The Invisible University: Postdoctoral Education in the United States. Report of a Study Conducted Under the Auspices of the National Research Council. [Richard B. Curtis, Study Director] (1969) / Chapter Skim
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THE DEMOGRAPHY OF POSTDOCTORAL EDUCATION
THE DEMOGRAPHY OF POSTDOCTORAL EDUCATION
Pages 49-125
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From page 49... ...
Bernard Betelson, Postdoctoral Work in American Universities, pp.
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From page 50... ...
_j y) -I W _i en DC Ul Ul Ul Ul 2 Ul .OGICO CIONCO < Ul COCIO CIOCCO Ul 0 OCOO OCOO ^Z ^0 5 i O w ^ w CO • m Source: NRC, Office of Scientific Personnel, Postdoctoral Census Questionnaire.
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From page 51... ...
Although the universities predominate as host institutions, it is important to keep in mind that significant numbers of post doctorals have chosen other places to do research. It will become clear that the nature of the experience and the aspirations of the postdoctorals are relatively independent of the host institution.
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From page 52... ...
Some of the longterm postdoctorals are simply completing work that has taken more than two years. The professional research appointee, since he did not perceive of himself as on a "temporary" appointment, may not have responded to our quesTABLE 5 Number of Postdoctorals by Level of Appointment and Percent Foreign Percent Postdoctorals Foreign Level of Appointment Number Percent at Level Immediate post-PhD 3,997 37.2 44 Intermediate post-PhD 905 8.4 64 Long-term post-PhD 979 9.1 54 Senior post-PhD 815 7.6 44 Recent post-MD 2,391 22.3 26 Senior post-MD 937 8.7 62 Both PhD and MD 334 3.1 84 No reported doctorate 382 3.6 64 Total 10,740 100.0 46 Source: NRC, Office of Scientific Personnel, Postdoctoral Census Questionnaire.
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From page 53... ...
In each discipline there exists the spectrum of levels just described and, to a lesser extent, a mixture of both post-PhD's and post-MD's.8 Similarities across fields are not absent, but similarities within a discipline and across host institutions are often striking. Table 6 shows the distribution of the postdoctoral s in the various fields.
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From page 54... ...
Source: N RC, Office of Scientific Personnel, Postdoctoral Census Questionnaire. torals are from only five countries (United Kingdom, India, Japan, West Germany, and Canada)
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From page 55... ...
He found that the institutions in the Association of American Universities (AAU) did about two thirds of the postdoctoral work in American universities.11 At that time the AAU had about 40 members, which would imply that approximately one fifth of all schools had 67 percent of the postdoctorals in 1960.
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From page 56... ...
lOO-i• Postdoctorals PhD.s Produced Federal Obligations 20 40 60 80 100 PERCENTAGE OF POSTDOCTORALS, PhD.s. DOLLARS OBLIGATED Source: NRC, Office of Scientific Personnel, Postdoctoral Census Questionnaire and Doctorate Records File NSF, data compiled for the Committee on Academic Science and Engineering (CASE)
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From page 57... ...
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From page 58... ...
Immediate PhD Postdoctorals An increasing number of PhD recipients have been selecting postdoctoral appointments as their first appointment after the doctorate. In 1962, 8.5 percent of all PhD's produced in this country went immediately into postdoctoral positions.12 By 1967, the fraction had increased to 11.6 percent.
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From page 59... ...
o TABOE 9 Distributi Postdoctoral Oield V % in Icternal medicice Other clicical medicice Ollied medical sciecces Medical sciences Total Total All Fields aOcgiceericg, mathematic Cource.
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From page 61... ...
It is important to realize that only one out of nine PhD recipients seek postdoctoral appointments, and among these there is a great spread of talent, accomplishment, and background. A man who received his degree from a small university and who did his research with a relatively unknown faculty member might have a different motivation from the graduate of a major institution whose mentor was a Nobel Laureate.
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From page 62... ...
