Postdoc publications and citations link to academic retention and faculty success
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A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
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Date
2025-01-28
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Language
en
Pages
3
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Volume 122, issue 4, pp. 1-3
Abstract
Postdoctoral training is a career stage often described as a demanding and anxiety-laden time when many promising PhDs see their academic dreams slip away due to circumstances beyond their control. We use a unique dataset of academic publishing and careers to chart the more or less successful postdoctoral paths. We build a measure of academic success on the citation patterns two to five years into a faculty career. Then, we monitor how students’ postdoc positions—in terms of relocation, change of topic, and early well-cited papers—relate to their early-career success. One key finding is that the postdoc period seems more important than the doctoral training to achieve this form of success. This is especially interesting in light of the many studies of academic faculty hiring that link Ph.D. granting institutions and hires, omitting the postdoc stage. Another group of findings can be summarized as a Goldilocks principle: It seems beneficial to change one’s direction, but not too much.Description
Publisher Copyright: © 2025 the Author(s).
Keywords
careers, postdoctoral training, science of science
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Citation
Duan, Y, Memon, S A, AlShebli, B, Guan, Q, Holme, P & Rahwan, T 2025, ' Postdoc publications and citations link to academic retention and faculty success ', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 122, no. 4, e2402053122, pp. 1-3 . https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2402053122