Postdoctoral fellows crave collaboration: They thrive on one-on-one relationships with principal investigators, and they learn much from their peers. The top institutions ranked by postdoc participants in The Scientist's "Best Places for Postdocs" survey share a culture of collaboration and a commitment to teaching.
Not only did institutions that emphasize collaboration receive high marks from postdoctoral survey participants, but postdocs' colleagues also received positive ratings for providing training and counseling. Some 2,128 survey respondents, 76.4% of 2,800 participants, indicated they could talk to their peers about personal and professional problems; 65.3% credited their colleagues with teaching lab skills; and 60.8% reported that lab members help each other balance work and family responsibilities.
"One of the reasons Rutgers is a good place for postdocs is probably because it encourages postdocs and students to interact with each other as well as with scientists from outside," says Ishita Chatterjee, a postdoc at Rutgers ...
