4 ms·

> Postdocs in general aren’t paid well Sounds like everyone understands the issue... so why don't they respond by meeting the market price? If you want to buy

> Postdocs in general aren’t paid well Sounds like everyone understands the issue... so why don't they respond by meeting the market price? If you want to buy something like a tissue sample for an experiment in a lab then you pay the market price. You wouldn't think to offer 20% of the market price and then be puzzled when nobody will sell it to you - you just pay the going price, and it's part of the cost of doing research. Why don't people apply that logic when it comes to costs for hiring people? Why is it such a barrier to see that that's just how much a person costs?

dagw 4y ago
If you want to buy something like a tissue sample for an experiment in a lab then you pay the market price Academic researchers often pay either zero or get a massive discount on all kinds of stuff (hardware, software, data, samples etc.) for their research that people in private sector pay a huge premium for.
- pacbard 4y ago
  > Academic researchers often pay either zero... Not completely accurate. Every time you get a grant, your institution get a percentage of it to pay for indirect costs. These costs include office space, office personnel, and other expenses that the grant doesn't pay for directly. So, if you are getting "free" stuff from the department closest, it is very likely that your (or some else's) indirect expenses are paying for it. Overhead percentages are set by each institution. My current one is set at 54%, meaning that for each $1 of award, I get to keep 64 cents and the university takes 36 cents (more or less).
  - dagw 4y ago
    I was more referring to how Academic licensing is often cheap or free. For example a certain data set I'm working with right now is made available to us for free as researchers, but costs on the order of $200k to access if you're a commercial entity.
Spooky23 4y ago
Typically there’s a pipeline between academia and industry. A pharmaceutical company doesn’t want to train chemists. Whatever the current problems are, they are likely the predictable outcome of policy changes made 5-10 years ago. The 20 years of war is largely over, immigration policies discourage some folks, and the educational sector as a whole is very sick. Society is different too. I was giving talks at high schools as part of an outreach/mentorship program, and science was rarely mentioned by anyone as what they wanted to be when they grew up. A shocking number of kids wanted to be investment bankers.
vaylian 4y ago
Postdocs outside of academia can be paid well. But inside academia: You are dealing with the public sector which has different market dynamics.
jcelerier 4y ago
> Sounds like everyone understands the issue... so why don't they respond by meeting the market price? it's not just the postdoc, it's the whole thing. I make a bit more as a 29 years old very occasional freelance than the highest possible grade for university professor reachable only after 30 years or so of work and something like 6 years in "difficult conditions" in my country.
quantum_magpie 4y ago
The ones in control of money and the ones in charge of running their lab and hiring postdocs are not the same people. If you can't hire a postdoc for shitty salary, then that shitty salary can be repurposed for something else. The former won't ever budge for the latter until the whole system collapses. And even then, I dread that they will just leave it in ruins.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  > The ones in control of money and the ones in charge of running their lab and hiring postdocs are not the same people. Does this disconnect happen in other spending decisions? For example does the maintenance department ask the administrators for money for new lightbulbs that cost $1 each and the administrators ask them to buy them for 25c instead, even if they aren't available for that price? How can you even decide what to pay someone without looking at what the market says? Just pick a random number? If you're going to do that why not try to literally pay minimum wage?
  - ProjectArcturis 4y ago
    In the case of postdocs specifically, the PI's money comes from grants, which specify how much the postdocs can be paid. That's the limitation -- funding agencies, and the NIH pay guidelines in particular.
  - quantum_magpie 4y ago
    With postdoc salaries the issue is that they are set by the governing bodies. I don't have my contract on hand ( I'm a research associate, but it's similar for postdocs), but it's set as some multiplier of minimum monthly wage. The maintenance funds part is where it gets even worse actually! As an example when you write a grant proposal, they are usually for 2-3 years. You may want to buy some piece of equipment with those funds, and that's fine. However you can't earmark some if that money for future maintenance of that equipment after the grant period ends. Then, when you apply for the next grant, on most occasions, you can't ask money for maintenance of old equipment. And once it breaks, there's enormous hurdles to overcome to get money for repairs.

dagw 4y ago

If you want to buy something like a tissue sample for an experiment in a lab then you pay the market price Academic researchers often pay either zero or get a massive discount on all kinds of stuff (hardware, software, data, samples etc.) for their research that people in private sector pay a huge premium for.

pacbard 4y ago
> Academic researchers often pay either zero... Not completely accurate. Every time you get a grant, your institution get a percentage of it to pay for indirect costs. These costs include office space, office personnel, and other expenses that the grant doesn't pay for directly. So, if you are getting "free" stuff from the department closest, it is very likely that your (or some else's) indirect expenses are paying for it. Overhead percentages are set by each institution. My current one is set at 54%, meaning that for each $1 of award, I get to keep 64 cents and the university takes 36 cents (more or less).
- dagw 4y ago
  I was more referring to how Academic licensing is often cheap or free. For example a certain data set I'm working with right now is made available to us for free as researchers, but costs on the order of $200k to access if you're a commercial entity.

Spooky23 4y ago

Typically there’s a pipeline between academia and industry. A pharmaceutical company doesn’t want to train chemists. Whatever the current problems are, they are likely the predictable outcome of policy changes made 5-10 years ago. The 20 years of war is largely over, immigration policies discourage some folks, and the educational sector as a whole is very sick. Society is different too. I was giving talks at high schools as part of an outreach/mentorship program, and science was rarely mentioned by anyone as what they wanted to be when they grew up. A shocking number of kids wanted to be investment bankers.

vaylian 4y ago

Postdocs outside of academia can be paid well. But inside academia: You are dealing with the public sector which has different market dynamics.

jcelerier 4y ago

> Sounds like everyone understands the issue... so why don't they respond by meeting the market price? it's not just the postdoc, it's the whole thing. I make a bit more as a 29 years old very occasional freelance than the highest possible grade for university professor reachable only after 30 years or so of work and something like 6 years in "difficult conditions" in my country.

quantum_magpie 4y ago

The ones in control of money and the ones in charge of running their lab and hiring postdocs are not the same people. If you can't hire a postdoc for shitty salary, then that shitty salary can be repurposed for something else. The former won't ever budge for the latter until the whole system collapses. And even then, I dread that they will just leave it in ruins.

chrisseaton 4y ago
> The ones in control of money and the ones in charge of running their lab and hiring postdocs are not the same people. Does this disconnect happen in other spending decisions? For example does the maintenance department ask the administrators for money for new lightbulbs that cost $1 each and the administrators ask them to buy them for 25c instead, even if they aren't available for that price? How can you even decide what to pay someone without looking at what the market says? Just pick a random number? If you're going to do that why not try to literally pay minimum wage?
- ProjectArcturis 4y ago
  In the case of postdocs specifically, the PI's money comes from grants, which specify how much the postdocs can be paid. That's the limitation -- funding agencies, and the NIH pay guidelines in particular.
- quantum_magpie 4y ago
  With postdoc salaries the issue is that they are set by the governing bodies. I don't have my contract on hand ( I'm a research associate, but it's similar for postdocs), but it's set as some multiplier of minimum monthly wage. The maintenance funds part is where it gets even worse actually! As an example when you write a grant proposal, they are usually for 2-3 years. You may want to buy some piece of equipment with those funds, and that's fine. However you can't earmark some if that money for future maintenance of that equipment after the grant period ends. Then, when you apply for the next grant, on most occasions, you can't ask money for maintenance of old equipment. And once it breaks, there's enormous hurdles to overcome to get money for repairs.