The future of graduate and postdoctoral training in the biosciences

Hitchcock, Peter F.; Mathur, Ambika; Bennett, J.J.; Cameron, Patricia; Chow, Christine S.; Clifford, Philip S.; Duvoisin, Robert M.; Feig, Andrew L.; Finneran, Kevin; Klotz, Diane M.; McGee, Richard; O’Riordan, Mary X.; Pfund, Christine; Pickett, Christopher L.; Schwartz, Nancy B.; Street, Nancy E.; Watkins, Elizabeth Siegel; Wiest, Jonathan S.; Engelke, David R.

doi:10.7554/elife.32715

Cited by 53 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…The curriculum will also provide training in transferable skills, e.g. communication, which meets the recommendations for better preparation of students for a broad range of careers [2,3,13,[26][27][28]]. An additional anticipated benefit is shortening the time to degree by better preparing students to intellectually engage in research prior to initiation of their dissertation research.…”

Section: Recommendations and Strategies To Reduce Ttdmentioning

confidence: 99%

FastTrack, A Strategy to Shorten Time to Degree

Schaller

Barbier

2020

Preprint

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Recent reports express concern about the sustainability of the biomedical research enterprise in its current form. Recurring concerns include the predictability and sustainability of funding for research, regulatory burden and training the next generation in the biomedical workforce. One specific concern is the duration of training periods during pre-doctoral and post-doctoral studies. This article addresses the issue of time-to-degree (TTD) for doctorates. Many reports stress the importance of shortening the TTD, but provide no recommendations to achieve this goal. Herein, factors potentially affecting TTD are discussed and one mechanism that harmonizes undergraduate and graduate programs is proposed as a strategy to reduce the TTD.

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Section: Recommendations and Strategies To Reduce Ttdmentioning

confidence: 99%

FastTrack, A Strategy to Shorten Time to Degree

Schaller

Barbier

2020

Preprint

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“…Once Ph.D. candidates graduate and move on to becoming postdoctoral researchers, the relationship with their PIs changes dramatically. Postdoctoral researchers demand more independence, less guidance, and a working alliance on a more equal footing . A healthy relationship should be symbiotic where both parties benefit from each other.…”

Section: The Mentor–mentee Relationship In Academiamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Postdoctoral researchers demand more independence, less guidance, and a working alliance on a more equal footing. (3) A healthy relationship should be symbiotic where both parties benefit from each other. In "The Evolution of Postdocs," Stinger et al (4) state that a hallmark for a good mentor is their honesty with each postdoctoral student about their talents, accomplishments, and potential because postdoctoral researchers tend to prefer direct feedback on their performance.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Great Expectations: Principal Investigator and Trainee Perspectives on Hiring, Supervision, and Mentoring

Kaps

Stine

Mellinger

et al. 2018

Hepatology Communications

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A functioning mentor–trainee relationship is of high importance in academia. Discrepancies in expectations between principal investigators (PIs) and trainees are a source of misunderstandings and conflicts, endangering scientific progress and career advancement. In this pilot study, we sought to explore the expectations of PIs and trainees, providing consensus data from physician‐scientists and junior researchers who attended an educational workshop, entitled “The EASL/AASLD Masterclass,” in December 2017. Twenty‐three Masterclass attendees, comprising nine trainees (four Ph.D. candidates, five postdoctoral researchers) and 14 PIs, responded to an online survey. Both parties were asked to score 29 predefined statements of important expectations, enabling a comparative analysis for each statement between the groups. For the trainees, the success of the PI, either mirrored by successful mentoring or scientific work, as well as a clear road for academic development are of utmost importance. PIs did not prioritize these aspects, highlighting discrepancies of expectations. PIs prioritized trainee competence, reliability, and strong daily initiative/work ethic, qualities that were also recognized to be important by the trainee group but not to same degree as PIs. Conclusion:Discrepancies in expectations pose a preventable threat to the mentor–trainee relationship if considered and discussed beforehand. The discrepancy in the most common expectations between the two groups could have resulted from the fact that trainees prioritize outcomes of success while PIs focus on the necessary qualities leading to those outcomes.

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“…Life sciences are on a trajectory towards becoming an entirely data-driven scientific domain. A growing understanding that biomedical curricula must be modernized to reflect these changes is gaining attention [15].…”

Section: A Vision For the Futurementioning

confidence: 99%

Community-driven data analysis training for biology

Batut

Hiltemann

Bagnacani

et al. 2017

Preprint

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The primary problem with the explosion of biomedical datasets is not the data itself, not computational resources, and not the required storage space, but the general lack of trained and skilled researchers to manipulate and analyze these data. Eliminating this problem requires development of comprehensive educational resources. Here we present a community-driven framework that enables modern, interactive teaching of data analytics in life sciences and facilitates the development of training materials. The key feature of our system is that it is not a static but a continuously improved collection of tutorials. By coupling tutorials with a web-based analysis framework, biomedical researchers can learn by performing computation themselves through a web-browser without the need to install software or search for example datasets. Our ultimate goal is to expand the breadth of training materials to include fundamental statistical and data science topics and to precipitate a complete re-engineering of undergraduate and graduate curricula in life sciences.

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The future of graduate and postdoctoral training in the biosciences

Cited by 53 publications

References 14 publications

FastTrack, A Strategy to Shorten Time to Degree

FastTrack, A Strategy to Shorten Time to Degree

Great Expectations: Principal Investigator and Trainee Perspectives on Hiring, Supervision, and Mentoring

Community-driven data analysis training for biology

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