Source: Science Net
Editor: Researcher Sci
"The road to research is long, and we will walk with you"
Not long ago, more than 2,400 postdoctoral and staff members of the University of Washington went on strike on the grounds that wages were too low.
Recently, according to a report on the Nature website, American postdoctoral fellows once again issued a warning to the National Institutes of Health (NIH): When they want to start a family, they often feel underpaid and overworked!
According to the American Postdoctoral Association, there are about 70,000 postdoctoral fellows nationwide, and postdoctoral earnings vary widely, with a median annual salary of $49,000. "In the fields of biology, biomedicine, and health sciences, the median first-year salary of a postdoctoral fellow in industry is about $90,000." Shelley Berger, co-chair of the NIH working group and an epigenetics researcher at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, said that there is a big gap between postdoctoral salaries in academia and industry.
The number of postdocs is declining
Relevant data show that from 2020 to 2022, the number of postdoctoral fellows funded by NIH will drop by 9.5%. From 2020 to 2021, the number of postdocs funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in science and health decreased by 4.1% and 3.8%, respectively.
In fact, the decline in the number of postdocs is not unique to the United States. According to statistics, after Brexit, the number of postdoctoral fellows from the EU dropped from 12,495 in 2019 to 12,185 in 2020.
In 2022, Peter Coveney, a chemist and computational scientist from University College London, plans to recruit a postdoctoral fellow in advanced computing, but he has been unable to find qualified candidates in all aspects. "I am very worried about what to do in the long run. Although I am not desperate now, it may not be far from that day." Coveney said that if people cannot be recruited quickly, the project cannot be completed. Therefore, he had to repost the recruitment information.
Coveney isn't the only PI facing a lack of postdocs. PIs in the UK, EU and elsewhere say the sudden drop in applications for postdocs could signal a radical shift in the research labor market. “I don’t know anyone who doesn’t complain about how hard it is to recruit postdocs,” says Florian Markowetz, a PI at the University of Cambridge who studies cancer.
“A lot of PhDs and postdocs want to leave academia because they don’t feel valued,” says Jonny Coates, a postdoctoral fellow in immunology at Queen Mary University of London. “It’s mostly the way we’ve been treated by PIs, management, and academia as a whole, making us feel like people in the system don’t recognize our worth.”
Income is also an important aspect, Coates said. In the UK, for example, first-year salaries for postdocs funded by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) are around £34,400. In Germany, EMBL-funded postdocs earn more than 42,200 EUR per year in their first year. According to a report released by the biotechnology media in 2020, this level is much lower than the 50,000-70,000 euros that doctoral students are expected to get when they go to the industry. In the United States, a National Research Service Award (NRSA)-funded postdoc earns $54,840 in the first year, less than half of what a life sciences postdoc earns in industry.
Salary is the main barrier to starting a family
In November 2022, NIH established the Postdoctoral Training Working Group with the goal of investigating how to improve postdoctoral training in the United States. The working group issued a call for information, asking all sectors of the community to share the reasons and solutions for the reduction of postdoctoral personnel—finally received a total of 3,300 comments, 90% of which were about salaries and benefits.
"With these comments, we can see that there is a strong desire to start a family during postdocs, but the conflict between salary and workload is a serious barrier," said Tara Schwetz, NIH vice president and co-chair of the task force.
Schwetz points out that postdocs in the same lab can vary widely in earnings, depending on how they are hired, and that this can lead to resentment among colleagues.
NRSA-funded postdocs receive a childcare stipend of $2,500 per year. This benefit is not provided by other funding, but it is still only enough to cover childcare costs for a few months.
Frankie Heyward, president of the National Black Postdoctoral Association, said the financial burden of raising children can be a big reason for people on postdoc salaries to leave academia for industry.
U.S. attractiveness to international scholars plummets
For the past 50 years, the United States has been the destination of choice for international researchers pursuing doctoral or postdoctoral studies.
Since the 1960s, American foreign policy has attracted a large number of foreign scholars to study. This group reached its peak in 2016, including undergraduates and graduate students, with more than 1 million students studying in the United States that year.
Subsequently, the number of international students in the United States began to slowly decline. According to statistics from international educational institutions, the number of graduate students in the United States fell by 1.3% in 2018 to 377,943. For the 2020-2021 academic year, the number of graduate students has dropped by 12.1%. During the same period, the number of international scholars—especially postdocs and visiting scholars—in the United States plummeted 31 percent, from 123,508 to 85,528.
In 2021, 53 percent of U.S. postdocs will be international, according to a 2022 survey by the National Postdoctoral Association. 73% of international postdocs reported that their international status had a negative impact on their lives. For example, international postdocs are not eligible for the NRSA program.
"International postdocs are helpless, they can't solve visa issues, so they have to use private lawyers to deal with these issues," Heyward said.
At the same time, people in the comments also said that sexual harassment, cultural barriers and lack of support in academia all made the United States an unattractive choice.
In 2022, Nature magazine interviewed five postdoctoral fellows who shared their reasons for not serving in the United States, including the decision to ban women from abortion in many states, the frequent occurrence of shootings, the high cost of health care, and racism.
“Postdoc salaries, benefits, and workloads have to change,” Schwetz added. “We have a consensus, but it means fewer postdocs overall because resources are limited.”
The working group will propose six principles in December, including postdoctoral living expenses should be adjusted regularly; enjoy employee-level treatment; create a safe, fair, inclusive and accessible working environment; develop limited postdoctoral deadlines to replace renewals that hinder their career development; expand funding mechanisms, etc.
Heyward said he is optimistic that the issue of postdoc salaries will be properly resolved, but has not yet seen specifics.
Reference link: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02202-7https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03604-9https://acd.od.nih.gov/working-groups/postdocs.htmlhttps://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02781- xhttps://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-23-111.htmlhttps://www.science.org/content/article/postdocs-and-staff-researchers-go-strike-university-washington
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Oh, not bad~