Selection and self-selection
In discussions about the situation of young academics, precarious employment conditions and a lack of career prospects are often discussed. At the same time, a lot is happening in the labour market: Generation Z is questioning previous standards and companies are responding to the changing demands of their employees. Against this backdrop, the question arises as to the attractiveness of academia as a workplace. Is academia able to recruit the personnel it needs, or is it at risk of falling behind the non-university labour markets due to the sometimes difficult working conditions and career prospects? And do scientists below the professorship level feel well prepared and supported for the various career paths? The topic of promoting young scientists is one area in which institutions can do a lot despite given national conditions.
In the Berlin Science Survey, these topics were examined from two sides: selection and self-selection. On the one hand, the recruitment situation was examined, i.e. the possibility of finding suitable applicants. On the other hand, the career goals of young researchers were surveyed, which revealed self-selection processes. Who would like to stay in academia and see a professional future for themselves here? To better understand career goals, postdocs and predocs were also asked about aspects of the promotion of young researchers. After all, young researchers must be well-positioned for a career in academia.
The logic that has dominated science policy and management so far assumes that enough suitable and highly motivated scientists will pursue a career in science and that there is thus a large pool from which suitable or even “the best” candidates can be selected. This assumption is often accompanied by another, namely that these candidates want a scientific career so much that they are willing to accept some hurdles and difficulties for it. But the wind seems to be changing. Not only have the rather poor working conditions and prospects been known for some time, particularly in the mid-level faculty, but the attractiveness of the professorship as a profession is no longer consistently viewed as positive (see Figure 1, Chapter 2.1).
In this context, the findings of the BSS regarding career goals are not surprising (Figure 37). Due to the rather poor assessment of the structural conditions in science and academia by the respondents (see Chapter 2.1), there is concern that positions in science and academia are no longer as attractive as they used to be. To investigate this, all respondents were asked about their long-term career goals.
While a good 70% of the surveyed scientists would like to remain in science, the majority (43%) are seeking a research and teaching position other than a professorship. The latter is still a goal for 27.5% (not shown in the figure). Far more postdocs than predocs state that a professorship is their career goal. Nevertheless, the percentage of postdocs who aspire to another research and teaching position is considerably higher. The high percentage of doctoral students with a career goal outside of academia reflects the fact that the German higher education system traditionally trains many doctoral graduates for external labour markets and not just as its own “young talent”. The data do not reveal whether these distributions reflect individual preferences or assessments of opportunities. In the gender comparison, 38.1% of male postdocs aspire to a professorship, compared to 31.9% of female postdocs (see Figure 37). By contrast, women in both status groups are more interested in taking up other positions in research and teaching than men (see Figure 37).
For non-tenured faculty, it is important that they are well prepared for career paths both within and outside of academia. Only in this way can they ultimately decide freely which career path they want to pursue. And only in this way do institutions have a chance of attracting the most suitable and motivated candidates.
Figure 38 shows how well or poorly the non-tenured academic staff feel well-positioned for careers within and outside of academia. Only about half of the non-tenured academic staff feel well prepared for a career in academia. For career paths outside of academia, slightly fewer (36.6%) feel well prepared (see Figure 38). 21% feel well prepared for both paths (not shown). At the same time, 38% feel unprepared for a career both inside and outside of academia (not shown). Here, the universities have obviously failed in their mission to prepare young academics for realistic career paths. There is clearly still room for improvement in the area of early career support.
Networking with peers works well for half of the researchers, with postdocs doing slightly better than predocs. Less than half of the young researchers surveyed receive transparent performance appraisals from their superiors, and 28.2% state that the statement 'receive transparent performance appraisals from superiors' does not apply to them at all (see Figure 38).
A comparison by gender and status group reveals significant differences (see Figure 39). Overall, postdocs feel better prepared for a career in academia than predocs. Since the latter are just at the beginning of their professional career, this is not surprising. The gender-related differences partly explain the different career intentions between men and women (see Figure 37). For example, 57.5% of male postdocs, but only 49.4% of female postdocs feel well prepared for a career in science (see Figure 39). Predocs feel better prepared for a career outside of academia than postdocs. In this regard, 53.9% of male predocs, but only 36.7% of female predocs, report feeling well prepared (see Figure 39). The feeling of not being well enough prepared for an academic career could be one reason for women's lower career ambitions.
What about the selection process? Are institutions (still) able to find enough suitable applicants, or have too many already decided against a career in academia?
The results are mixed (Figure 40). Not all subject fields have a sufficiently good application situation. Differences can be seen depending on the career level and in the comparison of subject groups. In the humanities and social sciences, but also in the life sciences, the recruitment of suitable predocs is largely unproblematic. Here, around 70% of respondents rate the possibility of recruiting “suitable candidates” as “somewhat good” or “very good”. In the natural sciences (60%) and even more so in the engineering sciences (51%), filling pre-doc positions is sometimes difficult. For postdocs, the situation becomes more difficult in all subject groups: here, only between 63% (humanities) and 41% (engineering science) still report that the recruitment situation is (somewhat) good. The situation for recruiting professors differs from that for postdocs only in the life sciences. Here, a significant drop can be observed, i.e. only 40% still estimate the recruitment situation for professorships as good. In the humanities (65%), social sciences (64%), natural sciences (49%) and engineering (40%), the recruitment situation does not differ from that at the postdoc level (see Figure 40).
In the STEM subjects, the majority of respondents therefore rate the recruitment situation for postdoc positions and professorships as rather poor (see Figure 40). This shows that even now, some subject groups with good career prospects outside of academia are already struggling with insufficient numbers of applicants. It can be assumed that under the current labour market conditions, the increased demands of Generation Z, and improved working conditions outside of academia, the difficulty of attracting suitable candidates will intensify across all subjects. It therefore seems essential that academic institutions and science policy also rethink their previous “logics” and make adjustments here. The aim should be to make science as a profession more attractive overall, and not just to rely on the intrinsic motivation of scientists. In addition to the much-discussed employment conditions and career paths for mid-level faculty, this also includes the attractiveness of professorships, and the working conditions associated with them.