National and International postdoctoral career landscape

Peter Cliffordpeter.clifford@sfi.ie

SFI PID: Career Forum 2015

International situation: PhD demand: UK

• Number of UK PhDs who obtain faculty positions: 3.5% (full professors/Chairs = 0.45%) (source and diagram: UK Royal Society, 2010).

• PhD salary premium of 26% (international).

International situation: PhD demand: USA

Sauermann and Roach Postdoctoral Researcher Survey (percent)

 Life Sciences Chemistry Physics Engineering

 

Ph.D.’s holding a tenure-track faculty position 5 years after graduation

•   S&E* Indicators, 2012 14.3 16.5 16.5 15.5•   Postdoc’ Estimate 14.7 15.5 13.3 17.1

Pursued a postdoc primarily to obtain a tenure-track faculty position in the future61 55 63 47

•   If yes, probability that they will hold a tenure-track faculty position in 5 years55 68 42 58

Desired position for Ph.D.’s•   Faculty-Teaching 23 20 22 9•   Faculty-Research 30 14 29 25•   Government 10 13 14 14•   Established Firm 18 34 17 29•   Start-up Firm 9 10 13 19•   Other 10 9 5 5Desired position for Postdocs•   Faculty-Teaching 18 15 15 9•   Faculty-Research 44 41 50 44•   Government 14 19 19 18•   Established Firm 13 15 6 21•   Start-up Firm 5 7 5 7•   Other 6 3 5 2

International situation: PhD demand: USA

• Academic career path, USA: 55% PhDs achieved faculty positions in 1973; the current figure is 15%.

• US unemployment rate: 2.8% for PhD graduates vs national average: 8.2%. • PhD salary premium of 26%. • Sources: Nature News, Science Careers, the Economist.

Overall Conclusion from international landscape:

A PhD is no longer just training for an academic position!!

PhDs: useful outside The Temple of Academe.

• Unemployment rates for PhDs are low • Workforce participation of women with

PhDs is higher than the population average

• Employers who hire PhDs “become increasingly reliant on the innovative skills that they bring to the employing organisation

• Source: RCUK: Impact of doctorates report

Employment trends Ireland; grounds for optimism

• Unemployment; currently 9.7%, down from 15.1% in 2011-12• Unemployment rate for PhDs: 4% in 2011 (CSO, Census

2011)• Skills shortages noted by EGFSN in ICT, hard sciences and

biopharmaceuticals (July 2015)• Irishjobs.ie: 17% increase in jobs advertised since 2014• Irishjobs.ie: Science, Pharma & Food jobs ads up 13%, ICT

job ads up 11%.• Tax credits and “knowledge box” initiatives likely to increase

employer demand.

“The average time for a PhD graduate to transition from academia to industry was 2.7 years.”

“There can be a 7 year window from the first investment in a PhD to a pipeline of industry-ready graduates. Research and talent development takes time.”

“PhD graduates take more senior positions in industry than graduates – 46% of PhDs versus 29% of graduates enter in a “senior contributor” role”.

58% of PhD graduates took up a first role in academia; by their fifth post, 63% of the PhD graduates were working in industry.

Anyone for…..Industry?

PhDs; alternative destinations

• Private sector/Industry! • DJEI/IDA/EI :20% tax incentivised private sector R&D

growth to 2020 (Government projections)• DJEI APJ: >21,000 private sector R&D personnel in 2013;

35,000-40,000 in 2020? (Government projections).• Public sector: science administration (SFI, HRB IRC, HEA,

IUA, HSE, HEI research and innovation offices), civil service: we’re/they’re hiring again!

Industry, entrepreneurial and science administration programmes

• SFI Industry Fellowship; R&D experience with an industry partner of your choice (speed dating later!)

• SFI TIDA award: help with commercialising your idea. Now open to applications from postdoctoral fellows as well as established PIs (since 2012)

• SFI Fellowship: an opportunity to spend up to 2 years working within SFI

First Destination Position

2009 2010 2011 2012 20130%

10%

20%

30%

40%

Year

% to

Pri

vate

Sec

tor

Percentage of SFI Team Leavers moving to industry, immediately after the award ended.

Current Position by Sector

HEIs53%

Industry36%

Unknown7%

Other4%1,022

Current Position by Gender

HEIs51%

Industry40%

Unknown6% Other

4%

HEIs56%Industry

28%

Unknown10%

Other6%

636 386

Current Position By Departure Year

HEIs46%

Industry47%

Unknown3%

Other4%

HEIs58%

Industry30%

Unknown8%

Other4%

• There appears to be a significant time lag prior to team leavers moving into industry.

2005-2009

346

2010-2014

535

• Progression along the academic career path negatively impacts on the movement of researchers from academia to industry

Current Position

First Destination Position• Census 2009-2012

HEI Industry Unknown Other

41%47%

9%3%

50%

39%

8%3%

61%

29%

4% 6%

Masters (118) PhD (409) Postdoc (379)

HEI Industry Other

33%36%

31%

50%

27%23%

60%

26%

14%

Masters (257) PhD 755) Postdoc (934)

Thank youwww.sfi.ie

@scienceirel

Tuesday 14th October 2014

SFI Early Career initiatives: Academic options.

• SIRG, • PIYRA• SFI-HRB-Wellcome Trust Research

Career Development Fellowships• Royal Society-SFI University

Research Fellowship• SFI Career Development Award

(CDA)• SFI ERC Support: Starting and

Consolidator grants

• All very competitive; it helps to be outstanding in your field

SFI future policy directions and career tracking (SFI PID)

• Use of HEI vacancies and private sector jobs sites to track opportunities for scientists• Identification of skills shortages; jobs surveys, DJEI and IrishJobs.ie reports• Team members and “SFI Alumni”; PhDs and postdocs formerly funded by SFI grants:

where are they now? Career tracking via LinkedIn, SFI annual reports from PIs• Data used to inform development of SFI early career programmes for the benefit of

early career scientists, employers and the Irish economy.

SFI LinkedIn Alumni Tracking: Source of Team Leavers:

1) Evaluation of Principal Investigator programme.

2) Team leavers recorded in annual Research Outputs (data from PI/grant holder annual reports)

Connections:

• 2,710 invites sent.

• 1,022 invites accepted.

Future initiatives:

• Use jobs surveys and Team Leavers data to assess employment market demand.

• Use Government reports, jobs survey data, CSO data, Government projections and industry feedback to develop SFI policy and modify programmes accordingly.

• Address areas of national research priority, answer important scientific questions and solve problems

• Meet increasing demand within the jobs market for R&D personnel

• EGFSN, July 2015: skills shortages in ICT, chemistry, biochemistry, some sub-disciplines of engineering and the pharmaceutical industry (e.g. pharmacovigilance).

• Irish Independent, 27.08.2015, unemployment rate down to 9.6%!