Researcher blogs

Job stability, funding, and a toxic system

Imagine a talented, enthusiastic postdoctoral life sciences researcher who pushes themselves in their career. They are driven to become the best in their field and to make real scientific progress. They are the all-round exceptional scientist, a good mentor, project manager, has an encyclopaedic knowledge of a field, laser sharp interpretation, mature, and drives their field forward. They love research and want to get a permanent position doing what they love in an academic environment. This means becoming a principal investigator, group leader and eventually professor. We will call this hypothetical postdoc “Azerty”.

Some postdocs like Azerty make it to a permanent position, but the statistics show the harsh reality of how few make it. Two studies in the UK and Belgium show that 3% of graduated PhD students and 10% of postdocs in the life sciences become permanent professors (there is variation due to data reporting and country but let’s stick to these numbers).

Azerty may be one of the 10% of postdocs that make it, but most likely they will leave the traditional PhD → Postdoc → Group leader → Professor career ladder. They may leave the system early, realising there are other options. Or they will keep pursuing a professorship for more years before leaving. Regardless of their path, it is likely they will experience one of the following along the way: Feeling demoralised, unhappy, not reaching their potential, that they have reached a dead end. That they cannot continue doing what they love and they may put their personal life on hold (as one opinion article suggests) and delay starting a family to pursue short 3 year postdoc contracts in faraway expensive cities to continue doing research in this academic limbo. Despite doing everything right and passionately pushing themselves, Azerty will probably leave the very profession that drives them.

Azerty is then one of the growing number of postdocs and researchers in general that are leaving academia. This is the global trend has been noticed since ~2017 and most significantly following the Covid-19 pandemic around 2022. Many sources have reported this from the nature journal, STAT news, and other. It has been called the “postdoc exodus” or the “great resignation” by some outlets (well more accurately it should be called the great job transfer). Postdoctoral positions in prestigious institutes which previously had hundreds of applicants now have a reported 10 times less applicants than in 2018-19. Many professors have reported that they have drastically fewer postdoc applications, and they are now bizarrely struggling to fill positions. This is due to an increasing number of PhD graduates dropping out of the academic system and finding jobs elsewhere. Postdocs are also realising the blunt reality of academia and leaving for other roles. Many professors also decided to leave academia in the same time period. These researchers still love research but are not satisfied with their job They all cite many reasons such as lack of support, increased workloads, micromanagement, and poor salaries.

So what is going on? Why is Azerty, our paragon researcher, leaving the very profession that they love? Is it the reasons they listed above? A Covid-19 induced career reflection? Is it simply too much competition? Is it the macroeconomy and better salaries in academia? Lack of support?

Well, the reasons for Azerty and others leaving are multiple, complex, and interconnected. Let’s explore the reasons why people are leaving in this three-part blog. The first two parts will outline the challenges within academia and the wider academic ecosystem and the third to suggest solutions

Hypercompetition

Perhaps Azerty faced too much competition for too few positions? The number of permanent academic positions has gradually increased based on one UK based report. However, due to the increased accessibility of universities in many countries, the number of PhD graduates and Postdocs pursuing research careers has sharply increased to overtake this. This was noticed since 1977 by labour economists and research departments, yet the competition keeps increasing. So, we have fierce competition for a comparatively small number of positions. Of course, it’s a great thing that more people from more diverse backgrounds are entering higher education and finding a passion for science. However, the consequences must be accounted for and not everyone can progress in academia just because they are passionate.

