Career development after being awarded by an early personal grant
1. Career development after being awarded
by an early personal grant
Inge van der Weijden,
Ingeborg Meijer, Tina Nane,
and Rodrigo Costas
With contributions from:
Rosalie Belder & Zohreh Zahedi
Centre for Science and Technology Studies
3. Introduction
⢠Increasing numbers of PhDs (Cyranoski et al. 2011)
⢠Increase of fixed term contracts (FTCs), in all Western universities
(Huisman, De Weert, & Bartelse, 2002)
⢠Rise of precarious employment (Armano & Murgia, 2013 ; Arnold & Bongiovi, 2013):
âwork for remuneration characterized by uncertainty, low income, and
limited social benefits and statutory entitlementsâ (Vosko, 2010, p.2)
⢠Precarious work conditions: limited job security, limited career
prospects, increased competition
⢠Few early career positions are for âexcellentâ academics only
⢠Early career academics are mostly affected by FTCs and the norm of
excellence (Butler & Spoelstra, 2014)
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4. Introduction
⢠Individual scientist:
⢠Only 30% of PhDs can stay within Dutch academia
⢠Strong competition
⢠Personal grant
⢠Universities:
⢠Attracting talent
⢠Develop courses to support scholars in grant writing
process and evaluation procedure
⢠Obtaining personal grant becomes part of requirements in
career development
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6. Aim of the study
We lack empirical knowledge about career path development of
(early career) researchers in the Netherlands and the dominant
factors that influence decisions, thereforeâŚ
What is the impact of a personal research grant on the career
development of the individual scientist?
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7. VENI
⢠Research Council: Netherlands Organization for Scientific
Research
⢠Target group: Recently obtained PhDâs
⢠Aim: To conduct independent research for 3 year period
⢠Success rate: +/- 17%
⢠Assessment criteria:
i. Quality of the researcher (CV)
ii. Quality, innovative character & academic impact of proposal
iii. Knowledge utilization
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8. Methods
⢠Web search
⢠Semi-structured interviews with 26 VENI laureates
⢠Bibliometric study, including a control group
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9. Part 1: Web search
⢠VENI grant in April 2007
⢠1 field: Health and life sciences
⢠43 laureates
⢠NWO website: surname, initials, gender, date of birth,
field, university
⢠22 males and 21 females
⢠Age in 2013: between 35 â 46
⢠Searching for contact information [email, linkedin]
⢠Job in 2013
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10. Employment in 2013
Six years after obtaining a VENI (personal) grant:
⢠6 VENI laureates left academia (5 f, 1 m)
⢠1 VENI laureate is currently unemployed (f)
⢠36 VENI laureates are in still in academia (15 f, 21 m)
⢠Incl. 2 abroad: USA & Canada (m)
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11. Laureates who left academic research
⢠Medical Specialist employed in general basic
hospitals: 3 (f)
⢠Lecturer at university: 1 (m)
⢠Software engineer at a container glass company: 1 (f)
⢠Project coordinator at health & well-being company:
1 (f)
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12. Part 2: Semi-structured interviews
⢠26 semi structured interviews in 2013
⢠14 females; 12 males
⢠3 interviewees [Ingeborg Meijer, Rosalie Belder and Inge van
der Weijden]
⢠Interview protocol (tested)
⢠Interviews were recorded and transcribed
⢠Length: 45 min â 2.5 hours
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13. Protocol Semi-structured interviews
⢠Career steps / background
⢠Motivation to apply for VENI grant
⢠Plan âBâ
⢠Mentorship / supervision
⢠Development of independence / building a network
⢠Value of the VENI grant
⢠Career development
⢠Private life / family life
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14. Value of the VENI grant
⢠Content: 7 respondents
Research time
Continuing particular research line
Starting up new research lines
Developing own research line
Autonomy / Independence
⢠Status: 9 respondents [3 quotes]
⢠Money: 4 respondents
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15. Status of VENI grant
ââŚbecause then you get a bit of respect. People think âhe or she
got a VENI-grantââŚAnd if you are able to live up to it, then it gets
noticed. And that helpsâ (Associate professor, f)
âOutside of your own university, all of a sudden you are getting
recognized: âoh you are a VENI-researcherâ. That is a label you
have. It also brings expectations, but also automatically a
networkâŚBecause of the name VENI it creates by itself, specially
within the Netherlands, a network.â
âAnd you are also pretty quickly known amongst your own peer
