Recent replies to "Indian Postdocs "

Reply from Sven Van Poucke

Sven Van Poucke — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:18:30 -0000

Hi all,
We are looking for experienced people with expertise in ontology, semantic web, medical writing, marketing, wound care interested in joining an international virtual community of practice related to all these topic. Please have a look at www.woundontology.com. The project has a creative commons license. Only with mundial efforts in an open community, progress becomes more realistic!!

Reply from Swastik Phulera

Swastik Phulera — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 16:58:39 -0000

Every thing else apart, India is still far from offering opportunities for science people.
Right from class 12th there is no impetus to pursue science. we are taught things without being told whats so good about it. Our teaching system makes it impossible to think independently.
So even after all this if some body takes up science then there are no good takers for us. Its very good to get into a good institute for pg/phd/post doc.
so life is frustrating for science people

Reply from Navneet Sharma

Navneet Sharma — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:01:42 -0000

Hi Everyone,
I have been reading through the various postings on this subject recently. Sorry for joining in so late. I left India after trying hard to get into an academic position for years. Whereas some others were getting faculty positions with little or no experience at all even before completing their degrees. At one time I appeared for an interview at Pantnagar Agricultural University for a Lecturer-Biochemistry position. More than 40 Ph.D. (Biochemistry) candidates were invited for interview on a single day. In the end an internal candidate without Ph.D. was selected for the position. After years of frustration, I came to North America. This doesn’t mean I don’t face any discrimination here, but I have faced a lot more in India. In any case it is a struggle for everyone getting into a position, whether native or foreign born. For India to compete with outside world and produce quality science, the system needs to be improved by tens of folds. And it is for no single person to sacrifice their life and dreams in order to improve upon it. There has to be willingness and consistency of plans and action at the government level.

Reply from jayanta chatterjee

jayanta chatterjee — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:31:13 -0000

UK is also searching a better way to fund research grants. Check the folowing article in Nature:

Funding agency ditches peer review in favour of metrics. In 2009, a system of ‘metrics’ will be rolled out to replace the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) peer-review system in England — the first country to apply metrics to funding on this scale. ....“The RAE undoubtedly had flaws, and it was revised continually to address them,” says Bahram Bekhradnia, director of the UK Higher Education Policy Institute. “But it was probably better than anything that is likely to appear.”

Reply from jayanta chatterjee

jayanta chatterjee — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 02:12:43 -0000

I personally know at least a few labs in US where even postdocs were not allowed to write his/her own paper(s), leave alone grants. They are supposed to hand over data to his/her supervisor. In some cases manuscript is ready by the boss and the postdoc or grad student is expected to fill up the figure part. I don’t know whether such faculties are majority or minority in US. Initially new postdocs are “encouraged” to think and develop new grant proposals and give novel direction of the on going projects. Later majority of them realize that they are almost forced to do what their bosses tell them to do (officially they are free to do their “own” staff after completing the work proposed by boss. But generally such boss hardly gives any free time to pursue the postdoc’s own line of work). It’s really nice and some luck to find a good mentor during PhD and postdoc training in US who train the candidate to become a “scientist”, not a “technician”.
I agree with Chitanya that the chance to get opportunity to do meaningful, challenging research is much higher in US than in India. Level of corruption and nepotism in research is much less here in US.

Reply from Chaitanya Saxena

Chaitanya Saxena — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 18:00:59 -0000

I am back here could not resist Halder’s proposition and Gajendra’s comment that how many PDFs will go for it.

I think every fresh postdoc who wants to continue his/her research will go for what Halder is proposing. I will go for it.

2 cr plus 600 sq ft plus grad students…This is called a tenure-track position in America, normally after postdoc (if one gets it). And in the deliverables its not only
a) four publications but also
b) researcher should be able to fetch grant money from federal government or other institutions in stipulated time (nearly a requirement in most of the cases)
c) should be able to participate in departmental functions including teaching undergraduate/graduate courses (a heavy work load in US education system), evaluating application for new student admission maximum in fall but it goes through out the year(again its not cutoff percentage based as in India but committee need to review each and every application in toto to grant the admission) and other functions like seminar series arrangements, symposium development etc.

For the 4 publication sakes…I would say most of the Indian postdoc in a good US lab has this opportunity. They have money to spend (may be not as much as 2 cr), a good instrumentation facility, if not in the same lab but around the campus, and graduate/PhD students (depends on how postdocs motivate them to work for his/her project)….and if one publish 4 papers with IF ~ 5, in 2-3 years then in most optimistic sense a faculty job should be waiting in India for him/her.

