Postdoc stability in Spain?

Spain's government said last week that it had formulated a plan to give postdoctoral researchers greater job security, but researchers contacted by The Scientist this week were skeptical about how beneficial the system would be.Salvador Barberá, state secretary for science policy at the Science and Education Ministry, announced the plan to a meeting of the Spanish Council of University Coordination last Wednesday (December 15).The aim, he said, was to create 300 posts a year over the next 3 years so that postdocs with 4 or more years of successful research could get permanent posts at universities and research centers. To fund the scheme, the ministry will provide the different regional governments with up to €10 million (USD $13.5 million) a year.The Spanish government has been trying to stem the tide of postdocs leaving the country since 1992, when it launched a program to provide work for scientists who had received postdoctoral training abroad. This "reincorporation program" granted scientists 3-year re-entry positions, although many found themselves in circumstances in which they were neither independent nor able to continue their chosen line of research.In 2000, the government launched the Ramón y Cajal program to attract top junior scientists back home. This program, in which every applicant must prove he or she has spent at least 18 months working as a postdoc abroad, was awarded to 2000 researchers between 2000 and 2003. Although a tenure-track system is inherent in that program, there has been no guarantee that research centers joining the program would be able to offer permanent positions afterwards.The new plan may, at least partly, solve this problem. Barberá told The Scientist that what the government intends is to "give a boost so that the jobs of postdocs get stabilized." Decisions about appointing individuals to posts will be made by the contracting research center rather than the ministry, he said, although not all the details of the plan have yet been worked out. From January, Barberá said, "the ministry will negotiate [with the regional governments] the final details of the first advertisements." In the meantime, biologist Arcadi Navarro, a Cajal scholar at Barcelona's Pompeu Fabra University, welcomed the announcement, but said he had a "lot of doubts," such as the type of contracts that will be offered. Although the announcement is a step in the right direction, the offer seems fall far short of solving the problems of all Spanish postdocs in Spain and abroad—a figure clearly higher than 900.Developmental biologist Cristina Pujades, a Cajal postdoc also at the Pompeu Fabra University, also felt that although the Ministry seemed to be acting out of goodwill, the 900 posts offer is "absolutely insufficient."And Núria Malats, a postdoc contracted by the Health Ministry at the Barcelona's Municipal Institute of Biomedical Research, noted that postdocs contracted by the Health Ministry's research agency are not covered by the new plan. The Health Ministry has recently announced that it will offer posts that are renewable for up to 10 years, but not permanent, for scientists who are going to finish their last year of contract.Jordi Petriz, a hematological stem cell researcher at the Barcelona's Idibaps Institute, agreed with the other postdocs contacted by The Scientist in noting that the new plan was not big enough. "What is going to happen with the other half [of Cajal scholars]?" Petriz said. He argued that the main problem for Spanish science is that "there is no definition of a scientific career." The Science and Education Ministry should start from scratch and establish a proper system, he suggested.

Postdoc stability in Spain?

Government offers 900 permanent posts for postdocs, but not everyone's impressed

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