The postdoctoral years are a critical time in a budding scientist’s career. Decades ago, doing a postdoc was a voluntary option for new PhDs who were not quite ready to commit to a permanent position. Now postdoctoral positions are required training for the next generation of scientific leaders in academia and industry.
According to Peter Peters, founder of the Postdoc Career Development Initiative, based in the Netherlands, the main concerns plaguing today’s postdocs are landing a permanent position after 10-plus years of training and adjusting to the responsibilities of running a lab.
“It was a daunting task to go from the level of postdoc to a PI,” remembers Peters, who took a position at the Nederlands Kanker Instituut in the Netherlands—#10 among this year’s international ...