It is possible that those interviewed were a biased sample, since their unanimity does not correspond to the replies to the questionnaire given in Tables 11 and 12. Nevertheless, 80 percent of the immediate postdoctorals at universities anticipate an academic career and even 58 percent of those who are taking their appointments in industrial or federal laboratories expect to return to a college or university.
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From page 63... ...
Other Totat Total All F> dOcgiceericg, Co.-. CRC, CN Mathematics Ostrocomy Physics Chemistry o»sl >.ciiS •iS&<5j ||*
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From page 64... ...
Although it has been suggested by some directors of industrial laboratories that the postdoctoral experience weans the young doctorate away from industrial careers, it is more likely that the career decision between the academic and the industrial environment is made earlier. Reflecting the attitude of many industrial employers that the postdoctoral experience is unnecessary, faculty members tend not to urge their better students to take postdoctoral appointments if they are headed toward industrial careers.
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From page 65... ...
Among the other benefits of a postdoctoral appointment is the time lapse during which one's reputation can become established on the basis of one's thesis research. It is likely that this motivation depends less on the academic realities than on the insecurity of a man who has finished only one project.
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From page 66... ...
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From page 67... ...
Unless the man's field is "small" science, the various grants and fellowship programs alone are unlikely to provide him with the research environment he seeks. Not only will the postdoctoral period enable the young researcher to establish a research record and a respectable publication list to present eventually for promotion, but that record will also make it easier to obtain a grant of his own when he joins the faculty.
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From page 69... ...
This reason can be stated, "I want to see how research is done elsewhere." One postdoctoral who had obtained his PhD from a small technical school wanted to see what the academic world was like in a large institution. He was aware that the style of research and graduate education at a developing university was different from that at a major university, and he felt that without the postdoctoral experience he would have had a distorted idea of research generally.
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From page 70... ...
Several postdoctorals have pointed out the possibility of upward mobility in the academic world through the postdoctoral mechanism. The final general reason given for seeking a postdoctoral appointment can be phrased, "I finished my PhD at the wrong time (or in the wrong field)
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From page 71... ...
Consequently, we are dealing here with individual cases rather than with general patterns. The immediate postdoctorals in these areas are people with particular research interests and with exceptional opportunities to exploit them.
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From page 73... ...
Source: NRC, Office of Scientific Personnel, Postdoctoral Census Questionnaire and Doctorate Records File.
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It remains to be seen whether the conscious federal policy of placing federal laboTABLE 16 Migration of Immediate Postdoctorals at U.S. Academic Institutions from PhD to Postdoctoral Institution for Selected Fields Postdoctoral Field Geographic Area Number of Postdoctorals With PhD from Area Net Flow into Area Net Upward Mobility into Area In Area Physics East 148 171 -23 +9 Midwest 119 114 +6 +4 South 66 66 -1 -24 West 106 87 + 19 +11 Chemistry East 161 142 + 19 +11 Midwest 123 135 -12 +46 South 81 97 -16 -42 West 92 83 +9 -15 Biochemistry East 100 80 +20 +6 Midwest 92 110 -18 +34 South 43 69 -26 -37 West 83 59 +24 -2 Biosciences East 72 63 +9 -21 Midwest 53 66 -13 +25 South 23 29 -6 -9 West 67 57 +10 +5 Total, all fields East 729 674 +55 -4 Midwest 489 551 -62 +140 South 291 353 -62 -151 West 467 398 +69 + 15 Source: N RC, Office of Scientific Personnel, Postdoctoral Census Questionnaire.
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From page 75... ...
Chemistry and the basic medical sciences are affected least, but existing problems caused by quality differences among institutions are likely to persist in fields like mathematics, engiSee Appendix B-2 for the ranking of institutions.
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From page 76... ...
From Table 18, we can see that chemistry and the basic medical sciences retain only one in six or seven while the other fields keep a third 16 Berelson, Graduate Education in the United States, pp.
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From page 78... ...
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From page 79... ...
