1. National and International postdoctoral career landscape Peter Clifford peter.clifford@sfi.ie SFI PID: Career Forum 2015

2. International situation: PhD demand: UK Number of UK PhDs who obtain faculty positions: 3.5% (full professors/Chairs = 0.45%) (source and diagram: UK Royal Society, 2010). PhD salary premium of 26% (international).

3. International situation: PhD demand: USA Sauermann and Roach Postdoctoral Researcher Survey (percent) Life SciencesChemistryPhysicsEngineering Ph.D.’s holding a tenure-track faculty position 5 years after graduation S&E* Indicators, 2012 14.316.5 15.5 Postdoc’ Estimate 14.715.513.317.1 Pursued a postdoc primarily to obtain a tenure-track faculty position in the future 61556347 If yes, probability that they will hold a tenure-track faculty position in 5 years 55684258 Desired position for Ph.D.’s Faculty-Teaching 2320229 Faculty-Research 30142925 Government 101314 Established Firm 18341729 Start-up Firm 9101319 Other 10955 Desired position for Postdocs Faculty-Teaching 1815 9 Faculty-Research 44415044 Government 1419 18 Established Firm 1315621 Start-up Firm 5757 Other 6352

4. International situation: PhD demand: USA Academic career path, USA: 55% PhDs achieved faculty positions in 1973; the current figure is 15%. US unemployment rate: 2.8% for PhD graduates vs national average: 8.2%. PhD salary premium of 26%. Sources: Nature News, Science Careers, the Economist. Overall Conclusion from international landscape: A PhD is no longer just training for an academic position!!

5. PhDs: useful outside The Temple of Academe. Unemployment rates for PhDs are low Workforce participation of women with PhDs is higher than the population average Employers who hire PhDs “become increasingly reliant on the innovative skills that they bring to the employing organisation Source: RCUK: Impact of doctorates report

6. Employment trends Ireland; grounds for optimism Unemployment; currently 9.7%, down from 15.1% in 2011-12 Unemployment rate for PhDs: 4% in 2011 (CSO, Census 2011) Skills shortages noted by EGFSN in ICT, hard sciences and biopharmaceuticals (July 2015) Irishjobs.ie: 17% increase in jobs advertised since 2014 Irishjobs.ie: Science, Pharma & Food jobs ads up 13%, ICT job ads up 11%. Tax credits and “knowledge box” initiatives likely to increase employer demand.

7. “The average time for a PhD graduate to transition from academia to industry was 2.7 years.” “There can be a 7 year window from the first investment in a PhD to a pipeline of industry-ready graduates. Research and talent development takes time.” “PhD graduates take more senior positions in industry than graduates – 46% of PhDs versus 29% of graduates enter in a “senior contributor” role”. 58% of PhD graduates took up a first role in academia; by their fifth post, 63% of the PhD graduates were working in industry. Anyone for…..Industry?

8. PhDs; alternative destinations Private sector/Industry! DJEI/IDA/EI :20% tax incentivised private sector R&D growth to 2020 (Government projections) DJEI APJ: >21,000 private sector R&D personnel in 2013; 35,000-40,000 in 2020? (Government projections). Public sector: science administration (SFI, HRB IRC, HEA, IUA, HSE, HEI research and innovation offices), civil service: we’re/they’re hiring again!

9. Industry, entrepreneurial and science administration programmes SFI Industry Fellowship; R&D experience with an industry partner of your choice (speed dating later!) SFI TIDA award: help with commercialising your idea. Now open to applications from postdoctoral fellows as well as established PIs (since 2012) SFI Fellowship: an opportunity to spend up to 2 years working within SFI

10. First Destination Position Percentage of SFI Team Leavers moving to industry, immediately after the award ended.

11. Current Position by Sector 1,022

12. Current Position by Gender 636386

13. Current Position By Departure Year There appears to be a significant time lag prior to team leavers moving into industry. 2005-2009 346 2010-2014 535

14. Progression along the academic career path negatively impacts on the movement of researchers from academia to industry Current Position First Destination Position Census 2009-2012

15. Thank you www.sfi.ie @scienceirel Tuesday 14 th October 2014

16. SFI Early Career initiatives: Academic options. SIRG, PIYRA SFI-HRB-Wellcome Trust Research Career Development Fellowships Royal Society-SFI University Research Fellowship SFI Career Development Award (CDA) SFI ERC Support: Starting and Consolidator grants All very competitive; it helps to be outstanding in your field

17. SFI future policy directions and career tracking (SFI PID) Use of HEI vacancies and private sector jobs sites to track opportunities for scientists Identification of skills shortages; jobs surveys, DJEI and IrishJobs.ie reports Team members and “SFI Alumni”; PhDs and postdocs formerly funded by SFI grants: where are they now? Career tracking via LinkedIn, SFI annual reports from PIs Data used to inform development of SFI early career programmes for the benefit of early career scientists, employers and the Irish economy.

18. SFI LinkedIn Alumni Tracking: Source of Team Leavers: 1)Evaluation of Principal Investigator programme. 2)Team leavers recorded in annual Research Outputs (data from PI/grant holder annual reports) Connections: 2,710 invites sent. 1,022 invites accepted.

19. Future initiatives: Use jobs surveys and Team Leavers data to assess employment market demand. Use Government reports, jobs survey data, CSO data, Government projections and industry feedback to develop SFI policy and modify programmes accordingly. Address areas of national research priority, answer important scientific questions and solve problems Meet increasing demand within the jobs market for R&D personnel EGFSN, July 2015: skills shortages in ICT, chemistry, biochemistry, some sub-disciplines of engineering and the pharmaceutical industry (e.g. pharmacovigilance). Irish Independent, 27.08.2015, unemployment rate down to 9.6%!