From the members: The naked truth of postdocs in Spain

Abstract

membership corner ISSN 1948-6596 from the members The naked truth of postdocs in Spain With this letter we intend to bring light to the general and distressful situation of postdoctoral researchers within the Spanish Research & Devel- opment system. There are many variations within this group, but typically Spanish postdocs are sci- entists in their 30s or even 40s, who after finishing their doctoral thesis went abroad with their first postdoctoral fellowship to later return to Spain thanks to another (national) postdoc, perhaps from a program, such as the “Juan de la Cierva”, intended to lure scientists abroad to return home. With any luck, they may hold a third or even fourth postdoc position thus prolonging their training period , which is how the postdocs are categorized revealing a clear undermining atti- tude. Entering the postdoctoral phase in Spain is like entering an obstacle course. The short-term duration of the fellowships (typically 2-3 years) makes difficult (or even makes impossible) the acquisition of funds to carry out independent pro- jects as lead researchers or to supervise PhD stu- dents. This is not the case in other European coun- tries, such as Portugal, where postdocs are initially supported with 3+3 year fellowships and are en- couraged to lead national projects; unlike in Spain, early postdocs are actively driven towards reach- ing independence. Despite being essential for the training of a scientist, the postdoctoral period in Spain is excessively long and researchers in this phase are obligated to wobble around without being able to find the stability necessary to en- gage in their intellectual activity. Not even the Ramon y Cajal program, which was originally cre- ated to attract researchers and to permanently hire them after 5 years (the closest to a tenure- track position) is a means to a stable job since in many cases, despite academic excellence, the promised hiring never occurs (Pain 2012a). Finding a job in Spanish universities is also extremely diffi- cult. These institutions are still prone to academic incest (Soler 2001) and suffer from an obsolete hiring system that thwarts competitiveness and excellence, now exacerbated by the drastic budget cuts in research and reduction in positions available in public research institutions (Pain 2012b). Thus, today, Spanish scientists embark in a desperate search for a stable position. The situa- tion is especially worrying for biogeographers since, like most ‘blue sky’ science, this discipline has little demand in the private sector. All of this takes place in what must be considered the most productive stage for a scientist (Jonesa et al. 2012), a period where the focus on one’s research should be at maximum. Attractive returning plans such as the “retours de post-doc” program in France would help promote postdocs in Spain. And a genuine tenure-track system similar to the one that exists in USA, in which stability is contingent upon pass- ing a scientific (and teaching) evaluation, is per- emptory for the Spanish scientific system. Univer- sities should foster research profiles in their new candidates to move towards academic excellence. Measures like these would bring some short/ medium-term opportunities for postdocts in Spain and would slow down the ever more increasing trend of losing the most qualified researchers. Alberto Jimenez-Valverde 1 and Pelayo Acevedo 2 Department of Animal Biology, University of Malaga, 29071 Malaga, Spain. alberto.jimenez.valverde@gmail.com Centre de Recerca en Sanitat Animal (CReSA), UAB-IRTA, Campus de la Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Valles), Spain. References Jonesa, B.F. & Weinberg, B.A. (2012) Age dynamics in scientific creativity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA. doi:10.1073/ pnas.1102895108. Pain, E. (2012a) Young Spanish scientists in limbo. Sci- ence Career Magazine, March 02, doi:10.1126/ science.caredit.a1200025. Pain, E. (2012b) Research cuts will cause “exodus” from Spain. Science, 336, 139-140. Soler, M. (2001) How inbreeding affects productivity in Europe. Nature, 411, 132. © 2012 the authors; journal compilation © 2012 The International Biogeography Society — frontiers of biogeography 4.4, 2012