Career postdocs increase scrap heap

摘要

Jennifer Rohn's solution to the problems of postdoctoral careers does not add up (Nature 471,7;2011). Most fields of science are at a steady state of funding, or worse, so paying for new professional postdocs would require cuts to training postdoc positions. But a career spans 30-40 years, so each career postdoc would replace 6-20 training postdocs. If there were enough professional postdoc positions to make a difference, there would be a huge reduction in the number of training postdocs. The scrap heap would be larger: each rescued professional postdoc would be replaced by several new PhDs with no chance of finding a postdoc position.