National Postdoctoral Association

Potential Interventions to Aid in Retaining Postdoc Women

A clearinghouse of promising practices

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F. PROGRAMS: Funding and Grants

1. Grants for travel to conferences

Examples:

• NYU's Medical School offers Postdoctoral Travel Grants for travel to conferences.

• University of California Davis' Postdoctoral Scholars Association offers travel awards of up to $400 to support postdocs’ travel to scientific conferences

2. Grants to subsidize childcare expenses at conferences

Example:

• Harvard University’s Dependent Care Fund provides funding to support dependent care for faculty who must travel to professional events that will advance their careers (e.g. conferences). Such a program could be adapted for postdocs.

3. Establish mechanisms for continuing research during a postdoc's parental leave, such as hiring an extra technician for postdoc supervisor.

Examples:

• University of Washington ADVANCE program’s Transitional Support Program offered financial support to faculty during difficult transitions. These grants were often used to hire a postdoc to provide research support while a faculty member was on leave. This could be adapted specifically to provide support for a postdoc’s research during her own leave. (see [1] ) 

• The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health’s Primary Caregiver Technical Assistance Supplements provides funding to principal investigators to hire a technician to fill in for postdoctoral researchers who must take family leave to care for a child or sick family member. The supplements provide up to two years of salary and fringe benefits for the technician, with salaries in the range of $40,000 to $50,000.
  
  
• The National Science Foundation's Career-Life Balance Initiative has established grant supplements to PIs to hire technical assistance during a PI's family leave. This includes most postdoctoral fellows.

4. Financial support for postdoctoral two-body problems – such as grant supplements to support trailing partners, perhaps.

[Know of a great example of this? Let us know!]

5. Fellowships

Examples:

• University of Illinois Chicago's ADVANCE WISEST program offers postdoctoral fellowships to underrepresented minority women and provides a customized training program during their postdoctoral tenure.

• Transition hiring programs, where a postdoc is hired with the intention of transitioning them to the tenure-track. In addition to the conversion to a “permanent” position, such programs also can provide a number of benefits to the postdoc that advance them on the path to independence, such as independent funding, the ability to establish an independent research program, and the ability to apply for grants. The added benefits are that the longer-term stability of the position (compared with a regular postdoc position) makes it easier for partnered postdocs to find a “two-body” solution.
  
  Examples:
  
  
  • University of Rhode Island's Faculty Fellows program. A three-year fellowship that allows fellows to develop an independent research program like regular faculty, but with service duties limited to a reduced teaching load. Fellows can transition to a tenure-track position without search once one becomes available.
    
    
  • University of California's President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship program, which hires postdocs with the intention of transitioning them into tenure-track positions when such positions open up. Eligible researchers are those who contribute to the University’s diversity through their teaching, research and service.
    
    
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - The Carolina Postdoctoral Program for Faculty Diversity. A two-year postdoctoral fellowship for underrepresented minorities with the goal of developing them “for possible tenure track appointments at the University of North Carolina and other research universities.”
    
    
  • NIH Pathway to Independent (PI) Award (K99-R00) which offers funding to early career researchers for two phases: a mentored, postdoctoral position and an independent research position.

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[1] Riskin, E.A., Lange, S.E., Quinn, K., Yen, J.W., and Brainard, S.G. 2007. Transforming Science and Engineering: Advancing Academic Women. Eds. A.J. Stewart, J. E. Malley and D. LeVaque-Manty. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0819994. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.