To measure this effect we have assigned a weight of 1 to graduates of the ten leading institutions, 2 to graduates of the 20 other major institutions, 3 to graduates of established institutions, and 4 to the graduates of developing institutions. Measured in this way, we see in Table 20 the average quality of postdoctorals attracted to various institutions.
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From page 81... ...
Of the immediate postdoctorals, 35 percent change fields and 46 percent change institutions without a change in fields19; 19 percent do neither. 17Since the grouping of schools by reputation is dependent on Cartter's study, which ranked schools by the quality (really reputation)
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From page 82... ...
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From page 83... ...
In Table 22 some data are presented on field changes by immediate postdoctorals. The fourth column contains the numbers of postdoctoral s with PhD's in one of the major fields listed on the left who took their postdoctoral appointments in another of those major fields.
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From page 84... ...
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From page 85... ...
Percentage of Immediate Postdoctorals Who Changed from PHYSICS CHEMISTRY Q £ O 0 OTHER PHYSICAL SCIENCES ENGINEERING BIOCHEMISTRY3 iZ OTHER BASIC MEDICAL SCIENCES OTHER BIOSCIENCES OTHER FIELDS 1 0 20 40 60 3Biochemistry is a subfield in the specialties list; therefore all changes are at the subfield level. Source: NRC, Office of Scientific Personnel, Postdoctoral Census Questionnaire The predominance of field-changing in the biological sciences is probably related to the specificity of those fields in comparison with the physical sciences.
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From page 86... ...
Another support mode-limited almost entirely to the life and medical sciences-is the traineeship. The competition here is among groups of faculty or even whole departments to obtain a training grant, usually from NIH, for the purpose of creating a cadre of manpower trained in a particular field.
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From page 87... ...
The postdoctoral trainee is selected by the training institution rather than by an extramural panel; in particular he is selected by the faculty participants in the training grant on the basis of credentials and letters of recommendation similar to those required in the fellowship programs. The third major support mechanism is the project associateship (often called the "research associateship")
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From page 88... ...
The other route to faculty status at a major institution is to be awarded a postdoctoral appointment. Winning a postdoctoral fellowship gives a man a number of advantages, including prestige in applying later for an academic position or for a research grant.
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From page 89... ...
Not only is there little difference in treatment among the fellow, the trainee, and the project associate once they are at the host institution, but the situation is confused further by the lack of consistency in the use of titles at the host institutions. Respondents to our census of postdoctorals were asked to give their title and, separately, to check the type of appointment they held.
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From page 90... ...
are the foreigners less often project associates than the Americans. The lesser dependence on the training-grant mechanism in the EMP fields correlates with a lesser interest among the faculty in these fields in the merits 2SOne young biologist told us that he had avoided a project associateship because he thought it would commit him to his mentor.
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From page 91... ...
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From page 92... ...
U.S. Foreign EMP BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES 75 Fellow- Trainee- Project Other ship ship Associateship Fellow- Trainee- Project Other ship ship Associateship o UI 75MEDICAL SCIENCES OTHER FIELDS 50 Fellow- Trainee- Project Other Fellow- Traineeship ship Associate- ship ship ship Source NRC, Office of Scientific Personnel, Postdoctoral Departmental Questionnaire Project Associati ship
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From page 93... ...
The top institutions tend to have a policy on duration more often than the lesser institutions and the EMP fields more often than the basis medical sciences. Only 77 departments out of 915 that reported having postdoctorals limit the tenure of postdoctorals and in no field did more than 18 percent of the departments report such a policy.
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From page 94... ...
For the foreign citizen the intermediate postdoctoral appointment, in addition, may be simply a delayed immediate postdoctoral position. The difficulties of arranging appointments from abroad, as well as the problem of acquiring travel funds, may cause a
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From page 95... ...
When we compare the two groups with regard to their total baccalaureate-to-PhD time lapse, the differences are small but interesting. The mean time lapse for intermediates in the physical sciences is 6.1 years, for the basic medical sciences 7.1 years, and for the other biological sciences 6.8 years.
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From page 96... ...
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From page 97... ...
