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Doctorate level attainment has increased significantly in developed economies. In 2019, the average share of 25–64-year-olds with a doctorate across the OECD was around 1%. However, if current trends continue, 2.3% of today’s young adults will enter doctoral studies at some point in their life. This essay starts by describing the expansion of doctoral education. It then reflects on the causes of this growth and the consequences for the nature and purpose of the doctorate. This reflection is mostly based on published research in Higher Education in the last 50 years and the author’s work on policy analysis for the OECD on this topic. The paper finishes with a research agenda on doctoral education and the career of doctorate holders.

The long-held but erroneous assumption of never-ending rapid growth in biomedical science has created an unsustainable hypercompetitive system that is discouraging even the most outstanding prospective students from entering our profession—and making it difficult for seasoned investigators to produce their best work. This is a recipe for long-term decline, and the problems cannot be solved with simplistic approaches. Instead, it is time to confront the dangers at hand and rethink some fundamental features of the US biomedical research ecosystem.

While postdoctoral researchers (postdocs) are an increasingly important and productive group of employees in academia, they lack further career prospects and embeddedness within their organizations. This paper provides a rare glimpse into this relatively unexplored but important group. A comparative study of two Dutch universities included a survey with both closed and open questions among 225 respondents. Our study reveals that nearly all postdocs (85 %) want to stay in the academic field, but only (3 % was offered a tenure-track position. The uncertainty of their future prospects in academia lowered their job satisfaction; this is particularly true for the social sciences and humanities. Concerning alternative career paths, only few of the postdocs spent time in preparing for a career outside academia, and less than a third attempted to develop any transferable skills, although the importance of networking was recognized. Given that postdocs seem to be trapped between their own ambitions and a lack of academic career opportunities, it is very important that, on the one hand, postdocs aim for better visibility within their organizations, while on the other hand, universities provide more clarity and openness about their further career prospects inside and outside academia. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).

A number of distressing trends, including a decline in the share of key research grants going to younger scientists, as well as a steady rise in the age at which investigators receive their first funding, are now a decades-long feature of the US biomedical research workforce.Working committees have proposed recommendations, policy makers have implemented reforms, and yet the trajectory of our funding regime away from young scientists has only worsened. An investigation of some of the major factors and their geneses at play in explaining the increasing average age to first RO1 is presented. Recommendations related to funding, peer review, career paths, and the university–government partnership are provided.

The Dean’s Postdoctoral research associate is a research-focused position. Selected candidates will pursue their research program with formal mentorship and support of faculty.

The biomedical research enterprise is in crisis. The incidence and duration of biomedical postdoc positions, and the associated benefits and costs to those taking such a position, in terms of early career outcomes of employment placement and earnings, is examined.

Institutions will report student and postdoc outcome data The biomedical research enterprise finds itself in a moment of intense self-reflection, with science leaders, professional organizations, and funders all working to enhance their support for the next generation of biomedical scientists. One focus of their attention has been the lack of robust and publicly available information on education and training outcomes. In the absence of such information, students are prevented from making informed choices about their pre- and postdoctoral training activities, and universities from preparing trainees for a full range of careers. Today, we presidents and chancellors of nine U.S. research universities and one research institute are announcing a new initiative, the Coalition for Next Generation Life Science ( 1 ), that responds to these challenges by adopting a series of transparency enhancing efforts, the first of which is to begin reporting data in early 2018. We have agreed to start with the biomedical research arena because of the considerable attention that workforce issues in this domain have received, but the logic of our initiative extends to other scholarly disciplines.

Discussions about science and engineering postdoctoral researchers focus almost exclusively on academic postdocs and their chances of eventually securing tenure-track faculty positions. Further, biological sciences dominate policy research and published advice for new PhDs regarding postdoctoral employment. Our analysis uses the Survey of Earned Doctorates and Survey of Doctorate Recipients to understand employment implications for physical sciences and engineering (PSE) and life sciences (LS) graduates who took postdoctoral positions in government, industry, and academic sectors. We examine postdoc duration, reasons for staying in a postdoc, movement between sectors, and salary implications. There is considerable movement between employment sectors within the first six years post-PhD. Additionally, postdocs in PSE are shorter, better paid, and more often in nonacademic sectors than postdocs in LS. These results can help science and engineering faculty discuss a broader range of career pathways with doctoral students and help new PhDs make better informed early career decisions.