The competitive academic landscape has created a shift in how faculty members are hired at universities, and Western is backing the need for mentorship and support to give postdoctoral scholars an edge in the market of academic and non-academic employment.
In this challenging landscape, PhD students are not guaranteed a job in academia, said Mihaela Harmos, Postdoctoral Services Coordinator. More often, across the disciplines, academic institutions are looking for postdoctoral scholars – affectionately known as ‘postdocs.’ While these jobs are few, Harmos sees many of these scholars exploring a ‘Plan B,’ including finding jobs outside of academia. And they need guidance on how to do this.
Enter the Competitive Edge Program, a new mentoring and supervision program launched recently by the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.
“You cannot apply for a big academic job without a postdoctoral appointment, where you publish more, prove yourself as a young scientist, prove you can apply for external funding and maintain and sustain high-quality research,” Harmos said. “It is an extra step to gain an academic job; it is a requirement for most of the disciplines.
“You used to have a PhD and be guaranteed to have a job in academia – but not anymore. A postdoc is the norm now.”
Piloted last September, Competitive Edge requires each postdoctoral scholar to assemble a mentorship committee, consisting of their primary supervisor and at least one other faculty member, external scientist or individual from the private or public sector. The committee discusses expectations, career goals and desired skill development areas for the postdoc to focus on during the training period.
“No two development plans will look the same,” Harmos said. “Based on their individual development plan, wherever their gaps are, they are able to take customized workshops and are paired with mentors that will provide guidance on whatever their needs are.”
The program also aims to foster a Western postdoctoral community, which includes offering specialized training and workshops.
Tim Burkhart, Lawson Health Research Institute research scientist and adjunct professor in Surgery and Mechanical and Materials Engineering, understands first-hand the challenges facing postdoctoral scholars.
“When I started my postdoc, there wasn’t anything for postdocs specifically,” Burkhart explained, noting he recently completed a three-year postdoctoral program at Western. “You go through grad school and you have your advisory committees and you have your thesis committees, and your primary supervisor – you have these avenues of support so if you need to get a second opinion on something, or if you want to talk about career options, you have these things in place. The gap is you go from having these support systems to then you have only your primary supervisor for support.”
After learning about professional development for postdoctoral scholars at a national conference, Burkhart approached Harmos and the pair combined efforts to establish this program.
“With these professional development plans, the postdocs’ goals and career path are made clear to the supervisor upfront,” Burkhart said. “We are hoping that having the program in place and having these conversations early between the postdoc and supervisor, and overseen by the mentors, will alleviate some of the potential conflicts that might arise.
“It’s been an eye opener to see there aren’t these faculty positions available that all of us have gone through and essentially been trained for. The benefit of a program like this allows the postdoc to get development in those areas that makes them more competitive in the job market.”
For the past five years, Western has developed a centralized process for appointing postdoctoral scholars, as well as policies and regulations for postdoctoral training. The Competitive Edge Program is based on a similar program at the University of Pittsburgh.
“It’s a very ‘postdoc-focused’ program that we hope will give Western postdocs a competitive advantage as they move to the next step in their careers,” said Linda Miller, Vice-Provost (Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies).
Postdoctoral scholars are commonly viewed as a publishing machine, involved in full-time specialized research and scholarship, said Harmos, noting the significant contributions they make to the research mission of the university. They are involved with large research teams and some run labs and mentor PhD and master’s students, she added. With all of the supports afforded to the other levels of study, Western saw a gap in supports for postdoctoral scholars.
“In the academic environment, postdoctoral fellows represent the highest level of training – paradoxically there is very little formalized training at the university to support their career development,” said Cheryle Seguin, a Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry professor and member of the Mentoring Committee. “At such a crucial stage in their career development, the university recognized the need to enhance their training milieu to enhance their long term career success. The Competitive Edge program was designed (based on similar programs at American universities) to do just that.”
For a long time, postdoctoral scholars were underappreciated at universities, noted Mel Goodale, chair of the Mentoring Committee and Director of The Brain and Mind Institute. While mentorship has been part of the culture at Brain and Mind, it wasn’t necessarily practiced across campus, he suggested.
“They were invisible to a degree, until the last few years,” said Goodale, who has overseen more than 25 postdoctoral scholars during his career. “Even before setting up a mentorship program, a lot of supervisors really didn’t understand postdocs were researchers-in-training; they weren’t research assistants. They should be prepared, not only for careers in academia, but also in the workforce at-large.”