It’s no secret academia is competitive, but that doesn’t matter to many confident, talented, and driven researchers who love learning and dream of being a professor like Azerty. As previously mentioned, the harsh reality is that only about 10% of postdocs make it to a permanent position. Competition per se isn’t bad, with the right amount it increases productivity. You wouldn’t go to the professional athlete who didn’t get the result they wanted and say, “well just give up”. Instead, you would encourage them to try again. However, at some point, the competition is too fierce and becomes detrimental as people need to be quantified and judged for promotions. People must push themselves, overwork, publish more and will eventually burn out. Only for most of them to be slowly pushed away from what they love. Competition will inexorably bring the worst out of people, and this has damaging consequences to people’s professional and personal life. It also means that there is a greater need to compare and quantify the quality of an academic to make hiring choices (which will be discussed later)

Logically the answer is to make more research positions. Unfortunately, this is not possible unless there is a monumental political movement to do so. Research funding is generally consistent, with slight fluctuations based on governments and decisions by funding bodies. Unless there is a huge increase in funding, creating more positions is unfeasible.

Poor salaries, low job stability and unclear career progression

It’s no secret that salaries in academia are far behind the private sector. This may have been a factor that Azerty considered. In fact you will likely earn 70% or more in industry (Sources vary as it’s hard to compare roles and countries differ). Moreover, cities with elite research institutions are in expensive cities to live in, adding to the financial pressure.

But surely this as always been the case? There were strikes in 2018 about academic pay in the UK and similar strikes in 2015 in Australia. Researchers are driven by a passion for research and not money. However, when raising a family is involved, money and job stability becomes a big factor. Industry offers disgruntled academics something enticing. You can research the same area, with a nicer environment, a higher salary, a stable job and be valued as an employee. This makes a big difference for people with young families. You may not have the freedom you had as an academic, but that doesn’t matter. You can’t be an idealist when a family is depending on you and you are still doing good research, even if that research is not published or disseminated in the same way.

All positions in research from are underpaid relative to the qualifications required. Moreover, each position is conditional on getting qualifications from the last one. So, researchers are never compensated for staying in academia and the qualifications we have. The financial opportunity cost to staying in academia is simply too big to bear. This is an ingrained part of science that we complain about but don’t significantly challenge. It’s becoming almost a given that you work till you drop until 30-35 then run out of enthusiasm and go to industry. So the academic model is almost designed to have a low retention rate.

Salaries in academia are also structured differently than industry roles. Academia has fixed salary increments between roles that are very hard to negotiate. Even if you wrote a grant and wanted to pay a postdoc more this is completely out of the question and as a postdoc negotiating your salary is complicated and almost impossible. In industry, salaries are more customisable and can include bonuses to dynamically match your skills to a salary. Moreover and you have more chance of negotiating a better salary.

Its not just the salaries too, the job stability in academia is woefully unstable. Academic positions are notoriously unstable, existing on short term contracts (Postdocs and adjunct professors) and the risk of being lost if grants do not come in. The majority of postdoc contracts are 2-3 years and this is inconvenient for people who want to start a family and pushes people out of academia. Especially those about to start a family. Even when you reach the group leader and associate professor level, one bad year with fewer grant than expected can put your position at risk. The very top of the hierarchy, professors, may get permanent tenure positions but still worry constantly about grants.

The postdoc position, where the majority of the discontentment arises, is a sort of “academic limbo”. An awkward, confusing mess in between getting your PhD and a permanent position. This is incongruent with 25-35 year old who are at the stage of starting a family like Azerty. Coming out a PhD where you have worked hard for 4/5/6 years you expect to have something lined up that is better and makes that hard work pay off. But PhD students come out of this experience and have a choice between a postdoc (more of the same but more stress and pressure) or a whole variety of everything else. Its no wonder PhD graduates are choosing “anything but a postdoc”. Even if you are appreciated by your institute there are very few permanent postdoc adjacent positions.

This is the crucial flaw of academia, in a general sense if you are talented and valuable to your employer they would value you and try and keep you. In industry this would mean a raise, bonuses, a company car, more vacation, flexible working hours etc. Unfortunately, this concept of “treating valuable people well so that they stay and are happy” is interpreted differently in academia (and in some public sector roles generally). In academia you are rewarded with extra tasks to do that distract you from your job, a tiny chance of being promoted, little financial or administrative support and… continued existence. In some institutes you may be a group leader and associate professor but not even have your own salary, you pay your own salary through your own grants. Which adds to the financial uncertainty and stifles ambitious, longer-term research.

