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Comment by anjc | Hacker News Reader

Good article, but I must misunderstand, how do the suggestions at the bottom overcome the issues/myths listed, particularly "postdocs formally [don't] exist" which seems to be the issue at the root of all problems.

The tenuous employment status of postdocs seems to be a choice made at an institutional level, although seemingly across every institution in the world. I'm not aware of any funding stipulations that prevent institutions from giving postdocs proper employment status/permanent contracts. Sure, a new project might require a postdoc and might have funds allocated for this, but why can't unis use their already-existing projections for incoming funds and allocate jobs (i.e. permanent postdoc positions), just as private companies hire staff on the basis of cash flow/revenue projections?

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They can do that with people who will be teaching, since that is bringing funding in for the university. But they don't do it for Research Assistants, because once the funding for the project the Research Assistant is paid from (usually a fixed term grant of a 2-3 years) runs out, then the university would have no income to match the cost of the salary. As there may be hundreds or thousands of such salaries, this would result in a funding shortfall of something of the order of $100m a year (including overheads). And that is to say nothing of the expensive equipment such employees might need to continue their work.

Project centred research does not bring in income for universities on an ongoing basis, which is what the argument about core funding is all about. If more funding were core funding, not tied to a specific project, then it would be possible for universities to do the right thing and provide career paths for Research Assistants.

Please note: I'm not arguing that universities in the UK are doing the right thing. I used to work as a postdoc there and understand very well what the author of the Postdoc Myths list is talking about. I'm simply answering the question as to why universities can't just do the right thing.

Oh well I understand that funds are allocated for a project. But in my experience, postdocs who are coming to the end of the funding for one project tend to be moved to another incoming one. I.e. they're essentially permanent staff anyway. I know of people who've gone on like this for 10+ years.

"Revenue generating" centres within unis have targets and projections (e.g. commercialization teams) so they DO have an idea of what funds they'll have in the medium term, even though it's on a project by project basis. I don't see how this is any different from any company that needs revenue in order to keep staff, but yet companies manage to keep staff permanently. In fact, even universities seem to be able to keep staff permanently, unless they're researchers.

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