Each year The Scientist asks postdocs from the United States, Canada, and Europe to reveal how they feel about their jobs, and this year more than 3,500 answered the call. What's clear is that postdocs have an overwhelming commitment to their research, and the institutions that provide valuable training and experience, necessary books and journals, and equipment and supplies (the top three factors) gain high marks. Nearly as important is the support and communication skills of the principal investigator (PI), which played a role in seven of the top 10 most important factors. A pleasant environment, timely pay, accessible daycare, and a 401(k) retirement plan don't hurt either, according to the comments we received.

"I love working for the NIEHS," says Paige Adams of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Research Triangle Park, NC, which was in the top five institutions in the United States. "The beauty of the surroundings, the interaction among different departments, the complete ease of availability of reagents and equipment, and my great PI and lab coworkers make this an especially great place to work."

In this year's survey, we dropped a few categories that consistently ranked as the least important factors to postdocs, such as convenient sports facilities or institution-organized get-togethers. Instead, important issues mentioned by last year's respondents, such as timely pay or discrimination due to gender or nationality, were included.

The result? Most of the factors in our survey rated relatively high marks, but the issues of pay and treatment still ranked lower than equipment and having a good PI. For example, timely pay was 17th on the list in importance. However, one might suspect that it matters a lot to those postdocs who are experiencing a remuneration problem.

"Columbia is great; however, getting paid can be a problem," says Carl de Luca, of Columbia University. "It's not uncommon for a post-doc to wait months to get paid, like myself, when starting in a lab."

Postdocs also had similar job and family needs, regardless of country. Health insurance, however, is an important issue in the United States but not in other parts of the world, where state-subsidized health insurance exists, which is consistent with previous survey results. This year, health benefits ranked sixth among US respondents, while it was 28th among non-US respondents.

While we didn't specifically ask about it, a lack of affordable day-care seemed to be an issue in this year's survey. Many readers said that even though their institutions offered daycare, it was for all practical purposes, unusable. Too expensive and long waiting lists were common complaints. And we did get a few "messages in a bottle" from those workers who may not be getting valuable experience, proper reagents, or helpful feedback from their PIs. "This is the worst place to work," says one Canada-based postdoc. "I feel trapped."

For some, our survey was helpful in and of itself. "Keep the surveys coming," says Aaron Elmer of the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation in Ardmore, Okla. "I believe they are very useful and I find filling them out to be very cathartic." And if our survey doesn't boost your spirits, some postdocs try more traditional remedies for unwinding after working long hours for relatively low wages. "There's an on-campus bar, which helps a great deal," says Rik Bundey at University of California, San Diego.

The Scientist posted a Web-based questionnaire and invited readers of the magazine and registrants on The Scientist Web site who identified themselves as nontenured life scientists working in academia or other noncommercial research organizations to respond. We received 3,553 usable responses from scientists in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. We asked respondents to assess their working conditions and environments by indicating their levels of agreement with 46 criteria in 11 different areas. They also indicated the factors that were important to them. We identified 123 US and 66 non-US institutions with five or more responses.

To calculate an institution's overall ranking, we first weighted each factor based on the average importance score. Because several factors that ranked as important in the United States are less valued elsewhere and vice versa, we used different factor weightings to rank US and non-US institutions. The overall rankings are based on the average score per institution from all respondents on all factors weighted according to their regional importance. Detailed information on the survey methodology is available on The Scientist Web site at http://www.the-scientist.com/bptw/postdoc_2005/method. Our sample of scientists was self-selected, and we have made no attempt to standardize the results or to conduct detailed statistical analyses.

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More results and complete survey methodology