Toxic Academic Culture: Bullying, harassment, scientific misconduct, and deified professors

Turning to an even less motivating topic, perhaps it was an unfortunate experience of bullying experiences that made it too much for Azerty.

Bullies, abusive people, and toxicity exist everywhere. However if you worked in an industry and it was revealed that 30% of people reported bullying and harassment at work this would surely cause alarm bells and decisive action. This 30% figure is what was reported by one survey by Nature in 2021 and by the Max Planck Institute in Germany in 2022. Sadly, this was compared with 15% of those in industry (which is still 15% too much). This is backed up by other surveys too that say that bullying and harassment is widespread in academia. For PhD students who are experiencing and taking on responsibility for the first time this is especially true. Then a 2018 paper showed that PhD and Masters students were 6x more likely to experience depression and anxiety in compared to the general US population. One longitudinal study on Swedish PhD students showed that use of psychiatric medication increased by 40% between a masters degree to 5 years in a PhD. And Sweden is a country that is globally recognised as one of the best for work/life balance and horizontal hierarchies…

While any level of bullying/discrimination/harassment is unacceptable there is clearly some deep-rooted issues with academia. However my impression is that for some reason in academia we shrug and say “oh well, there are lots of difficult people to work with” or “oh well, that’s just how academia goes”. Of course, many other industries do have an unacceptably high level of bullying and harassment too but in science the lack of enthusiasm and willingness to change this is concerning. It feels like some people speak out and take a stand, but the approach from institutes is largely the same. Unless a bully (in the vast majority of cases a group leader or professor) does something incredibly serious that brings the reputation of the institute into question, do nothing and provide lip service. We all know there is a problem, but we won’t to do anything about it.

Academia has a clear hierarchy which can facilitate bullying, even in countries that claim to have more horizontal hierarchies. This bullying is not just awful for the obvious reason but can severely slow down scientific progress. This bullying is usually seen in PIs or professors giving more junior researchers a tough time, usually ones under their care. But why are senior scientists at the PI level and professors so well protected? The sad reality is that they bring grants and are well respected and world class in a particular field. Therefore, the number of complaints and the hard evidence needed for any action to be taken is unreasonably high. Even after high profile cases like the Macchiarini scandal (just google it or look on Netflix) or others like Laurent Keller and a whole list of others, the culture hasn’t significantly changed. Scientific leaders can still be a pain to work with, abusive, and negligent, but face no real disciplinary action form their employers. Even when multiple people report the same person for bullying/harassment it’s unlikely any effective action will be taken. The threshold of hard evidence and misconduct needed to make action possible is frustratingly high. Realistically it takes outside pressure like some bad news media that challenged the reputation of the institute, trade unions or multiple accusations of scientific misconduct and data fabrication/falsification to occur for anything to happen.

I do also want to defend science leaders, academia is tough and there is content pressure to publish which will have a costs on people’s professional and personal life (more about public or perish in the next section). This competition undoubtedly will bring the worst out of people. Being a good leader is hard, it’s a skill that can be learned and perfected and does not come naturally. Scientific leadership is no different. In science, most leaders (PIs, Heads of department and people above the department level) are professors. These can be charismatic beacons of science, or average, or regressive and maybe authoritarian. And it’s not just the extreme situations of bullying, there are simply very few people who can be excellent researchers and good research managers/leaders and too many detrimental, negligent or outdated ones. We assume that senior professors are polymaths who excel at any position they are placed in. They become departments heads, leaders of big grant boards and influential committees when they don’t necessarily have all those skills or the appropriate training.

