Laboratory leaders struggle to attract postdoc researchers

Peter Coveney, a chemist and computational scientist at University College London in the United Kingdom, is ready to hire a postdoctoral researcher with experience in high-level computing. The problem: he’s struggling to attract a single qualified applicant, writes Chris Woolston for Nature.

Coveney is not the only principal investigator facing a postdoc crunch. Other researchers in the United Kingdom, the European Union and elsewhere have reported a sudden drop in applications from qualified applicants, a sign of a potentially drastic shift in the scientific labour market.

Coveney is particularly concerned about a sudden drop in the number of applications from the European Union, a once-reliable source of highly trained postdoctoral talent. “I noticed it was already tapering off fairly soon after the Brexit result came out,” he says, referring to the United Kingdom’s 2016 referendum on leaving the bloc. “It’s got a lot worse since.”
Full report on the Nature site