Tracy J. Costello

“We all live under the same sky, but we don’t all have the same horizon.” – Konrad Adenauer

I find this quote profoundly insightful when considering career trajectories. All postdoctoral scholars can do amazing, productive research but not all are destined for or desire the same career track. It is important to be dedicated to conducting innovative research, writing and publishing, seeking funding, and all manner of academic pursuits. It is equally imperative that each postdoc recognize that they are ultimately responsible for identifying and navigating their career track, as well as developing the skills to be successful in that career track.

If dreams are not both exciting and terrifying, they are not big enough

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf once said, “the size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them. If your dreams not scare you, they are not big enough.” Those who have entered their postdoc need to continue dreaming large as they train and work towards independence. The NPA recognizes the exciting and terrifying road ahead and strives to provide guidance and advocacy.

The NPA Core Competencies guide postdoc development into various career paths. Digital illustration (2018) by Alexandra Taraboletti, PhD.

For the past ten years, the NPA Core Competencies have guided postdoc development with relevant and tangible benchmarks. It is worth repeating these briefly: success as a postdoc depends upon having discipline-specific knowledge, the skill set to conduct research, and the ability to disseminate the results through an ever increasing variety of communication modalities. Both in research and in career planning the postdoc must develop their professionalism to succeed. A particularly important component of postdoc training is responsible conduct in research, especially in the context of rigor and reproducibility. Considering the undue pressures that some postdocs are placed under to publish it is imperative to train all stakeholders in responsible conduct in research, but postdocs in particular need to be advised of the career implications. Leadership and management skills round out the core competencies and are often key to moving into non-academic positions. These competencies together comprise a skill set valuable to all career sectors.

During the past couple of months, the importance of providing postdocs with specific tools to guide their career development has been prevalent on my mind. First and foremost, I encourage every postdoc to connect with the resources available at their institution to develop the NPA Core Competencies. In addition, postdocs can get advice and counseling through online resources or be taking advantage of local or regional Career Symposia. I also encourage postdocs to attend the career development panels and presentations provided at the NPA Annual Conference. At the 2018 Conference in Cleveland, OH workshops provided training on a variety of topics. Topics include

• Networking
• Storytelling
• Business skills
• Career advocacy and goal setting
• Marketing yourself online
• Building Start-ups
• New methodologies like using design thinking to identify next career steps

Slides and handouts are available online (video of some programming will be available soon). I encourage postdocs to review content and connect with speakers to learn more. Since the national meeting is a key platform for offering career development opportunities, the NPA is expanding this initiative – including live streams of content at the 2019 Annual Conference so that even more postdocs can access this advantageous information.

Advocating for postdocs remains key to NPA

Regardless of academic field, policies for all postdocs are heavily influenced and shaped by policies and efforts for the postdocs in the biomedical and behavioral research fields. Advocating for training and development opportunities for postdocs remains a key component of NPA work. Recently, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) published a report, The Next Generation of Biomedical and Behavioral Researchers: Breaking Through, discussing these issues. In response, the NPA Board issued a statement highlighting how NPA “efforts and resources correlate with and support key recommendations in the NASEM report.” While implementation remains challenging, the NPA Board hopes that the outcome of the report will lead to improvements.

My follow-up editorial in Science offered some insight into how multifaceted and intertwined the issues currently facing the postdoc experience are. I specifically drew attention to the strong thread of the necessity of comprehensive career development and mentoring that runs through all the NASEM report recommendations. I hope that continued focus will positively influences institutional support. At the core, improving the postdoctoral experience requires strategic partnerships between institutions, funding agencies, foundations, professional societies, faculty, and postdocs themselves. The NPA Board therefore encourage members to send us their thoughts on the NASEM report by emailing us at board@nationalpostdoc.org.

The next step will be the preliminary recommendations from the NIH Advisory Committee to the Director Working Group focused on the Next Generation Researchers Initiative (expected mid-June) and discussed in a recent Open Mike column. Importantly, we know that the NIH remains committed to increasing postdoc stipends as recommended in the previous Biomedical Workforce Report and that many institutions have plans to implement this increase. We know that NIH also implemented other recommendations from the previous Biomedical Workforce Report (notably, the BEST awards). The NPA’s 2017 report Supporting the Needs of Postdocs highlights how far we’ve come, and our opportunities to continue to improve the postdoc experience.

All these potential improvements to the current state of postdoc training do not ensure individual success until combined with individual effort. We use different terms such as career development, professional development, career exploration, or career coaching, but at the core is personal growth. I believe that those who are willing to engage with the opportunities through their campus, the NPA, professional societies, and each other will succeed and have the career of their dreams.

Tracy J. Costello, PhD, is chair of the Board of Directors of the National Postdoctoral Association and director of Postdoctoral Affairs at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in Tampa, FL, USA.