group. So you want to be aware of each other. In some cases I
collaborate with these people alsoâ (Assistant professor, m)
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16. Career Development (1): VENI profiles
1. Dedicated tenured researchers with teaching tasks
2. Dedicated tenured researchers with clinical tasks
3. Part-time tenured researchers with clinical tasks and/or
coordination & management tasks
4. Postdoc hoppers
6 years after laureates received their VENI grant
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17. Career Development (2): VENI profiles
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Profile Total number Men Women
Classic 12 8 4
Clinical 3 2 1
Mixed 3 0 3
Postdoc 2 0 2
18. Career Development (3)
⢠âThe VENI grant certainly helped me in getting the Assistant
Professor position that I have now. The limited vacancies in
our institute are filled with people who have previously
received a VENIâ (Assistant Prof, m)
⢠âImportant. However, obtaining a VIDI grant (in 2010) was my
ticket to get a permanent position at the universityâ
(Associate Prof, f)
⢠âWhen I arrived on my VENI in 2007, there was no indication
or suggestion that I would have a faculty position. That was
made clear to me. And so I knew that if there was no personal
grant after my VENI, I would have to leave the university.
Later, it even became a requirement: if you donât get a VIDI or
ERC, you wonât get a permanent positionâ (Assistant Prof, m)
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19. Part 3: Bibliometric Study
Cohort of 82 Life sciences and Health scholars who
obtained a prestigious personal grant [VENI] in 2007
Control group of 2668 individuals, including a top
control group of 534 individuals with the 20% highest
PP(top 10%)
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20. Calculation of bibliometric indicators
⢠Number of publications
⢠Field normalized citation scores (MNCS)
⢠Field normalized journal scores (MNJS)
⢠Percentage of collaboration
⢠Measured in three timeframes: 2003-2007 / 2008-2012 / 2003-2012
2003 VENI=2007/2008 2012
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21. Excluded from the analysis
254 individuals
⢠1 VENI grantee (1.2%) stopped publishing in the period 2008-
2012
⢠In the control group 228 individuals (8.6%) did not publish
anything during 2008-2012
⢠25 researchers in top control group (4.7%) had zero
publications in 2008-2012
More early career scientists in the control group left
academia [=no publications in 2008-2012] compared to top
control and VENI laureates
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22. Average number of publications
VENI grantees produce on average slightly more
publications, but only after obtaining the VENI grant21
27. Preliminary Conclusion
Both interview and bibliometric data suggest that a
personal competitive grant [VENI] has a positive impact on:
-continuation of the academic career path of early career
scholars
-the individual scholarly performance
-the international collaboration behaviour
Web data and interview data on profiles suggest that
gender patterns are still present even in the group of VENI
laureates
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28. Thanks for your attention
Questions? Comments?
Inge van der Weijden, PhD
Centre for Science and Technology Studies
Leiden University
www.cwts.nl
www.ingevanderweijden.nl
i.c.m.van.der.weijden@cwts.leidenuniv.nl
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29. Gender in-balance in Dutch academia
⢠Men are still overrepresented in higher positions
⢠The shape of the career figure for women academics looks
much more like a pyramid than that of men, where the
ranking goes up more evenly
⢠The current shares of women students and PhD students
respectively are 50% and 45% (Gerritsen, Verdonk & Visser 2012),
whereas the share of women professors only slowly moved up
to 15%, one of the lowest percentages of Europe)
⢠The largest bottleneck for women researchers seems to be at
the transition from assistant to associate professor (De Goede et
al. 2013).
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30. Interview Quotes
âWhat at the moment I donât like is that my field is very much a
manâs world. It's all: look here I am, having a a big mouth and
using a lot of screaming. For me it is difficult to deal with.â
(Female scientist, looking for a job within academia)
âSometimes there are people (male colleague's), who act like a
orangutan in the jungle, but in the end donât do very much.â
(Associate Professor, female)
âBut my problem is that it is a real manâs world at the
departmentâŚit is such a male hierarchical world.â (Assistant
professor, female)
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