I'm a male, 37 years old, unmarried, from Latin-America, PhD in Electronics, high ranked university of China, few but good ranked publications, 1.5 years of experience in Chinese industry + 1.5 years in original country.

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1. I'm currently at a Chinese university as postdoc: Salary mediocre (for Chinese standards), no teaching, almost no supervision. No assigned topic, I can get postdoc extended up to 2 years more. I don't speak Chinese. I've lived in China for 10 years.
2. Now, I was offered a postdoc position in German University : Salary is good (for German standard），2 years extendable, 4 hours of teaching mandatory. Some supervision. The assigned research topic is not my expertise. I don't speak German.
3. Also I was offered position as Researcher in Spaniard Laboratory: Salary is quite low (for Spaniard standard), no teaching mandatory. Focused in industry projects. General research is within my expertise. Supervisors are experts in the topic. I speak Spanish.

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Initially, I wished to become a Professor. If going for options 2. or 3. I'm almost sure I should abandon the idea to stay in Academia (due to statistics) and better aim to Industry, but I'm not sure Industry may accept overqualified, inexperienced Postdocs of 40 years old.

On the other hand, For option 1., I have seen similar profiles to mine (but Chinese people) who have got tenure-tracks in China in varied ranked universities. As per industry in China, is recently impossible to get hired as a foreigner (I've tried to search for jobs), but actually offered a few small-contract teaching jobs.

I'd like to know your opinion on what should I do. I'm a little bit clueless. Thanks

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I'm a male, 37 years old, unmarried, from Latin-America, PhD in Electronics, high ranked university of China, few but good ranked publications, 1.5 years of experience in Chinese industry + 1.5 years in original country.

​

1. I'm currently at a Chinese university as postdoc: Salary mediocre (for Chinese standards), no teaching, almost no supervision. No assigned topic, I can get postdoc extended up to 2 years more. I don't speak Chinese. I've lived in China for 10 years.
2. Now, I was offered a postdoc position in German University : Salary is good (for German standard），2 years extendable, 4 hours of teaching mandatory. Some supervision. The assigned research topic is not my expertise. I don't speak German.
3. Also I was offered position as Researcher in Spaniard Laboratory: Salary is quite low (for Spaniard standard), no teaching mandatory. Focused in industry projects. General research is within my expertise. Supervisors are experts in the topic. I speak Spanish.

​

Initially, I wished to become a Professor. If going for options 2. or 3. I'm almost sure I should abandon the idea to stay in Academia (due to statistics) and better aim to Industry, but I'm not sure Industry may accept overqualified, inexperienced Postdocs of 40 years old.

On the other hand, For option 1., I have seen similar profiles to mine (but Chinese people) who have got tenure-tracks in China in varied ranked universities. As per industry in China, is recently impossible to get hired as a foreigner (I've tried to search for jobs), but actually offered a few small-contract teaching jobs.

I'd like to know your opinion on what should I do. I'm a little bit clueless. Thanks

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Hi everyone,

I'm applying for my first postdoc positions (I'm in Australia) and in addressing the job and person specifications one of the criteria is "demonstrated ability to critically review the literature in relevant fields" and I'm not quite sure what to write to address this.

Obviously I can do this - I consider myself to be pretty good at critical thinking and in fact it's key to my discipline (critical psychologies). I also have experience in systematic review methodology of which part of that is appraising literature.

BUT do you think that is what the question is asking? If you were asking this question to hire someone, what specifics would you want to know? What evidence would you want?

Thanks so much!

How to become a assistant professor in CS and does college matter from where you are doing your masters. Please help .

to your anthropological research, so they could share that knowledge with their children, would you show them the relevant portions of your fieldnotes?

So I'm in the process of publishing my very first paper, but I'm now confused with the process.

I'm told by the journal that I'm in the 'files requested' stage where I'm being asked to send my figures in an editable format, but I don't know the significance of this stage.

My paper was in the final stage of the peer-review process. The last time I checked the status of my paper, it was in the 'pending approval' stage. But I never got to find out whether it was approved because of a system glitch the journal had.

Does the 'files requested' stage mean that the paper has been accepted?

Pretty much the title.

I work a lot in interdisciplinary projects with other fields and have developed a fascination for the little differences that have grown over time in the respective areas of research. This could be wording, behavior, or how academic things are handled in general.

EDIT: I wanna thank everyone for contributing. This is a nice collection of weird and funny stuff. Please keep it going!

About 2 months ago I submitted a paper of mine to a journal via the “scholar-one” submission platform.

Although I understand this isn’t a long period of time in the grand scheme, for the past two months the paper’s status has cyclically changed from “awaiting reviewer assignment” to “awaiting reviewer selection”. This status change occurs approximately every few days.

What’s the deal with this? I don’t think I’m past the desk-rejection stage yet, but this lack of progression is quite annoying.

Any guidance or insight very much appreciated!

I was officially offered a position via phone call from chair of the department three weeks ago, but I haven’t received anything on paper/via email. I am sure I’m just catastrophizing, but it was such a long shot job to begin with that I can’t help but worry it’s going to be taken away from me. 😂. Is HR often this slow on getting out paperwork at major universities?

