Postdoctoral training originated in the late 19th century as a brief pause after thesis work for would-be professors to gain additional training and experience. More than a century later, the number of life sciences postdocs is increasing, with the United States homegrown and visiting postdoc population tripling since 1983, now totaling well above 50,000. And that brief pause is lasting longer and longer. Over the 10 years of The Scientist’s annual Best Places to Work for Postdocs survey, this trend has become clear: the percentage of respondents who have been postdocs for 3 or more years has increased from less than 30 percent in 2007, when The Scientist first started collecting such data, to almost 40 percent this year; postdoc careers lasting 7 or more years have more than doubled in that same time period, as reported by almost 6 percent of this year’s respondents.
Although it’s easy to point fingers at institutional reasons for the increasing length of the postdoc—scarce funding to start labs, elimination of tenure-track positions, and a dearth of faculty openings—it may also be a sign that research itself is changing.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Best Places to Work Postdocs, 2012 | The Scientist
