At first glance, Switzerland may appear to present some pretty big downsides for postdocs. After all, it's a tiny country that stands aloof from the European Union and has an extensive list of official languages that nevertheless excludes English.
And yet, this year's survey shows that three of Switzerland's top research centers rate very highly. Konstantina Boutsika, a postdoc at the No. 1-ranked Friedrich Miescher Institute (FMI) for Biomedical Research says the country's popularity lies in the fact that it offers "very high standards and offers high quality science."
"I can not think of a bad point, except that the working language is not always English, but German or French, according to the region of Switzerland you live and work in," she says.
Swiss postdoc salaries are relatively generous, and tax rates low (at about 17%). Even in Zurich, which is an expensive city, "on one postdoc salary you can ...
