User:Kaihsu/nutrition facts

Moved from Wikia: Nutrition Facts; once reported in Postbloggery. – Kaihsu 14:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

“Nutrition Facts” for Postdocs
compiled 2006-09-02, Kaihsu Tai; licensed cc-by-sa-uk-2.0 (and GFDL of course)

Pay example:

Typical entry-level postdoc: 26 401 GBP/a Oxford pay scale, new grade 7, step 3 (pay spine 31) http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/ps/hera/structure.shtml

Assuming 48 weeks/a, 40 h/week gives 1920 h/a, 13.75 GBP/h 50 h/week gives 2400 h/a, 11.00 GBP/h 60 h/week gives 2880 h/a, 9.17 GBP/h

Expectations:

“The median for foreign postdocs was $37,000 — 8% less than the $40,000 received by US citizens. But the foreign scientists said that they worked 52 hours a week — two hours more than the Americans. And international postdocs said that they had produced almost 30% more peer-reviewed, published articles than their American counterparts.” – Rex Dalton (2005-03-24) US undervalues foreign researchers, survey reveals. Nature 434:426 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/434426b

“Those who stick with a career in science do so because, despite the relatively poor pay, long hours and lack of security, it is all we want to do.” – Georgia Chenevix-Trench (2006-05) What makes a good PhD student? Nature 441:252 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nj7090-252b

(The same author, from Australia, provides the following on her website.) Twenty Point Guide for PhD students (and post-docs): “Work hard. Don’t think you can get away with a 38-hour week. You will need to work long days all week, and for part of most weekends. That gets you to closer to a 50–60 hour week, which is what you need if you want a successful career in academia (or indeed in any professional career). If research is your passion, this is actually easy to do, and if it isn’t your passion, then you are probably in the wrong field. You should be going to work because you want to, not because you have to. Of course, ultimately, the number of hours doesn’t matter – the only thing that matters is productivity, but unless you are a genius, and very organized, and very lucky, you will need to work this hard to get out enough good papers to make a good start in a scientific career. A three year stipend might seem like a long time at the start of a PhD but three years goes very, very fast and it might be difficult or impossible (depending on its source) to get an extension into a 4th year. The people who go home with a full briefcase of work to do at home are the ones most likely to succeed. Note who around you does this – aren’t they the ones who have ‘made’ it? The extra hours are the cause, not consequence of success!” http://www.qimr.edu.au/research/labs/georgiat/Guideforphds.doc

Comparators:

Average salary 22 411 GBP/a UK average 25 221 GBP/a South East 30 984 GBP/a London http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1415869,00.html Guardian: Londoners ‘wealthiest in UK’ (2006-02-16)

Minimum wage 5.05 GBP/h http://www.dti.gov.uk/employment/pay/national-minimum-wage/index.html Department of Trade and Industry: National Minimum Wage

Update: 2007-11-29
Quirin Schiermeier. Graphic Detail: The real value of a scientist’s wage: Researchers’ spending power is not what it seems. Nature (2007) 450:597. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/450597a

Original report from the European Commission: http://ec.europa.eu/eracareers/pdf/final_report.pdf

Update: 2008-06-06
Table 2 on page 22 of the following book is titled ‘Country total yearly salary of researchers in EU-25, Associated Countries, Australia, China, India, Japan and USA (2006, N=6 110, all currencies in euro and in terms of PPS [purchasing power standard], converted through corrective coefficients)’. The columns are: ‘Country/level of experience’; ‘Remuneration average in euro’, ‘Corrective coefficient’, and ‘Remuneration average in terms of PPS’.

European Commission: EUR 23321 – Realising a single labour market for researchers. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. ISBN 978-92-79-08360-0. http://dx.doi.org/10.2777/2164

Update: 2009-04-09
The pay/price information (above) plus things like grant acceptance rate and immigration hurdles should be combined to create information for market choice. Scientists can then choose where they would like to develop their career based on this market information. This will truly create a level-playing field for mobility. – Kaihsu 11:04, 9 April 2009 (UTC)