Your options in academia

After you obtain a master degree you will be faced with an important choice: do I want to work in industry or academia? Many graduates choose the academic career pathway. This journey starts with obtaining a PhD degree, and hopefully ends with a position as a professor. If you want to pursue an academic career this is the track you normally follow.

PhD degree

Your academic career starts with obtaining your PhD. At this stage you will conduct your own research around a fixed subject, and under the supervision of your appointed professor you will learn how to set up your own experiments and how to find answers to your research problems. Perseverance and creativity are important characteristics of a young researcher. In the Netherlands a PhD student is given four years to complete his/her research and thesis, but often it takes longer due to unexpected and diverse problems that one might encounter. For example, your hypothesis or your research method may not provide the answer, then you have to find new ways of completing your project. One of the differences between research in a commercial organisation and at university is the level of application of the work. In a company the end result has to be, or to support, a product. In the academic world knowledge is the end result. A PhD student also has to spend time lecturing or helping students; and another difference is that academics are not only judged on the results of their experiments, but also on the number of publications they produce annually in scientific journals.

At the end of the four years you write your thesis and will be rewarded with a PhD degree.

Post-doc

The career prospects for those with a PhD are good, and after obtaining your degree you can choose between an academic life or a job in industry. Research by the Athena Institute shows that 28% of the PhDs remain in an academic setting, 12% start work in research institutes, 33% start with a research position in industry and 17% find a different kind of job in a company. Almost 80% have no difficulty finding their next position.

If you want to continue your academic career you start as a post-doc. This is a temporary position, usually for two or three years. During this period you work on your own research project, and accumulate the experience necessary for a permanent position later on. When a post-doc cannot find a permanent post after their first position ends, they may then accept a second post-doc post. A post-doc position can also be used to gain international experience.

Permanent positions

Most post-docs aim to get a permanent position in a university. In the Netherlands there are three different permanent positions in university for scientific staff. The first is as assistant professor (‘universities docent’), the second associate professor (‘universities hoof docent’) and the last full professor (‘hoogleraar’). To become a professor you normally go through all three of these stages. All three positions require experience in lecturing, leading a research team, obtaining research funds and in creating an international network. For most positions work experience abroad is also a requirement.

A new career pathway for talented post-docs is the tenure track. This is a career pathway of approximately 10 years which results in a professorship. During this track scientists are evaluated at fixed dates and promoted to the next level. This path gives the scientist a clear road for his/her future, and no agreements are required for promotion.

Career prospects

In the last ten years many PhD students and post-docs have complained of a lack of opportunities to obtain a permanent post. Following one temporary job they often accept a second temporary position, which fails to give them any firm prospects. Piling up these post-doc positions is not always beneficially for your career. The Rathenau Institute concludes that it is negative factor to pile up post-doc positions at the same research group, under the guidance of the same professor and at the same location. However, it can be beneficial for your career to accept a post-doc position abroad, because this is often one of the criteria for securing a permanent post. Generally speaking though, it is not wise to accept any further post-doc positions after the age of 40. Beyond this age it is unusual to get a permanent position in a university, you are simply not well enough qualified, and because post-doc positions are highly specialised it can also be difficult to find a suitable position in industry. At the moment, initiatives are underway to improve the route to a permanent position, and the tenure track, for example, is one of them.  

These obstacles in the career pathway do not hold back many young scientists. They cannot think of a career other than in the academic world. The benefits of establishing their own fundamental research base inspires them to pursue this way forward, even if it is less certain than a job in industry. After all they are working for themselves on their own projects, being some kind of entrepreneur within the university environment.