Department of Medicine, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.
The Frick Center for Heart Failure and Arrhythmia, Dorothy M. Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, Ohio, United States.
Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. 2024 Jan 1;326(1):H25-H31. doi: 10.1152/ajpheart.00480.2023. Epub 2023 Oct 27.
Since 2010, the number of life science doctoral graduates opting into academic postdoctoral employment has steadily declined. In recent years, this decline has made routine headlines in academic news cycles, and faculty members, universities, and funding bodies alike have begun to take notice. In November 2022, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) convened a special interest group to address the problems in postdoctoral recruitment and retention. In response, the American Physiological Society Science Policy Committee highlighted several key issues in postdoctoral training and working conditions and offered the NIH solutions to consider. There are known issues that affect postdoctoral recruitment and retention efforts: low wages relative to other employment sectors, a heavy workload, and poor job prospects to name a few. Unfortunately, these concerns are frequently dismissed as "the price of doing business in academia," and postdoctoral scholars are promised that if they overcome the trials and tribulations of this training period, the reward at the end, a career with academic freedom to pursue your own interests, justifies the means. However, academic freedom cannot and should not be used as the band-aid in a system where most of us will never actually experience academic freedom. Instead, we should systematically embrace solutions that improve the personal and professional health of early career researchers in all levels of training and independence if the goal is to truly shore up the academic workforce.
自 2010 年以来，选择从事学术博士后工作的生命科学博士毕业生人数稳步下降。近年来，这种下降情况在学术新闻周期中屡见不鲜，教职员工、大学和资助机构开始关注这一问题。2022 年 11 月，美国国立卫生研究院（NIH）召集了一个特别利益小组，以解决博士后招聘和留用方面的问题。作为回应，美国生理学学会科学政策委员会强调了博士后培训和工作条件中的几个关键问题，并向 NIH 提供了一些可供考虑的解决方案。有一些已知的问题会影响博士后的招聘和留用：与其他就业领域相比，工资较低、工作量大、工作前景不佳等等。不幸的是，这些担忧经常被视为“在学术界做生意的代价”，而博士后学者们则被告知，如果他们能够克服这段培训期的种种考验和磨难，最终获得的职业自由，去追求自己的兴趣，这一切都是值得的。然而，学术自由不应该也不能成为大多数人实际上永远无法体验到学术自由的制度的创可贴。相反，如果我们的目标是真正支持学术劳动力，我们应该系统地采用解决方案，改善各级培训和独立的早期职业研究人员的个人和职业健康。
