NIH panel calls for fewer, better-paid postdocs in bid to halt loss of scientists to industry

A National Institutes of Health working group on Friday recommended a sizable increase in salaries of postdoctoral researchers and a cap on the length of the position in an effort to secure the future of academia’s research workforce amid an unprecedented exodus of young life scientists to industry.

The group called for raising minimum postdoc salaries to $70,000 beginning next year — an increase of more than 20% — and adjusting wages for annual inflation, as well as limiting postdoctoral work to no more than five years in most cases.

Other ideas included increasing NIH support for international postdocs, ensuring that postdocs spend at least a tenth of their time on professional development and preparing for future careers, and creating new funding opportunities for young life scientists from backgrounds that are underrepresented in science and for researchers who want to stay in academia but don’t want to become faculty.

“We acknowledge upfront that some of our recommended changes may lead to fewer postdocs, not more, but we believe will lead to a healthier system and thus bolster the academic biomedical research enterprise,” said Shelley Berger, an epigenetics researcher at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the group’s co-chairs.

The working group’s recommendations were accepted by an advisory committee to NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli, who must now decide whether to endorse the recommendations and determine how best to implement them. During the Friday presentation, she praised the group’s goals but added that these changes could impact academia in ways that are difficult to forecast.

“I think we’re all committed to supporting our postdocs, and that’s really clear. I think that unintended consequences are going to happen,” she said. “There’s going to be hurt somewhere that we don’t want and can’t fully anticipate.”

Members of the advisory committee raised similar concerns, noting that while some universities may be able fund increases to postdoc salaries and benefits, other institutions, such as historically Black colleges and universities, may not. And while the group’s leaders acknowledged their recommendations would likely decrease the number of postdocs, they added that they didn’t know by how much.

The working group, which launched last year, had been tasked with reenvisioning a system that is under increasing strain. Life science Ph.D. graduates, who have for years complained about low wages and long hours in labs, are skipping postdocs, a temporary period of research and professional development, and going into lucrative industry jobs at historic levels.

Among newly minted life science Ph.D.s who had firm next steps, roughly 53% planned to pursue a postdoc in 2022 compared to 64% in 1995, according to survey data from the National Science Foundation. During this same period, the share of graduates with an academic job lined up fell from 51% to 27%, while the fraction of those starting an industry job rose from 25% to 54%.

This trend has led to a drop in the total number of postdocs, which had mostly held steady since 2010 but fell from about 21,900 in 2020 to 20,245 in 2021. Some young scientists are more likely to leave the ivory tower than others. A STAT analysis of data from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics shows that Ph.D. graduates who have children or have student debt, or who are Black or female, are less likely to pursue a postdoc than their peers.

There are already signs that this seismic shift is impacting science, leading to untested hypotheses, unused grant dollars, and uncompleted projects in limbo for months to years because faculty are struggling to retain and recruit researchers.

The working group held a series of listening sessions in March on topics ranging from the concerns of international postdocs to salaries and quality of life. There was no shortage of feedback; the group received nearly 3,300 responses, nearly 70% of which come from graduate students and postdocs.

Almost 90% of respondents cited pay as a major issue, which informed the group’s top recommendation: increasing the amount of a postdoc fellowship paid by the NIH called the National Research Service Award. While the award for first-year postdocs grew from nearly $27,000 to roughly $56,500 between 2000 and 2023, it has mostly just kept pace with inflation, making the recommended $70,000 a sizable jump.

If implemented, the raise would still mean many academic postdocs would earn less than their biotech counterparts; a first-year Genentech postdoc makes about $86,000.

The raise fell short of what some observers had hoped to see. Mayank Chugh, former president of the Harvard Medical Postdoc Association, co-published a piece in February arguing that postdoctoral salaries should be adjusted not just for inflation but for local cost of living. By his calculations, that would mean a $75,000 minimum for postdocs in the Boston area.

“It seemed rather bittersweet,” said Chugh. “It just seems like we’re still putting a Band-Aid or patch on this long-recurring problem.”

The panel also endorsed a recommendation that all NIH-supported postdocs receive the same benefits, including a retirement plan and health, dental, and vision insurance. Currently, postdocs working in the same lab may get different benefits depending on whether they’re funded through a research grant or a fellowship.

Postdoctoral training is practically a requirement for faculty jobs, but those positions have become increasingly rare. About 60% of life scientists who earned a Ph.D. in 1963-64 secured tenure within 10 years. But by 2021, only 3.5% of biology Ph.D.s working at universities had been tenured within a decade of graduating, according to a NSF survey.

This same survey showed that nearly a quarter of postdocs had worked for at least six years. The group’s recommendation that NIH funds support postdocs for no more than five years is intended to prevent that from happening. The group’s other co-chair, NIH’s Tara Schwetz, added that the recommendation would include an exception for major life events such as starting a family.

“One of my big concerns was that they were not going to be sort of game-changing recommendations. It’s always hard to know,” said Sofie Kleppner, associate dean of postdoctoral affairs at Stanford University. “They had some really amazing and new ideas that I was really excited by, and I’m thinking about how we as an institution can support and contribute.”

One of the recommendations she’s most excited about is a new NIH award that would fund Ph.D. students during the last couple years of their graduate training and continue supporting them during a three-year postdoc followed by their first two years as an independent researcher. Chugh agreed, though he also wondered whether this new funding opportunity would be open to international researchers (the panel called on NIH to make funding available to international researchers whenever possible).

It’s unclear exactly how some of these recommendations would be implemented. Kleppner notes that while the panel calls for academic institutions and faculty to be held accountable for ensuring that postdocs receive adequate mentorship, simply writing a mentorship plan into a grant likely wouldn’t be enough to enforce this provision.

Schwetz, who presented the recommendations and is the NIH’s deputy director for program coordination, emphasized that the agency’s budget is limited and that whether these changes become reality will depend in part on support from academic institutes.

“It’s really important that we realize that the changes that are being recommended are going to require significant resources and a commitment not just from NIH, but from the broader biomedical community,” Schwetz said.