I agree with every detail in the article. A successful career is not necessarily correlated with the quantity/quality of publications. Research grants are highly competitive. Many of us, including myself, suffer from overdue unpaid fellowships (around three years). As time goes on, the situation only becomes more demanding.
Yes, there is also other, external pressures in terms of pay, job prospects, insurance, etc. that are also contributing to the current situation, and this is without a doubt also very important.
Although I largely agree with everything you wrote, about the changes taking place, I do think it's important to point out that this perspective was written almost entirely from a PI perspective/agenda. This is not so strange, given your position of course. However, I cannot emphasize enough that a PhD, as well as a postdoc is also about furthering the respective candidates' own careers, not just about strengthening the PI's academic position. They have a completely different agenda and perspective, and the potential frictions in expectations originate from this misalignment, I think. In many places there's place to work on this (in theory) - as long as you do this off work time (in practice). And this is of course not explicitly stated anywhere by most PIs, but the extremely high expectations on work load make it so.
I speak from a 3+3 type postdoc position, where - even though there's room to develop personal things should I want this - my standard work load is 40+h-high already. Fitting in additional personal development stuff, courses, trainings, etc. would mean I'd have to do substantial overtime to make it through my day-to-day tasks.
I think it is also a PI's responsibility to keep in mind both perspectives, and also be ruthless in promoting healthy work-life balance, ie 40h work weeks where there's room for personal and PI agendas without too much overtime. (This very much a note to self as I transition into PI role myself)
Thanks for this addition. Completely agreeing with you, of course. Yes, this was written from the perspective of a PI, as I believe it is part of our job to make sure people in the lab are happy and healthy. So, not so sure I see so much difference in perspective....
Great article, Prof. Rillig!
I agree with every detail in the article. A successful career is not necessarily correlated with the quantity/quality of publications. Research grants are highly competitive. Many of us, including myself, suffer from overdue unpaid fellowships (around three years). As time goes on, the situation only becomes more demanding.
Thank you.
Yes, there is also other, external pressures in terms of pay, job prospects, insurance, etc. that are also contributing to the current situation, and this is without a doubt also very important.
Although I largely agree with everything you wrote, about the changes taking place, I do think it's important to point out that this perspective was written almost entirely from a PI perspective/agenda. This is not so strange, given your position of course. However, I cannot emphasize enough that a PhD, as well as a postdoc is also about furthering the respective candidates' own careers, not just about strengthening the PI's academic position. They have a completely different agenda and perspective, and the potential frictions in expectations originate from this misalignment, I think. In many places there's place to work on this (in theory) - as long as you do this off work time (in practice). And this is of course not explicitly stated anywhere by most PIs, but the extremely high expectations on work load make it so.
I speak from a 3+3 type postdoc position, where - even though there's room to develop personal things should I want this - my standard work load is 40+h-high already. Fitting in additional personal development stuff, courses, trainings, etc. would mean I'd have to do substantial overtime to make it through my day-to-day tasks.
I think it is also a PI's responsibility to keep in mind both perspectives, and also be ruthless in promoting healthy work-life balance, ie 40h work weeks where there's room for personal and PI agendas without too much overtime. (This very much a note to self as I transition into PI role myself)
Thanks for this addition. Completely agreeing with you, of course. Yes, this was written from the perspective of a PI, as I believe it is part of our job to make sure people in the lab are happy and healthy. So, not so sure I see so much difference in perspective....