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Research and rescue: how to make postdoc a career
28 August 2008
Warwick v-c tasked with stopping 'smart kids' turning their backs on science tells Zoe Corbyn he 'has form'
When Universities Secretary John Denham decided that a review of research careers should be added to the series of reports that he has commissioned to help shape the long-term future of the higher education sector, he turned to Nigel Thrift.
"I have got form, let me put it like that," said Professor Thrift, the vice-chancellor of the University of Warwick, pointing out that his career included lengthy experience as a contract researcher.
The commissioning letter laid out Mr Denham's concern: a "perception" that doctoral and post-doctoral research careers are looking increasingly unattractive to graduates. "I would like to examine whether this is truly the case, understand why this situation exists, and identify what we can do to improve matters," he wrote.
The "perception" is real enough. Comments posted so far on a blog set up to allow people to comment on the reviews include: "The title postdoctoral researcher and career are incompatible" and "one cannot blame young smart kids for choosing something else ... why would one want to work so hard for so little?"
Research careers matter particularly because of their relationship to the economy, Professor Thrift explained, saying: "Quite clearly the UK is dependent on brain power to survive and this depends a good part on getting our research and development capacity right and this means getting research careers right." His basic brief is to help make sure that research careers are attractive enough so that in 20 years' time the UK will still be a world research leader.
Professor Thrift is establishing a "longitudinal profile" starting from when school children first start thinking about their career choices right through to when they become senior scientists.
The aim is not to interfere with the current activities taking place across the sector, which range from the research careers concordat recently launched by Research Councils UK to continuing moves by universities to transfer more researchers on to permanent contracts. "Our job is to find the things that we are not doing at the moment that we could be," he said.
A more holistic way
There are five key areas of focus. The first is what the UK should be doing to attract and retain world-class talent. "There is a lot of competition around the world (for the brightest minds) and I am not sure people fully understand that," said Professor Thrift.
The second is how to improve awareness of research careers. "How many teachers do you know who would stand up in class and (say), 'Why don't you think about going into research?' It is just not something that actually occurs a lot of the time and we need to do something about that."
A third is around making it plain that research careers are not just in academia. "People should be able to switch back and forth between business and industry and academia. (We need to) make sure that there are mechanisms in place to actually attain that," he said.
Another is around what else might be done to improve the post-doctoral experience, something Professor Thrift said the sector still does not seem to be getting right. "We certainly need to look at (it) in a more holistic way than we have up until now ... There are lots of different schemes and we don't exactly know what they add up to."
A final area of focus is whether the widening-participation agenda itself should be "widened" from undergraduates to include masters and doctoral students. "There is a concern that people doing masters and PhDs are disproportionately drawn from particular socio-economic groups. The fear of debt (which impacts on undergraduates) may even be amplified at this level when people already often have debts."
Professor Thrift is reluctant to give too much away about his recommendations - the reviews are all due to report later this year - but one will undoubtedly be around flexibility for researchers to switch back and forth between academe and the private sector. He said that he wants to give people who have left the sector "the option of coming back".
"At the moment (it) would be nigh-on impossible because they would not have the kind of record you need," he said.
He will also be responding to Mr Denham's specific request for advice on whether pay for researchers is enough. "One of the things about research is that the pay is only really one of the rewards on offer (and) people are willing to trade off (lower pay) to a certain (arguable) degree because of the interest of the job." He warned not to expect recommendations that say researchers should get 20 per cent pay rises. No one, he says, would be nutty enough to recommend that.
To have your say on research careers or any of the other areas being covered by the Denham reviews, go to: http://hedebate.jiscinvolve.org
zoe.corbyn@tsleducation.com.
Readers' comments
It is easy to be negative about postdoc careers but the truth is that at postgraduate level and beyond the lack of working class kids who make the jump to me appears alarming. <p>I feel this is in part due to the neoliberal agenda sweeping through education although some of the class bias in this case is historical. You have more chance meeting working class PhD students and postdocs at the universities where scholarships are allocated and here lies the problem. For the working class who are less mobile and may not be able to up sticks and leave home, the chance of getting a scholarship are low, with specific knowledge networks required and 'cultural competence'. <p>The competitive market in the UK means that I will be following my girlfriend back home in a few years to South-East Asia where society respects academic qualifications such as the PhD and Post-doc work. <p>Craig (working class Leicester lad)
So very well put, Craig. <p>My partner and I met at university in 1991. We had both grown up on council estates and we were both the first in our families to go to university. <p>She got a first class honours degree; I got a 2.1. We both did Master's degrees in Leicester, and wrote up publishable dissertations, but no-one was really interested and we had a living to make, so those findings in sociology and environmental biology got disseminated no wider than the University library. <p>Her PhD in plant biology led to 3 publications, including one in Nature. She went on to serve in 2 different universities as a postdoc and contributed to another 4 publications before becoming too expensive to employ on project funding, so was made redundant and is now self-employed as a home tutor. She was recently contacted and asked to referee a paper on her specialist area but turned it down on the grounds that she doesn't work in HE any more. <p>I did my PhD on the policy-relevant topic of private rental housing. I worked a 30-hour week in retail while I wrote up my thesis, as there were no other jobs going. At my viva examination I was complimented on the intellectual craftsmanship of my thesis, which I was told was rare to see nowadays, and I was told I should publish something from it. Although I presented 9 conference papers on various topics over the years, I never did publish anything, due to pressures that were not conducive to publishing quality output. I spent the next 3 years employed as a postdoc on a topic totally unrelated to my thesis, after which I only found employment outside academia, earning less than my mother earns working in a supermarket. <p>My partner and I are all too aware of the fact that both of us would most likely be earning twice what we earn today if we hadn't gone to university in the first place! Our two consolations are that we got the education we wanted and we met one another in the process; however, our skills and knowledge bases and the training we each took 9 years undertaking remain largely unexploited. <p>Why would we now encourage our nieces and nephews to follow in our footsteps instead of following their parents into working class occupations? At least when we chose a lifetime of academic study and intellectual improvement the only financial cost to ourselves was loss of earnings rather than debt.