Quality of Life Trumps Prestige

Courtesy of University of Miami Conventional wisdom says to choose a place to do a postdoctoral fellowship in the same way that you choose a college or graduate school: Just go with the institution that offers the most money and has the most prestige and you can't go wrong. Right? Not according to The Scientist's "Best Places for Postdocs" survey.1 The top-10 list overflows with lesser-known schools that may lack the panache of the Ivy Leaguers or the big research institutes, and they certain

| 3 min read

Register for free to listen to this article
Listen with Speechify
0:00
3:00
Share

Conventional wisdom says to choose a place to do a postdoctoral fellowship in the same way that you choose a college or graduate school: Just go with the institution that offers the most money and has the most prestige and you can't go wrong. Right? Not according to The Scientist's "Best Places for Postdocs" survey.1 The top-10 list overflows with lesser-known schools that may lack the panache of the Ivy Leaguers or the big research institutes, and they certainly can't boast their research largesse.

In fact, only one highly rated institution by postdocs ranked among the top-10 recipients of National Institutes of Health grant money, and that's the National Cancer Institute, itself an arm of the NIH. Johns Hopkins and Harvard Universities, and the University of Pennsylvania, top NIH grant winners, landed only in the middle range.

Highly cited institutions also had a pedestrian showing among postdocs. David Pendlebury at ...

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

The Scientist Logo
Receive full access to digital editions of The Scientist, as well as TS Digest, feature stories, more than 35 years of archives, and much more!
Already a member? Login Here

Meet the Author

  • Sam Jaffe

    This person does not yet have a bio.

Published In

Share
3D illustration of a gold lipid nanoparticle with pink nucleic acid inside of it. Purple and teal spikes stick out from the lipid bilayer representing polyethylene glycol.
February 2025, Issue 1

A Nanoparticle Delivery System for Gene Therapy

A reimagined lipid vehicle for nucleic acids could overcome the limitations of current vectors.

View this Issue
Enhancing Therapeutic Antibody Discovery with Cross-Platform Workflows

Enhancing Therapeutic Antibody Discovery with Cross-Platform Workflows

sartorius logo
Considerations for Cell-Based Assays in Immuno-Oncology Research

Considerations for Cell-Based Assays in Immuno-Oncology Research

Lonza
An illustration of animal and tree silhouettes.

From Water Bears to Grizzly Bears: Unusual Animal Models

Taconic Biosciences
Sex Differences in Neurological Research

Sex Differences in Neurological Research

bit.bio logo

Products

Photo of a researcher overseeing large scale production processes in a laboratory.

Scaling Lentiviral Vector Manufacturing for Optimal Productivity

Thermo Fisher Logo
Collage-style urban graphic of wastewater surveillance and treatment

Putting Pathogens to the Test with Wastewater Surveillance

An illustration of an mRNA molecule in front of a multicolored background.

Generating High-Quality mRNA for In Vivo Delivery with lipid nanoparticles

Thermo Fisher Logo
Tecan Logo

Tecan introduces Veya: bringing digital, scalable automation to labs worldwide