Postdoctoral Patterns, Career Advancement, and Problems

Nerad, Maresi; Cerny, Joseph

doi:10.1126/science.285.5433.1533

Cited by 131 publications

(103 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…In a smaller proportion of cases, adviser status and interpersonal attraction were also decision criteria. 10 These results closely coincide with those of prior surveys of the motivations for postdoctoral adviser choice (Nerad and Cerny 1999 10 Although adviser status was far from a universal concern (only 15% of scholars explicitly stated that they sought an adviser on the basis of his or her prestige), we suspect that this is due to the fact that many individuals in the data set considered only high-status advisers and did not view prestige differences among the very select members in their consideration set to be germane to their decisions.…”

Section: Oral Historiessupporting

confidence: 80%

Social Influence Given (Partially) Deliberate Matching: Career Imprints in the Creation of Academic Entrepreneurs

Azoulay¹,

Liu²,

Stuart

2017

American Journal of Sociology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Actors and associates often match on a few dimensions that matter most for the relationship at hand. In so doing, they are exposed to unanticipated social influences because counterparts have broader attitudes and preferences than would-be contacts considered when they first chose to pair. The authors label as "partially deliberate" social matching that occurs on a small set of attributes, and they present empirical methods for identifying causal social influence effects when relationships follow this generative logic. A data set tracking the training and professional activities of academic biomedical scientists is used to show that young scientists adopt their advisers' orientations toward commercial science as evidenced by adviser-to-advisee transmission of patenting behavior. The authors demonstrate this in twostage models that account for the endogeneity of matching, using both inverse probability of treatment weights and an instrumental variables approach. They also draw on qualitative methods to support a causal interpretation. Overall, they present a theory and a triangulation of methods to establish evidence of social influence when tie formation is partially deliberate.

show abstract

Section: Oral Historiessupporting

confidence: 80%

Social Influence Given (Partially) Deliberate Matching: Career Imprints in the Creation of Academic Entrepreneurs

Azoulay¹,

Liu²,

Stuart

2017

American Journal of Sociology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Previous work has demonstrated that outputs during the postdoctoral period can be affected by environmental factors (Felisberti and Sear, 2014), as well as by gender (Borrego et al, 2009). The number and duration of postdoctoral appointments also varied by discipline: a decade post-PhD, biochemists represented the largest proportion of untenured faculty out of six mathematics-based disciplines (Nerad, 1999). In recent years the average age of a funded investigator has steadily increased, from 39 in 1980 to 51 in 2008 for the National Institute of Health in the United States; the average age of a new investigator increased from 36 to 42 over the same period (Matthews et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What do postdocs need to succeed? A survey of current standing and future directions for Australian researchers

Hardy

Carter

2016

Palgrave Commun

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

When discussing the postdoctoral period in a researcher's life, a lack of career progression often boils down to "is it you, or is it me?" Is it a reduction in the quality of candidates, or the fact that there are now too many candidates for a rapidly shrinking pool of jobs? Australia provides an ideal case study, as a large and decentralized country with a government mandate to build the STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) workforce. The goal of the present study was 1) to provide a baseline for postdoctoral experiences and career aspirations in Australia, and 2) to identify gaps in postdoctoral training. When undertaking a capacity building programme it is important to know where efforts should be focused. To better understand the demographic and career progression of Australia's current cohort of postdoctoral researchers, a national survey was undertaken from 2014-2015. More than 280 postdoctoral researchers from government, industry and academic institutions responded. Our results indicate that although postdoctoral researchers work more than the legal maximum of a 38-hour a week (on average) and have a long-term plan to stay in research, there is significant concern over the long-term viability of research careers due to job insecurity and a shortage of funding.

show abstract

“…Hanchane and Recotillet (2003) demonstrate that going through a postdoctoral program could increase the probability of being recruited as a researcher in the public sector by around 10%. Nerad and Cerny (1999) report that "for mathematics postdocs, the time invested in a postdoc significantly improved the odds of gaining a faculty position." Our estimate (i.e., the marginal effect) is about 2.2% when the endogeneity problem is not taken into consideration (in Model 1 and Model 2 of Table 6).…”

Section: Does Postdoctoral Experience Lead To An Academic Career?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In particular, Horta (2009) points out that the reason why postdoctoral experience brings benefits in terms of advancing to academia may be due to the greater research output of academics which is fostered in a postdoctoral position. Engaging as a postdoc is usually seen as a necessary step or a required probation period in order to have sufficient training to obtain an academic position, just like an apprenticeship in some other fields, such as the life sciences or biochemistry (Nerad and Cerny, 1999;Stephan and Ma, 2005;Recotillet, 2007;NPA, 2011). From a social capital perspective, the postdoctoral position provides opportunities to expose those with PhD degrees to more professional networks (Su, 2013).…”

Section: Human/social Capital Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They could not only shorten the mean citation time lag in the highly cited papers but also produce more highly cited papers compared to normal papers. 1 positions may also be necessary as a probation period for becoming a researcher in some fields, such as life sciences or biochemistry (Nerad and Cerny, 1999;Stephan and Ma, 2005;Recotillet, 2007;NPA, 2011). Several studies traditionally note that the postdoctoral experience should enhance the chances of finding a job in research (Hanchane and Recotillet, 2003;Recotillet, 2007;McAlpine and Emmioglu, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Does Holding a Postdoctoral Position Bring Benefits for Advancing to Academia?

Lin

Chiu

2015

Res High Educ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu Postdoc is a special transitional position for those with a doctoral degree and is usually regarded as an investment to accumulate the additional human and social capital needed to facilitate future job searches or to add to an academic reserve army of unemployed PhDs. Given the prevalence of postdoctoral positions nowadays, it is crucial to explore the role played by postdoctoral participation in the post-PhD labor market. By taking advantage of a comprehensive data set from the National Profiles of Human Resources in Science and Technology in Taiwan, we first explore several characteristics associated with the choice of a postdoctoral position for newly-minted doctoral degree holders, such as age, discipline or the time taken to complete the degree. We then apply the control function approach to address the possible endogenous decision of postdoctoral experience when estimating the effects of postdoctoral positions on the current career choices between academic and non-academic jobs. The empirical results suggest that engaging in postdoctoral positions could increase the probability of advancing to the academic sector by about 6.1%. The heterogeneous effects of gender, major and cohort in regard to the postdoctoral experience are also found by splitting the data. Moreover, we experiment with several groupings for the definition of being awarded an academic position and obtain very robust empirical results. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SJEL Classification: I2, J24

show abstract

Postdoctoral Patterns, Career Advancement, and Problems

Cited by 131 publications

References 0 publications

Social Influence Given (Partially) Deliberate Matching: Career Imprints in the Creation of Academic Entrepreneurs

Social Influence Given (Partially) Deliberate Matching: Career Imprints in the Creation of Academic Entrepreneurs

What do postdocs need to succeed? A survey of current standing and future directions for Australian researchers

Does Holding a Postdoctoral Position Bring Benefits for Advancing to Academia?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About