Host Inst. EMP3 19 58 55 68 Biological sciences 18 30 50 67 Medical sciences Other fields6 20 71 0 50 57 0 67 56 Total 34 45 54 66 ^Engineering, mathematics, and physical sciences.
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From page 98... ...
They do not think of themselves as postdoctorals and it is likely that our estimates of their numbers are low. The formal fellowship programs, such as the NSF Senior Postdoctoral Fellowships, make the identification with postdoctoral study and research.
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From page 99... ...
By contrast, only one in seven of the foreign senior postdoctorals are not natural scientists. Table 26 gives the distribution of senior postdoctorals among the host institutions.
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In the 1968 competition the NSF Senior Postdoctoral Program had 384 applicants for 55 awards.29 The NATO program had 462 applicants for 39 awards. The humanists and social scientists face similar shortages in awards from their respective sources of support.
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From page 102... ...
institution. These people are strongly committed to research and aspire to faculty positions at major institutions.
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From page 103... ...
The physical and biological sciences have a larger share than the medical sciences, and in the fields of physics, chemistry, and biochemistry approximately one in seven of all postdoctorals are long term. These three fields also have the largest number of postdoctorals, with the result that they collectively account for sixty-two percent of all long-term postdoctorals.
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From page 104... ...
The foreign component shares some of the same constraints. Language difficulties as well as lack of faculty opportunities at research oriented universities for all but the very best foreign postdoctorals probably account for the attractiveness of postdoctoral appointments for those who want to prolong their stay in the United States.
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From page 105... ...
High 2,587 256 9.9 203 28 13.8 2,790 284 10.2 Fair 275 13 4.7 42 2 4.8 317 15 4.7 Low 450 36 7.8 91 7 7.7 641 42 7.8 Very low 37 4 10.8 1 0 0.0 38 4 10.5 India 520 118 22.7 47 12 25.5 567 130 22.9 Foreign Total 3,869 426 11.1 384 49 12.2 4,253 475 11.2 U.S. Total 3,916 254 6.5 485 113 23.3 4,401 367 8.3 Total 7,785 680 8.7 869 162 18.6 8,654 842 9.7 Source: NRC, Office of Scientific Personnel, Postdoctoral Census Questionnaire.
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From page 106... ...
Medical Schools Clinical Specialty and Type OSP Census Data AM A Data of School Number Percent Number Percent Internal medicine Nine leading schools 372 30 500 33 All others 628 70 1,003 67 Total 900 100 1,503 100 Other clinical medicine Nine leading schools 345 26 749 28 All others 962 74 1,934 72 Total 1,307 100 2,683 100 Total Nine leading schools 617 28 1,249 30 All others 1,590 72 2,937 70 Total 2,207 100 4,186 100 Source: NRC, Office of Scientific Personnel, Postdoctoral Census Questionnaire; AMA. 32The division into nine leading medical schools and all others is admittedly arbitrary, but it is interesting to note that the same mobility picture that was produced by the reputation grouping of the graduate schools is reproduced here.
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From page 107... ...
Assuming an average of three years for their postdoctoral experience and estimating that our returns represent half of the total, 555 MD's per year seek postdoctoral appointments. This is only 7 percent of the MD's produced, as compared with 20 percent of the PhD's in the natural sciences.
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From page 108... ...
Some will require additional course work; others will require more clinical experience; all will require research training. In spite of their awareness of the need, however, most medical schools have not integrated their postdoctoral activities with their other responsibilities.
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From page 109... ...
Then they describe the assistance more in terms of that received from a graduate student than that from a colleague. Most post-MD's, even when intending to do research eventually in a clinical field, will take their postdoctoral appointments in one of the basic medical sciences.
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From page 110... ...
BASIC MEDICAL SCIENCES (N = 10,055) Source: H
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From page 111... ...
Among the medical sciences internal medicine and surgery are the major fields, while in the basic medical sciences biochemistry and physiology are the most attractive. Pathology, which has historically been a bridge field, is also popular.
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From page 112... ...