Hi all, I recently got the news that I will soon have an interview for a permanent position in France (Maître de conférences). I'm scared shitless, anybody got any tip, suggestion, kind word for me?

Can I publish in journals (STEM) without an affiliation as a first author or corresponding author? Some journals require affiliation information, but what options do independent researchers have in such cases?

So I applied to a conference for early Sept, was accepted based on my abstract. This is my first conference I am attending, but second to get a paper accepted.

However, I have NOT written said paper. I intended to base it off of my phd thesis.

Anyway, couple questions.

1. Do I actually have to present a physical paper or just a presentation? I don't know how it WORKS

2. My research has taken a SLIGHTLY different path, do I need to tell the conference organizers? Or just present on what I find?

I have no idea how any of this works and my supervisors are of 0 help and support, so thought I'd go to strangers on the internet! Any and all advice is greatly appreciated.

TIA.

We all have heard the remark "isnt it a waste that most publicly funded research is not really engaged with by the public".

But I wonder how many of us actually care to have our work read beyond our field? I know public engagement is an upcoming KPI, but do you feel contributing to your field is enough?

No judgement, genuinely curious.

I had really good vibes in a recent interview. The chair said he’d hope to call me even before the dean signs off on a hire. As I’m still waiting I’m now wondering if they’ve moved on with someone else or whether he thought again about that and I might still be in the running. It’s been about a week since the last candidate.

Thoughts? I’m applying elsewhere and waiting on other campus visits but this is the one I want. Assumably all colleges have an approval procedure for TT hires?

So I applied to a conference for early Sept, was accepted based on my abstract. This is my first conference I am attending, but second to get a paper accepted.

However, I have NOT written said paper. I intended to base it off of my phd thesis.

Anyway, couple questions.

1. Do I actually have to present a physical paper or just a presentation? I don't know how it WORKS

2. My research has taken a SLIGHTLY different path, do I need to tell the conference organizers? Or just present on what I find?

I have no idea how any of this works and my supervisors are of 0 help and support, so thought I'd go to strangers on the internet! Any and all advice is greatly appreciated.

TIA.

Humanities/social science early career researcher here. I have an article coming out in a very good journal, and my department offered to pay the exorbitant fees to make the article open access. The fee is ridiculous but they have special funds set aside for that, and they choose a select number of papers every year, so obviously I said yes.

I was excited at first, but now I'm wondering what the actual benefits of it are. I don't really buy that more people will read it, since I would put it on ResearchGate/Academia anyway, like everyone does in my field. Not to mention websites like Anna's Archive, SciHub etc. Does it look good on my CV or something? Does the university get to brag about how many OA articles their staff published? I know almost everything in academic publishing is a scam, but I really don't see the logic behind this.

I'm trying to find seaweed applications for a specific genus of seaweed called Codium. Before I refine the search equation any further, I'm noticing this problem:

TS=(Codium AND (application* OR use* OR utilization*)) = 227 results: https://webofscience.una.elogim.com/wos/woscc/summary/0a245a18-8026-49e9-ac7a-3048889ab83a-e25923fe/relevance/1

TS=(Codium AND (application OR use OR utilization)) = 327 results: https://webofscience.una.elogim.com/wos/woscc/summary/1230909b-f47c-47f8-b9e3-e0c3f683f014-e259492d/relevance/1

I thought the wildcard * was supposed to find other words with phrase/word included as well. Can somebody explain it to me what's happening? It's supposed to be the other way around (wildcard asterisk should ADD results, not remove them)!

I’m trying to learn more about these things for accreditation coming up.

Obviously, I can look up books on the subject. Or Google it and find advice or specific guidelines for various institutions.

But does anyone who works in IE/assessment have actual advice on the ‘best’ sources?

I’m working primarily on a program level but I’ll also be assisting at the University level. I’ve gotten on campus advice from a mentor already.

Thanks

Edit— in case anyone cares, Linda Suskie was recommended by a mentor.

My research is interesting enough to get picked up by TV stations and major newspaper organizations regularly.

One weird thing I've been noticing is that for newspapers, i give my interviews and the articles generally also includes thoughts from 1-2 other researchers chiming in on their interpretations of my findings. I had no idea others would be critiquing my research and be included in the news articles.

Sometimes the TV stations and newspapers don't even bother to contact me and go straight to the external researchers for a second opinion to comment on my findings. That seems weird to not contact the study author to explain the results.

What is the purpose of these external consults, is this the media's version of "peer review" before they release their news? They are all university researchers/faculty on the respective topic at hand, so they are definitely not on call paid consultants.

Advice needed. I'm a recently tenured professor at a large-ish public university. My partner of two years is not an academic; she is an assistant director of marketing at another university and has a 9-5 schedule. We are continually having tensions over the differences in our work schedules. She struggles to understand why I sometimes cannot do things in the evening, two or three times a month have reading groups or research project team meetings on Saturdays/Sundays, etc. This is my fourth relationship as an adult of more than a year (I'm in early 40s and was married for nine years in my 20s-30s). The other three relationships were all with people who were either PhD students or faculty members.