And Kangkan, not sure about India which institute will give you this chance however, USA do have a few (mind ‘a’ few) of scholarships/programs like what you are proposing. They are available through National Science Foundation, American Heart Association, through multiple national labs in the area of expertiseand giant pharma/biotech industries (Genentech, Eli-Lilly, Pfizer, Novartis). Most of the time they are not limited to US-citizen status…and some American Heart Association fellowships can be applied even from India and money can be kept in India if granted. Although they do not guarantee a faculty position but fetching such highly prestigious fellowships with 4 great publications in two year lends a great job for sure. Quite obvious they are really very competitive. But opportunities are available to perform. For some one who is readies to struggle for science generally the selection criteria include(apart from industry postdoc):

1) a solid doctoral publication record
2) overall consistently great academic record
3) an excellent grant proposal (what you wish to research with the fund) and
4) recommendation letters

And as we can see that there is only one part which deals with the recommendation letter and normally does not weigh as much as grant proposal in overall scoring…so its all in all academic scientific performance, writing skills and scientific understanding which brings one the JACKPOT and ‘SYSTEM’ do not play a major role in between. Of course there are many more people and hence it’s very competitive.

Reply from jayanta chatterjee

jayanta chatterjee — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:41:30 -0000

If anyone say that they did not do mistake and yet became a successful scientist, either s/he is telling a lie or s/he does not know what “success” means in research, in terms of innovation and/or invention, else s/he never tired anything new or novel. If faculties do not give the freedom to fail then s/he is depriving them to learn. That type of faculties are not a good mentor, even if they are publishing great papers themselves.
When education and research become an industry, then we see the problem of producing factory made staff. US model of academic research is doing mostly that (as a system). Even great young brains are not given opportunities to venture into challenging work and mentoring. Pressure of publishing and getting grants are severely restricting many good scientists to undertake novel, ground breaking research. It’s widely believed that today we have much less chance to get a scientist of Newton, Einstein or Darwin quality.
Publication does not mean much in today’s research. Anyone working as hands can get beautiful publications and also faculty (if s/he can manage a “yes boss” attitude and get good reco) yet can be as dumb as a layman. Many US grant agencies also acknowledge these problems. Many suggested some remedies like not mentioning the names of authors (to the reviewers) while communicating to any journal for review of papares. But a powerful lobby is dead against any reform (that might threaten their dominance in science publication and grants) which in turn is affecting transperancy in science publication and funding. This is a major problem today. As a result we all in the society are suffering.

Reply from Gajendra Raghava

Gajendra Raghava — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 19:53:45 -0000

I think Halder, proposed an excellent idea. I am surprise that people are not expressing their views. Not only fresh PhD but PDFs should be given chance to perform. It will be interesting to know how many PDFs are ready to take this type of challenge.

Reply from taqi ahmed khan

taqi ahmed khan — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 16:13:58 -0000

dear sir you are right.

Reply from jayanta chatterjee

jayanta chatterjee — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:28:25 -0000

A nice article for postdocs and junior scientists:

Raoul Tan, T. L. and Potocnik, D. (2006). Are you experienced? Junior scientists should make the most of opportunities to develop skills outside the laboratory. EMBO Rep 7, 961-4.

Reply from Amit Kumar Singh

Amit Kumar Singh — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 08:36:24 -0000

Dear Kangkan,
Good idea..

but i won’t my money on a fresh PhD student who lacks in independent research experience and writing skills ..

at least 2 postdocs with 4 excellent publications should be minimum for a position like this..

Reply from Kangkan Halder

Kangkan Halder — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 06:58:44 -0000

Dear All,

I have been here for quite some time and reading all your interesting, at times personal and ideal messages. But, all said and done, will anyone give a chance to a Ph.D. fresher to do what he believes along with 2 cr seed money + 600sq ft lab space and 2 students – in return he gives minimum 4 publications with average IF 5(not to mention – salary is no issue) and if he succeeds, avail a position.

I hope many freshers (Ph.D. and postdocs) would like this challenge.

Any takers :)

Reply from jayanta chatterjee

jayanta chatterjee — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:10:03 -0000

Jai,
Our present education and evaluation system do not support those type of people (who has passion and ability) and groom them to become a professional and productive scientists. We are now overcrowded by mediocre people in the name of “scientists” and they rule.

Reply from Gajendra Raghava

Gajendra Raghava — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:18:02 -0000

Hi,
Though we are getting lot of debate on topic but not getting opinion of many persons. I thought many people will response to this query as I believe most of persons are on net are PDFs. Regarding passion or interest for science, still we are not in that stage where we may think about interest, we first think for survival than for decent life and after all this we thought about interest. In initial stage of carrier we can not work for interest, in real life survival is more important than passion as we have too competitive life (too many persons and limited resources). I will appreciate if more persons write their view on this topic. This is important to understand problems faced by our PDF’s. I have not seen persons who work for their passion from childhood. Most of us first work for securing job once we have job than we think about our interest. This is not true for science but for other fields also like sport.