This is partially a generational difference. Research leaders are predominantly professors aged 45+, and concepts like work/life balance, mental health and productivity, workplace diversity are becoming increasingly popular talking points. Senior professors of the past often manage people in ways which we now see as authoritarian and selfish. Many senior professors of the past were also taught to put career before anything else and work 60+ hours a week. So they feel that this is normal and come out with a healthy dose of survivorship bias. Abusive leaders can lead to training younger scientists to be just as bad, or worse. See this very bad advice given to younger scientists to schedule sexual activity with partners to maximise your time spent working… So it is also not a surprise that women are disproportionately affected more by this than men when it comes to poor leadership.

Gaining independence and making it as a PI or professor in science is hard enough with all the challenges above. For this reason, PhD or Postdoc need to have a good working and supportive relationship with your group leader. So much rests on this one person for training, support, funding and a good reference letter. Even with the best of intentions, supervisors can be authoritarian and brutally oppressive. Your PI may try and prevent you from reaching these positions so that you stay permanently in their lab. This power imbalance is a huge risks and often turns sour. So some Postdocs are stuck in an abusive working relationship where they cannot reach the potential despite their talent.

Every profession needs good leaders, and science has a lack of them. Tight academic networks allow for easy nepotismat a group leader level these tight academic networks are vital for your success. These can be for collaborations, funding, influence in committees, help with grant application, or influence when it comes to peer review. Breaking into these coveted circles is extremely hard and is also reflected in the literature and in hiring practices.

This mindset also means that the traditional PhD to Postdoc to PI career path is emphasised and revered at the expense of everything else. It’s no surprise that professors are the ones that have senior management roles in science. If they made it to the top, then they are obviously faultless geniuses who excel in everything in existence (sarcasm alert). What I want to see is a genuinely more horizontal structure where professors are not untouchable gods that bear the managerial load but are able to do the job they love and are challenged when they make poor management decisions.

Covid-19 is a factor too

The Covid-19 pandemic was a hard time for all, especially with people being furloughed and having their jobs completely transformed. Some universities adapted, some were brutal and showed how little they cared about their employees. This has led to people seriously reflecting whether they feel valued and fulfilled by their work and employer. Whilst this is a factor, the immediate and recent nature feels like it is the “straw that breaks the camel’s back” situation.

Many roles exist in academia

Perhaps Azerty just doesn’t suit the research work, despite their skills and enthusiasm. But if that is the case there are many jobs within academia that are less well known but may be exactly what they want.

It doesn’t help that some people insist that that people leave academia were “not good enough or not clever enough and were not good researchers”. So this stigma arises that people who leave academia “just want a cushy job and easy money”. The reality is that they leave because they want a job that suits them better and they don’t want to put up with an uncaring, unsupportive employer.

Firstly there are ways to combine academic and industry work. There are always collaborations. Then are many jobs within academia that are not in frontline research but still require knowledge of science. Roles like research management, grant management, administrators, Research facilitators, grant application advisors, institute strategy, policy, commercialisation specialist, public engagement officers and much more. These at not as well-known as the traditional PhD to Postdoc to PI that we all know and love.

Sure there aren’t as many of these roles but the still need to be considered and are important. I’m currently on the lookout for these jobs and I frequently get a befuddled look when I say I am staying in research but not doing a postdoc. So instead of seeing academia as this one track PhD → Postdoc → Group leader → Professor career ladder, we need to celebrate and acknowledge the vital work that these other roles do and allow people to transition into them, instead of allowing researchers to leave entirely.

The good news is academics have many values that all employees love; problems solving, time management, planning, communications etc. In fact, a PhD and Postdoc is the perfect breeding ground for their professional skills as I previously covered. Be aware that that academia and industry values things differently such a publications and titles. Industry employers may not understand what a PhD and postdoc is so just showing your titles is not the way to go. Explain what you have done, why you are good and the skill you demonstrate. So selling yourself in the right way to highlight your skills and achievements is important.

“Publish or Perish” the detrimental tenant behind academia

In the next section, I will look at the “publish or perish” mindset that is at the heart of research and how this leads to many detrimental consequences in academia. Then in the final section I will start a discussion on how to tackle all these challenges to improve the academic environment.