Many U.S. academics are reporting widespread challenges in recruiting postdocs, finds an investigation by ScienceCareers.
, according to a preprint posted on bioRxiv last month. And the wider labor market has seen dramatic changes because of what some are calling “the Great Resignation.”
The disruptions in postdoc recruitment create real challenges for academic researchers, acknowledges Cynthia Fuhrmann, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School who serves as a principal investigator for the Professional Development Hub. At the same time, she sees it as a positive development that Ph.D. graduates are “voting with their feet” and finding ways to contribute outside the Ivory Tower.
Many faculty members expressed sympathy for the situation academic postdocs are in and acknowledged they should be paid more. But they also said that in many cases they feel their hands are tied. Postdoc salaries are frequently based on what the U.S. National Institutes of Health sets as its standard, “and that’s pretty low,” says Daniel Wolf Savin, a physicist and senior research scientist at Columbia University who is currently struggling to fill five postdoc positions.
McDowell hopes that if talented early-career researchers are in fact leaving academia at higher rates today——it will serve as a wake-up call for universities. “I honestly think that’s the only way that academia will change and start to actually address these problems,” he says.