully addressing the issues of compensation and benefits, workshop participants said, will it be possible to ensure the diversity of the postdoctoral population and of the scientific and technical workforce.

B. New Models

Recent years have seen the development of new models for the postdoctorate, such as postdoctoral positions in industrial or government labs or hybrid appointments done in multiple institutions. This diversification of the postdoctorate needs to be extended and strengthened, and new models should be supported as valuable and valued ways to serve the needs of individuals, institutions, and the nation as a whole. However, as one participant noted, any program patterned on the postdoctorate needs to know what it is preparing people for, what doors it is opening professionally for participants, and the range of possible contributions participants could make to society, knowledge, and other areas.

Today, many people have postdoctoral appointments at institutions other than research-intensive universities, not only in government or industrial labs, but also in primarily undergraduate institutions, independent research organizations, and so on. These non-traditional postdoctorates have broadened the base of experience of the postdocs who have done them while simultaneously strengthening the nation’s research and broader scientific infrastructure outside research-intensive universities. Postdoctoral appointments that combine experiences in different institutions—such as 12 months in industry followed by 12 months in a university—can serve a similar purpose. Such postdoctorates can leverage the funding of federal agencies and help achieve national goals that traditional postdoctorates cannot. For example, a particularly important form of partnership is between research-intensive universities and institutions serving predominantly minority populations, including historically black colleges and universities, tribal colleges, and institutions serving largely Hispanic populations.[17]
Postdoctoral appointments that take place at least in part outside research-intensive universities could be equally valuable when done in many other institutions, such as museums, community colleges, courts, legislatures, think tanks, and so on. Such programs could build unique blends of skills directed at critical unmet needs. They also could bring scientific expertise to sectors of society where such knowledge can be particularly useful. Such programs need not be large to have an important impact, both on the institutions where a postdoctoral appointment takes place and on the academic institutions with which a postdoc interacts.
Hybrid postdoctoral appointments often lead to hybrid careers. As workshop participants often pointed out, society benefits when postdocs take the experience they have gained and enter teaching, legislatures, the courts, journalism, business, and other sectors of society. At the same time, postdocs who have had experiences with multiple institutions have much to offer in academic jobs by broadening the vision of students and faculty members. For that reason, workshop participants insisted, nontraditional postdoctoral appointments should not disqualify a person from being considered for faculty positions at research-intensive universities.
New models for the postdoctorate could be an explicit focus of the Discovery Corps Fellowships now being discussed within NSF. Every postdoctoral appointment should be centered on research. But the Discovery Corps Fellowships could emphasize appointments in which research is paired with one or more other activities designed to enhance the value of the postdoctorate.

These fellowships could be structured in various ways. Institutions, departments, individual investigators, mid-career scientists, or graduate students could apply for a Discovery Corps Fellowship. If the applicant were a graduate student, the fellowship could be portable and perhaps extend into the initial stages of a job following the postdoctorate. If the applicant were an institution, department, or investigator, the fellowship could require adherence to guidelines designed to meet the fellowship’s stated objectives. In this way, the fellowship could help change the culture of the postdoctorate through its support of institutional change.

A fellowship program of this type could have many benefits. It could enhance career development, foster scientific leadership, and meet specific needs within institutions not usually served by postdocs. It could improve the management of the postdoctoral experience and provide new ideas for how to structure postdoctoral programs. Eventually, a clearinghouse of innovative programs could provide institutions with models of documented successes and allow institutions to benchmark their programs against others.
Workshop participants often noted the need to loosen and not augment existing hierarchies of status and mobility within academia, particularly as these hierarchies affect the postdoctorate. Individuals who participate in new models for the postdoctorate should not be automatically excluded from consideration for certain professional positions. This is particularly a concern for underserved communities, including women, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities, who should not be shunted into less-valued career paths.
Many of the individuals who undertake nontraditional postdoctoral appointments are likely to choose nontraditional career paths. Nevertheless, all postdocs need to interact with other scientists on a regular basis, stay current in their fields, and maintain strong research programs. Partnerships between institutions should be as seamless as possible, so that existing distinctions are blurred rather than accentuated. NSF’s support for new models for the postdoctorate would help legitimate and promote these programs, so that they receive the respect they will need to be successful.

C. The Need for More Information About the Postdoctoral Experience

New initiatives cannot be successful unless they meet a recognized need. And to establish whether a need is being met, the value of new and existing programs must be assessed.

Measuring the value of a postdoctoral appointment is not easy. Research output is one indicator, but that should not be the only indicator even for a traditional postdoctorate. The problem of measuring non-research outcomes is even more acute for nontraditional postdoctorates that explicitly combine research with other activities.

Much useful information will be generated by a set of surveys of postdocs to be conducted by Sigma Xi beginning in 2004.[18] Survey questions will focus on research activities, career choices and goals, compensation and benefits, interactions with advisors, and perceptions of institutional policies and practices. These surveys will provide institutions, postdoctoral associations, professional societies, and postdocs themselves with considerable information about the numbers and current status and concerns of postdocs. Furthermore, the surveys will be conducted on an ongoing basis, which will provide information about postdocs over time.

In addition to the Sigma Xi survey, workshop participants identified other assessment needs.

Assessment mechanisms should be built into new postdoctoral programs from the beginning. These assessments should employ both quantitative and qualitative means, such as those that would be generated in an annual review of a postdoc’s activities and accomplishments. Also useful would be long-term tracking of what happens to postdocs at later stages in their careers, including when they get their first job, where they work, reflections on their postdoctoral experiences, their salaries, and so on. This information could be collected and publicized by institutions as a way of promoting the postdoctorate. Information from different institutions also could be collected in a central location, allowing postdocs to compare experiences and institutions.
In general, the understanding of the characteristics and outcomes of the postdoctorate needs to become much stronger and more comprehensive. Surveys of scientists conducted several years after the completion of their postdoctoral appointments could provide information about the ways in which the postdoctorate proved more and less useful. Longitudinal survey data from individuals who are planning, experiencing, and have completed postdoctoral positions could help answer many questions about the postdoctoral experience. Much more needs to be known about foreign scientists doing postdoctorates in the United States: how many return home, how many stay in this country, and what are their contributions to this nation’s scientific enterprise and to that of their home countries if they return following their postdoctoral appointments. Surveys of institutions and researchers could reveal why a postdoctorate appointment has become a de facto standard.

In the longer run, even broader assessments of the postdoctorate would be desirable. One workshop participant posed the following challenge: determine what number of postdocs is needed to maintain a society with minimal technological advance, and then determine what number of postdocs is needed to maintain the rate of technological advance of the past 30 years. These numbers could act as upper and lower bounds on the potential population of postdocs and justify policy actions that affect the postdoctorate.