Reply from jai mehta

jai mehta — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:33:40 -0000

hi jayant
u r right. research is a passion and not a means of survival. there where we are failing
jai

Reply from Vidhu Pachauri

Vidhu Pachauri — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:19:21 -0000

Hi! All…I am not a member of this forum..so excuse me for interrupting this discussion…I am Vidhu Pachauri, from the field of Pharmacology, Pharmacy working at Pune.

I logged on today and was happy to see this forum…and since I myself is looking for opportunity for PhD from a good univ abroad…there was lot of insight that i gained out of your discussion!

Please allow me to congratulate you all for being so thoughtful on something beyond science…yes what you all addressed are very crucial basic questions, these needs to be answered for not only all those Indians studying or working abroad but to those back home…hoping on hypothesis of their own!

Reply from jayanta chatterjee

jayanta chatterjee — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 15:44:03 -0000

We improve upon a system by constructive criticism. Two type of peole do not like that, either they are directly benefitted by the existing system or are so adjusted (by changing themselves) with the system that they do not want a change for betterement. It also can be concluded that who failed for whatever reason tries to justify that by criticising the system. I don’t know which one is more common, I have no data to conclude anything.

Many peole know/knew where they want to go. They join(ed) research for that purpose. But after sometime they get dissolutioned. It’s the inability for the system to mentor tham and show that research is a exciting career. In countries like India (the major supplier of manpower for global research) majority of us join research mainly for survival, not for passion or from any desire to do something novel. That is not the case in western countries. Here few people join research and fewer continue that path. Simply because they do not find research exciting enough as compared to when they joined it (or what they initially though). They drop out, while we (indians) are almost forced to continue. And when we realise that we have to continue, we tend to gloss over all the negetive points of the profession only to survive and “succeed” (as per the rules of the game).
It’s much easy to motivate a dumb person (towards research) than a intelligent one who has the confidence to do and excel in many areas. Moreover, more and more people are knowing at an early stage where they want to go, less and less number of people is joining research. That’s one of the reasons why mostly people from village and semi-urban background are there in research, at least in Indian condition. I do not see many sons and daughters of scientists (particularly from a city) to go for a career in research.

At least many of my friends think that “highly motivated” in US means a chap who will enter the lab at 8 am and leave at 9 pm without fail even during weekends while neglecting his/her family and will not hesitate to remain “happy” with one of the lowest salaries in the market.
So far postdoctoral training is concerned, in India and abroad (mainly in USA), check the following articles.
Indian voices (Nature)
Not Your Father’s Postdoc (Science)

I am yet to find an article I read about a couple of years ago (either in Science or Nature), where it described a typical Indian postdoc’s life which concluded with something like this, “ …now he has no other option but to prepare himself for the pathetic journey ahead”.

Reply from Chaitanya Saxena

Chaitanya Saxena — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 04:11:20 -0000

I will not agree that networking option is there because system is not very trust worthy as Jayanta is pointing out. Jayanta you are free to believe in what you do, my understanding is that hiring manager (or faculty/scientist search committee) will hire people from known network not because of little added trust but more importantly because there is no time to sort between millions of available talented candidates. In such scenario there is a possibility that hiring manger will miss out some good one, but still it is a much better an approach for securing a good candidate then screening tons of applications. And about pedigree and brands….they are there because there is a definite value behind it. Whether every Harvard graduate or postdoc from a big lab is a good scientist…not necessary but a great percentage probability is that he/she will be well trained. So why not hire him. I emphasize on networking not because I want a position which I do not deserve but if I am a worthy candidate (first condition) and if I also belong to a ‘big name’ (second option) I have greater chances of career development.

On another point where you are writing that Indian PhD student will go for a job where other local people have shown no interest is a matter-of-fact not true. At least in my knowledge almost all, if not all, PhD students who graduated with me made it to the place of their interest. All those who had no patient or were not clear where they wanted to go, added to the statistics you are pointing out. Though they had excellent academic records but again because they took their own sweet time in learning the importance of other essential things in getting hired where they wanted to.

Most of the time, and I will say for sure, it’s the people themselves that they either don’t know where they want to go or don’t know how to reach where they want to go. As Gajendra pointed, criticizing system is much easier task for any one, and you will find enough people to do that in India (and I add) where performance is not a basis to keep the job.

I think I am going too-off the topic here, with regard to starting question of this string, I would like my first and second response to be read. This post is just a clarification about what I think networking is: It’s a ingredient to success by promoting the talent one posses by keeping other informed that he/she has x,y,z capabilities and he gained it at x,y,z place. It’s not a granted permission to a low-merit, to enter into the system just because he happens to know/belongs to something.