BIOSCIENCES 22% -^ -- "" BIOSCIENCES OTHER -.v FIELDS MEDICAL SCIENCES MEDICAL SCIENCES 4% 64% 73% EMP 1% ^ i / X S y OTHER FIELDS 4% ../ HOST INSTITUTION GOVERNMENT 12% GOVERNMENT ABROAD 2% 2% ^NONPROFIT 11% "Engineering, mathematics, and physical sciences.
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From page 113... ...
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From page 114... ...
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From page 115... ...
But even in the clinical fields almost three fourths of the foreign postdoctorals indicate a university as their career location. The Postdoctoral in Nonacademic Institutions Percentage of Postdoctorals at Nonacademic and Academic Host Institutions 100 8060o 10 40I UJ ^ 20 - 2 f.\t -- -- -- o £" z I NONACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS Although allusions have been made to that portion (19 percent)
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From page 116... ...
5 25 NONPROFIT INDUSTRY GOVERNMENT ABROAD LEVEL OF APPOINTMENT 100Immediate PhD Intermediate PhD Senior PhD Long-Term PhD Post-MD NONPROFIT INDUSTRY GOVERNMENT ABROAD
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From page 117... ...
Male U.S. Female Foreign, both sexes NONPROFIT INDUSTRY GOVERNMENT ABROAD Source NRC, Office of Scientific Personnel, Postdoctoral Census Questionnaire vate laboratories, libraries, museums, and state or local government offices.
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From page 118... ...
These patterns hold for all categories of host institutions. The medical sciences are more predominant in nonprofit institutions than in the universities, as are the humanities and social sciences.
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From page 119... ...
The president of a medical research institute states, "Nonuniversity research institutions need the services of postdoctoral scientists to the same degree that university research programs do." Over four-fifths of the post-PhD's at nonprofit institutions are again either returning to or seeking academic employment following their postdoctoral appointments, and even 43 percent of the post-MD's are headed for the university. The nonprofit institution (whether a research institute or a hospital)
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From page 120... ...
A major reason why these firms have postdoctorals is the competition with universities for doctoral talent. The argument is made by the vice-president of a research corporation in the following way: "To the extent that the young PhD is strongly attracted to the university environment for postdoctoral studies, other organizations in need of PhD's must either find ways to bid competitively for their services or provide themselves by other means with equivalent learning and capability." Another vice-president says flatly: "With the advent of more industry-like research going on in universities, it becomes necessary for industry to become more university-like to attract research scientists." Most industrial firms admit that offering postdoctoral appointments is a useful recruiting device.
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From page 121... ...
Although the numbers are small, these postdoctorals from abroad are almost entirely from developed countries, a pattern that is significantly different than at other types of host institutions. It is also evident that most of the foreign postdoctorals are not fresh PhD's; the contrast with the American postdoctoral, who tends to be younger, is most acute in industry.
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From page 122... ...
The Department of Commerce supports almost 4 percent of the federal postdoctorals at its National Bureau of Standards, while the remaining 4 percent are distributed among installations of the Department of Agriculture, the National Science Foundation, and the Food and Drug Administration. While many of the postdoctorals at NIH are similar to university project associates working on intramural research under the direction of the resident scientists, the majority are Public Health Service officers who are fulfilling selective service obligations.
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From page 123... ...
In the latter program each laboratory has had to receive prior approval from the Civil Service Commission to participate; however, since 1967 the Commission has permitted any laboratory to make one-year postdoctoral appointments through the NRC, if the NRC approves the laboratory's research program and environment. The Commission has also authorized extensions of appointments for a second year if the laboratory determines that the extension would benefit both the individual and the laboratory.
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From page 124... ...
often motivate their students to become employees and associates in the participating laboratory. Except in the physical sciences, the foreign postdoctoral plays a much less important role in federal laboratories than at other types of host institutions.
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From page 125... ...
The average time lapse in the physical sciences for the immediate postdoctoral abroad is 5.0 years and for the basic medical sciences it is 5.9 years. Each is significantly below the time lapses given in Table 19 (p.
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