The Postdoctoral Experience: Shared Goals, Diverse Experiences
No two postdoctoral appointments are exactly the same, yet almost all postdocs hope to achieve certain objectives during their postdoctoral years. The most important of these is to become established as someone capable of doing independent or team-based research. Most postdoctoral appointments are organized around the conduct of research, though the time spent actually doing research can vary widely. Through these experiences, postdocs develop their creativity and sharpen their ability to design experiments, use equipment, analyze data, build on the published scientific literature, make presentations, write and review papers, and perform all the other myriad activities associated with the conduct of research.
Postdocs can learn many other valuable skills as part of their involvement in research. They can learn to interact and work together with other researchers, from senior faculty to undergraduates. They can learn to initiate research programs and to choose tractable problems from a wide range of possible research directions. They can learn how to create and administer a research budget and execute the many managerial tasks that must be handled by the leader of a research team.
Postdocs also can learn many skills that are not directly related to research but that can figure prominently in their future careers. They can hone their abilities to teach graduate students and undergraduates. They can develop skills in communicating about science to non-scientists. They can learn about the formation of institutional or governmental policies and apply their scientific expertise to the development of those policies. They can learn about the institutional structure of universities or industry and gain experience with the governance of those institutions.
The advisors of postdocs and the institutions within which postdocs work also have goals they wish to achieve through the postdoctorate. Postdocs are responsible for a substantial fraction of the research conducted in many laboratories. One analysis found that 43 percent of the first authors of the research articles in two recent issues of Science were postdocs.[2] In addition, postdocs can bring familiarity and expertise with a technique to a lab eager to use that technique. They can lead teams of graduate students or undergraduates who are performing part of a complex research project. In some institutions, they spend part of their time teaching or mentoring students or providing services to the institution or the wider community.
Because of the value of the postdoctorate—both to the individual postdoc and to the institutions where they work—one or more postdoctoral appointments have become increasingly common in research careers. Most positions in higher education and many industrial jobs require that candidates have completed one or more postdoctoral appointments. Even when new Ph.D.s are offered jobs immediately upon receiving a degree, their future employers often make provisions for them to have a postdoctoral appointment before beginning the job.
The value of the postdoctorate also has led to a substantial growth in their numbers in some fields. Though the number of postdocs in chemistry has grown only modestly over the past two decades, the total number of postdocs has boomed. In academic institutions, the number of postdocs rose from about 18,000 in 1981 to 41,000 in 2000, driven largely by increases in the life sciences.[3][4] In chemistry, about 3,800 postdocs were in doctorate-granting institutions in 2001.[5] Including postdoctoral appointments in industry and government, the total postdoctoral population in science and engineering in the United States probably exceeds 50,000.[6]
Even as the number of postdocs has increased, the average time individual researchers spend as a postdoc has lengthened. Again the trends are most dramatic in the life sciences, where the amount of time spent in postdoctoral appointments can be five years or more.[7] But the time spent as a postdoc in chemistry and other fields also could lengthen if faculty positions become scarce or if the economy suffers a substantial downturn.
About half of postdocs overall are temporary residents in the United States.[8] In chemistry, the proportion of temporary residents is even higher—two-thirds of the chemistry postdocs in doctorate-granting institutions in 2000 were temporary visa holders.[9] Very few postdocs are underrepresented minorities—only about 1,500 in all of science and engineering in a recent survey.[10] With so few minority postdocs, the number of minority faculty remains substantially lower than the proportions of those groups in the overall population.
NSF currently supports about 600 postdocs in chemistry, representing an annual expenditure of about $16 million.[11] The total number of postdocs supported by NSF is an order of magnitude larger—about 5,500, with annual expenditures of approximately $160 million.[12] Most NSF-supported postdocs receive their salaries through the grants of their advisors, though a small portion have fellowships that cover their salaries.
About 60 percent of all chemistry postdocs take jobs in industry following their postdoctorate.[13] Roughly a quarter go into academia, with the remaining 15 percent getting jobs in government and other organizations.
At the workshop, several participants likened the postdoctorate to other career paths. One analogous model is the traditional separation of craftsmen into apprentices (graduate students), journeymen (postdocs and non-tenure-track faculty members), and masters (tenured and tenure-track faculty and industrial or governmental employees). Another is the medical school model of students, residents, and interns. Each of these models has both intriguing parallels and differences with the postdoctoral experience.
Such analogies are complicated by the tremendous variety of the postdoctoral experience. Some postdocs are virtual peers with their advisors, working as equal partners on research projects and with students. In other cases, and especially in labs that include large numbers of people, postdocs act as "lieutenants" to oversee teams of students and researchers. Other postdocs have much less autonomy and responsibility; some act simply as skilled executors of an advisor’s ideas and have very little independence to initiate new activities.
The postdoctoral experience varies along many other dimensions. Pay levels differ substantially from academia to industry to government, from discipline to discipline, and even within a single discipline. For example, postdoctoral appointments in physical chemistry tend to pay more than appointments in organic chemistry. Some postdocs do little except research while others have many additional responsibilities. Some postdocs are treated as institutional employees, with benefits and employment protections, while others are more like contract workers.
The source of a postdoc’s funding can shape that person’s experiences. If funding is from an individual research grant, the postdoc may be expected to devote more time to research. If a postdoc has independent funding, that postdoc may have more freedom to shape a postdoctoral program. If funding comes through a department or through the university, teaching responsibilities may be greater.
As one of the workshop participants pointed out—quoting Steven Sample, president of the University of Southern California and chair of the Association of American Universities' Committee on Postdoctoral Education—"Postdoctoral education today is almost exactly where Ph.D. education was in the 1890s—very ad hoc."
