Academic ecosystems must evolve to support a sustainable postdoc workforce

Abstract

The postdoctoral workforce comprises a growing proportion of the STEM community and plays a vital role in advancing science. Postdoc professional development, however, remains rooted in outdated realities. We propose enhancements to postdoc-centred policies and practices to better align this career stage with contemporary job markets and work life. By facilitating productivity, wellness, and career advancement, the proposed changes will benefit all stakeholders in postdoc success -including research teams, institutions, professional societies, and the scientific community as a whole. To catalyse reform, we outline recommendations for a) skills-based training tailored to the current career landscape, and b) supportive policies and tools outlined in postdoc handbooks. We also invite the ecology and evolution community to lead further progressive reform. Main Text (current word count 2188):Postdoctoral researchers ("postdocs"; Fig. 1A) contribute extensive research, teaching, and service to their supervising faculty, home institutions, and broader scientific communities [1][2][3][4] . In principle, these contributions are rewarded with opportunities to specialize and develop independence. In practice, however, postdocs' progress and well-being are constrained by social, mental, and financial challenges 1,5-7 . Further, the skills and credentials that are prioritized in postdoc positions are misaligned with contemporary job markets (e.g. [8][9][10][11] , Figure 1C). These issues highlight an urgent need for policies and practices that better support a growing postdoctoral workforce. Ultimately, this will benefit all stakeholders in postdoc success --providing ethical and far-reaching returns on time and resource investments [1][2][3][4][5]12 .Below, we describe five goals for enhancing postdoc professional development. We also highlight innovative examples of policies and practices from around the globe. Our recommendations are applicable to many STEM disciplines, but especially relevant to ecology and evolution. Alternative careers in these fields commonly require additional training [13][14][15] , and non-academic paths are often unknown to both postdocs and their mentors. This causes anxiety and reticence for postdocs who, by choice or by necessity, are considering nontraditional careers 1,16,17 . Fortunately, the ecology and evolution community is also poised to lead adaptive reform. Our research targets complex interactions spanning many levels of biological organization. Consequently, our community possesses the tools and perspectives needed for strategic, evidence-based engineering of workplace ecosystems 9 .Goal 1: Align career development with job markets 1,3,38,39 ). More effective mentorship can be facilitated through training, 36 and should be incentivized during hiring, evaluation, and merit-based promotion 40 .

The Invisible University Is COVID-19 Positive

“…Several studies using mathematical modeling of COVID-19 and other coronavirus transmission have suggested that measures such as social distancing and city lockdown may be effective methods of disease control [5,6], but these seldom assess individual transmission chains. Lu et al recently sequenced SARS-CoV-2 genomes from 53 patients in Guangdong, the province of China that reported the highest number of cases (n = 1388) outside Hubei [7]. Phylogenetic analysis of these and other genomes of SARS-CoV-2 worldwide revealed that the Guangdong virus strains are scattered among strains from other Chinese provinces and other countries, consistent with the epidemiological finding that the majority of infections detected in Guangdong were imported cases.…”

“…Thus, a lull in hiring can have disastrous consequences for these early career scientists. Postdocs are generally not as well paid as their peers outside of academia, and often lack benefits and safety nets that faculty, students, and permanent staff have access to, such as paid family leave [6,7]. This is further conflated by the fact that many postdocs are at the stage of their lives when they start families (e.g., the two-body problem) [8].…”

“…The COVID-19 pandemic did not create these problems; rather it has highlighted long-known issues with the arguably exploitive postdoctoral system in academe [13,14]. Despite numerous calls, remedying this disparity in academia has never been a priority, as institutions and laboratories benefit from the relatively low-cost, low-maintenance workforce postdocs represent [7,14,15]. More than ever before, many of our early career scientists are faced with an impossible challenge, and their loss is a loss to the global community.…”

“…Genomic information about pathogens provides valuable empirical information about their transmission histories [1], such as the identification of transmission chains through phylogenetic analysis of genome sequences, as illustrated by the work of Lu et al [7]. In addition to revealing pathogen evolutionary processes and acting as a proxy of disease transmission history, phylogenetic trees also serve as versatile frameworks for comparative analysis of virus genetics and phenotypes, disease epidemiology, clinical manifestations, and population demography and environments, thus facilitating the identification of possible interplay between these various aspects of disease dynamics (Figure 1).…”

“…There has been active research into methods for integrating multidimensional data related to pathogens for statistical inference, especially in a Bayesian framework [8]. It is anticipated that such integrative analysis of SARS-CoV-2, including the work by Lu et al [7], as well as a more recent study by Dellicour et al in Belgium [9], will greatly promote…”