I would like to end my post on this specific topic of ‘IndiaPostdoc’ here. Please feel free to message off the post for suggestions, clarifications and concerns.

Reply from jayanta chatterjee

jayanta chatterjee — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:39:01 -0000

The art of doing science is very different in US as compared to India or EU. Here social evolution enforced use of cheap labor who mainly come from third world countries to pursue their “American dreams”. Gradually research in US started depended heavily on such cheap manpower.
If a problem can be solved by 20 different ways, US scientist will try all those 20 ways, as inflow of manpower is not very limiting or expensive. While in EU, you need to purify your idea and start using much less options (say 2-3). As a result the way projects are written and funded, are a bit different than other countries.
US also rely heavily on “networking” and that is not limited to science. It shows that the system is not very trust worthy and people prefer employing within “known” circle. Pedigree matters a lot here. And it starts from school days.
Generally, high profile and “productive” labs (even the private companies) prefer to employ grad or postdoc from known, local circles. Indian Phd students or fresh grad from other countries are left the options not so attractive to local PhD/postdoc. Generally such second or third choices of faculties are more oppressive (in lab culture) and/or less productive and that’s why not so attractive to local students. Many of them do not have required influence to put their students into orbit in high profile positions. Moreover, if they find any postdoc very productive who match their wavelength (lab culture/management), they are reluctant to loose him/her and try to keep under him for long. That also reduces his/her chance for a better job.
And lastly, US must think for it’s own interest. Many Indians will not like to see an American as the head of BARC or TIFR and so the same reason many Americans will not like an Indian (by birth) to head their high profile institutes.

Reply from Chaitanya Saxena

Chaitanya Saxena — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 03:18:01 -0000

When I read Gajendra’s post I assumed he is asking why Indian Faculty to Indian postdoc ratio is low (in western countries) and then I read Jayanta’s response which was rather discussing the frustrations from Indian science…and I got confused…

I realized that question was more open and Jayanta’s response was well taken in the context then. I was discussing some of the reasons that why an Indian postdoc can not make it to a leadership position.

Also would like to point out that Indian Postdocs (or in general postdocs) in US can be classified in two categories.

One those are graduating from US universities, I found them more competent probably because they get more use-to of the system and they understand the need of ‘God-father’, collaboration, network and daily basis of doing science. They have attitude of problem solving and using all the resources to make it happen.

Second category is the postdocs who come from non-US universities; they are great in many senses including being a very good scientist however they take time some time ‘in transition’ to get use to of the US system. And I believe that kill their initial years in postdoc. Normally they end up doing second postdoc and by the time they are ready to be faculties they are old enough to bring a sea-change and their leadership quality get compromised at second-level research positions (position like ‘research scientist’ in someone’s lab). Another factor which hiring committee at universities found missing in postdocs from non US universities is the teaching-style in US universities, which they were never part of. When a university is planning to hire they expect multiple skills from a postdoc including possibilities of teaching undergraduate/graduate courses. The efforts of a professor in Indian universities teaching BSc or MSc courses is nothing compare to what it takes to teach an undergraduate/graduate course here. It seriously is a job in it self but have to be done right and great along with the research because student evaluation can also kill the Assistant professor’s tenure.

It can be a list of things why Indian postdoc do not achieve leadership positions. One of them is marketing skills. Like any other product in the market, science is also a stuff to sell in capitalist countries like US. On an average Indian scientist (also true with most of the Chinese scientists) are humble and they are the one ”who do not make much fuss about it”. A good quality which will get appreciation in India and China. Here, in US you should be able to sell your science in right packet or else it will never be valued. What data, which journal, who should be the reviewer, will I get response on time…..many factor matters in making a ‘lab work’ turn into nice looking science. And after that if you are humble, then it’s an added advantage.

Science in US moves at very fast pace compare to other countries. The clicking idea which can get you a ‘Cell’ paper if does not get executed in another fifteen-thirty days, goes in trash because some one else will publish it faster. Not because he is smarter then the first one but because he had the resources and he executed it faster than the first one. If one doesn’t get this feeling of URGENCY, he legs behind. This is a common theme among Indian postdocs; especially with those coming from Indian universities, because normally they haven’t seen their bosses to go crazy for the data which is sitting on the table for the publication.

I do not want to sound like a preacher. and I am also learning in the process and just sharing with others what I have experienced. It should not be generalized…All-in-all getting and maintaining science/faculty position in US universities and becoming a leader needs a combination of skills. And one should be great in every of those skills. Indian postdocs though might have list of publications do fall short in some or other way.