Visualising employment trends in biomedical science

Researchers at the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), have developed a tool that helps newly trained scientists evaluate various career paths. It is said to be the first standardised method for categorising career outcomes of NIEHS postdoctoral fellows, separating employment trends in biomedical science by sector, type and job specifics.

The careers project began in 2013 as a way to establish a snapshot of career trajectories for NIEHS postdocs. Led by Tammy Collins, director of the NIEHS Office of Fellows’ Career Development, team members collected detailed career outcomes for more than 900 NIEHS postdocs over the past 15 years. Lead author and NIEHS computer scientist Hong Xu analysed the data using the R Project for Statistical Computing, a free online program that displays data using graphs and charts.

“As we sought to determine how to make sense of detailed career outcomes in a standardised way, we used a bottom-up approach, rather than forcing the data into any particular naming system already being employed,” Collins said. “We looked at what our postdocs were specifically doing and asked what is the most logical way to categorise and visualise the information.”

Published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, the study found distinct differences between US and international postdocs in the kinds of jobs they landed. In an almost 2-to-1 ratio, international postdocs were going into academic positions to do basic research. However, analysis of the total number of international postdocs specifically entering academic positions showed that 70% of this subpopulation entered them abroad. Postdocs in the US tended to enter for-profit companies to do applied research.

Overall, nearly half of NIEHS postdocs went into the academic sector. This came as something of a surprise to the team, since many young scientists thought that doing a government postdoc would prevent them from getting a tenure-track position in academia.

The creators hope this novel approach will be useful throughout NIH, as well as for academic and research institutions around the world. According to NIEHS Scientific Director Darryl Zeldin, the method is sure to “help science administrators better understand the numerous factors that contribute to career decisions of their trainees”.

Kathleen McCann, president of the NIEHS Trainees Assembly, added that the study will be incredibly useful for current and future trainees. “It also demonstrates that NIEHS is an excellent place to train, no matter your career goals, because NIEHS alumni have successfully moved into jobs ranging from basic or applied research, to science writing and communications, to teaching,” she said.

Collins and Xu are currently refining a way to visualise data using the R software, and plan to release additional information on NIEHS career outcomes online. Releasing the information to the public would allow individuals or institutions to upload data from an Excel spreadsheet into the new tool and readily see and compare their own employment trends.

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