Things are coming to a head in two instances. First, I have a huge single-authored article due next week. This is the first thing except a book review and one piece where I was third author that I have actually written anything since getting tenure. Last year was consumed by the tenure process which, due to good departmental guidance and a very extensive annual review process designed to help prepare materials for tenure, was fairly low effort. Now I'm facing this article. It isn't healthy, but I spend the week before something like this is due obsessing and working on it every second I'm awake, which means not exercising, not really cooking meals, not seeing anyone socially, not doing anything fun, and not spending time with her. She is understanding about it, but I feel like I'm being a total monster about it.

The other thing is that I'm finally going back this summer to do fieldwork in South America for a new book project. It has been difficult talking about it because whenever I bring it up she basically asks me why I have to go for so long (3-4 weeks), why can't I just do interviews on Zoom, etc. I feel like a jerk for going.

FWIW I'm not at all denigrating her career choice. I'm literally just trying to understand how to negotiate a relationship with someone I love who has a 9-5 job and healthy work/life balance when academia sets you up to have a disjointed and inconsistent schedule and nothing resembling normal work/life balance.

thanks.

I’m sorry if this is a stupid question. I’m an incoming PhD student. In my field, I realized that the most cited researchers tend to have papers on “National statistics on stroke in America” or “National cancer data by race”. Basically, these papers have national data that others can use to cite and include in their studies within a certain population.

I mean, these research obviously takes time to analyze secondary data that take a lot of time. Given how these research get excited so much, why don’t researchers just focus on publishing data for specific regions. For example, find all the tobacco use data in California or East Coast.

My partner and I both applied for stuff this year, he for postdocs and some jobs and me for some jobs. I also had someone reach out to me to ask if I wanted to be considered for a short term position at their university and I said yes please consider me. That person ghosted. So many departments just never sent rejection letters to either of us or gave us timelines for when we’d hear. It’s late April. He got one thing but several others remain outstanding. All of mine went unanswered. Is it so hard to inform people if you don’t want to give them a job? We literally don’t even know if we should renew our lease where we currently live.

In 2023, the "the overall success rate was 14.8%" for ERC Starting Grants. "This competition attracted 2,696 proposals." The success rate was only 14.8%.

Now, in 2024, "the ERC received 3,474 applications. This marks an increase of 29% compared to the previous call in 2022."

I applied last year, but I recently received a rejection. No big deal, but it got me thinking of how there is a whole industry for these ERC applications.

Each university has staff members whose job it is to help you. The applications are very long and you need to prepare two versions (a short and long version). The long version isn't even read by the reviewers until you pass the initial selection stage. So you end up doing a lot of research and preparation for a proposal, but the success rate is pretty low.

A lot of value is placed on these ERC grants. It is basically how you get a long-term job in Europe if you don't have one already. Universities encourage you to apply for the grants because they get a big cut out of them as hosting institutions.

The number of applications increases every year, probably because there are so many more PhDs graduating, but only a select few succeed. I might try again, but it feels like such a waste of time.

Looking for Academic resources in Arabic (tailored for Arabic academics). Should be a populated database with peer reviewed academic and scientific articles.

I have a bachelor's and master's degree in mechanical engineering from a large technical university in Germany. Currently I'm writing on my PhD dissertation after 4 years of research. For my PhD, I worked in another technical university. My topic is quite niche (not useless but complex). So niche that a few weeks ago, when I gave a longer presentation about my work, even the senior researchers and some profs from our department kept asking primitive questions. At first I was baffled but then I realized they were asking the same questions I asked myself during the first 1-2 years of my research. There are a few groups that conduct similar research around the world but it's even difficult to find potential reviewers for my papers or a second (outside) prof to join the PhD committee. I have published 2 papers in okayish journals (impact factor about 6 and 10) so far with a third one on its way. I am absolutely isolated here with no connections and network. I can't find people to collaborate with and since my topic is even outside of the scope of my supervisor's work, I systematically get ignored by him. Truth be told, they only allowed me to go to one lousy conference, where again, no one knew what to do with my research. So now that I'm about to finish, i came across this one research position in the USA. It's at a prestigious university but the topic aligns very well with my research. I could argue, in order to conduct the research they are focusing on, one needs to have done everything I have done so far. However, I'm hesitant to even think about applying given that I only have 2 (hopefully 3 soon) first authored research papers with nothing else to show for. Also keep in mind that I'm not coming from a prestigious US university. I don't know what to think or how to judge the situation. Can someone give me some insight? I know, the worst that could possibly happen is a rejection but tbh, I don't wanna make a fool of myself.

This is why i am quitting. I have a Ph.D in social psychology - but what is the use of doing research if this is what we ultimately get. The research about how to reduce racism and blind authoritarianism was done over 60 years ago. Yet History Repeats.

Why the hell are hate groups allowed on Academia? Can you imagine if these were "blacks" or LGBTQ being chased off campus rather than Jews?

Can people please awaken to this reality already and help stop it before its too late- please?

The title basically. Idk what to do. I don’t really like being confrontational esp since she’s our leader and i could report her to our research advisor but i might get called a prude or sumn and i don’t want to jeopardize everyone else’s interests who did actually work hard until the manipulation part