Science

Who Wants to be Tenured?

I’ve written a good deal about the Plight of the Postdoc and now the new HHMI Bulletin has updated figures and statistics on this precarious period between PhD and professor. Here’s a snapshot: Postdocs work, on average, 80-100 hour work weeks (Not surprised) 61% of former postdocs aimed to be a tenure track professor and […]

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I've written a good deal about the Plight of the Postdoc and now the new HHMI Bulletin has updated figures and statistics on this precarious period between PhD and professor. Here's a snapshot:

  • Postdocs work, on average, 80-100 hour work weeks (Not surprised)
  • 61% of former postdocs aimed to be a tenure track professor and __37% achieved that goal __(Not bad)
  • Average age that a scientist gets a first research grant = 42 (One year younger than I last reported, but I'd like to see this decline further)
  • Up to 60% of US postdocs are foreign citizens (Do we risk losing competitiveness?)

In Unscientific America, Chris and I described the arduous road to tenure. The United States is graduating more Ph.D.’s in science and engineering than ever before, but without institutional change to support to keep them in the STEM pipeline, many will turn away from research due to the challenges that lie ahead.

The National Science Foundation reports the share of recent doctorate holders hired into full-time faculty positions fell from 74% to 44% between 1972 to 2003. At research universities the decline was from 60% to 31%. During the same period, the number of science and engineering doctorate holders in postdoctoral positions rose from 13% to 34% overall and from 22% to 48% at research universities. This means we're producing more Ph.D. graduates than ever while the traditional academic trajectory affords fewer and fewer options.

As we argued then, the science community must work harder to encourage graduates that their skills can be applied outside of the ivory towers, while providing more support for those that stay.