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Tens of thousands of job advertisements across Europe call for research experience, but teaching and student-supervision skills are also high on the wanted list.
Teaching skills are starting to be requested at earlier career stages than in 2016.Credit: Getty
Research experience is still the most sought-after attribute in senior academic scientists, a study finds1. However, universities’ demand for teaching and student-supervision experience, digital-literacy skills and geographic mobility increases with time, and demand for research, teaching and supervision skills rises with seniority.
The study analysed the text of 40,819 European academic job advertisements posted online between 2016 and 2021 and classified the attributes listed into categories such as: research experience; digital skills, which could include literacy in big data, AI and data mining; teaching and supervision; degree and achievements; enterprise (experience with patents and commercialization, for example); and the ability to move country.
Each of the positions advertised was classified into one of four career levels: ‘first-stage researcher’ (research assistants and PhD students); ‘recognized researcher’ (postdocs, lecturers and senior lecturers, or those who also teach); ‘established researcher’ (associate professors); and ‘leading researcher’ (full professors).
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“We were interested in general skills for an academic career and what it takes to progress,” says Lilia Mantai, a higher-education researcher at the University of Sydney Business School in Australia and an author of the study.
After a person’s degree and achievements, a category that includes awards, certificates and academic record, research experience was the most important attribute listed across all job adverts. Almost half of the ads for first-stage researchers and around 60% of those for other job categories listed research as a desired attribute. “The core business of an academic career is pretty clear across the globe: it’s research, independent of country, independent of discipline,” says Mantai.
But Mantai said she and co-author Mauricio Marrone at Macquarie Business School at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, were surprised to find that teaching and supervision followed closely behind research as a sought-after attribute in more-senior positions. The proportion of ads requesting teaching skills increased substantially with career stage, from 27% of first-stage ads to 68% of those for professors. Furthermore, at that highest career level, more job ads requested teaching (68%) than research (63%).
Demand for digital literacy also increased over the period investigated, but was highest in the earliest career stages and less requested at the full-professor stage.
Enterprise skills were mentioned less often than were other attributes at all career stages. “We found that pretty weak compared to all the talk that’s happening right now in terms of research commercialization, building industry partners, providing a more applied research,” Mantai says.
There were also geographic variations in the demand for certain attributes at different career stages, the study found.
Country-level differences are important to consider for those who move frequently between jobs, Mantai says, noting that mobility is highly requested at all career stages. Nicola Dengo, a chemist at the University of Insubria in Como, Italy, and a board member of the European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers, says that the findings point to a shift in the definition of an academic career. It no longer focuses exclusively on a narrow field of research, he says. “Right now, professorship is more like management of a research group, so you have to look for funding, you have to talk to people, you have to manage people, you have to mentor people.”
The shift also reflects an increased focus, in some nations, on developing teaching and supervisory skills early in a person’s academic career, so that those skills are well established by the time the researcher reaches a senior level.
For postdocs and other recognized researchers, 60% of the ads mention research, 48% mention publishing or publications, 39% mention teaching and lecturing attributes and 24% mention communication and writing skills.
Thomas Kimbis, executive director and chief executive of the US National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) in Rockville, Maryland, says it’s not surprising that job ads for postdocs seek skills in research, communication and interpersonal aptitude, or, for example, in the ability to work in a partnership or team, or in a managerial capacity. The NPA, which represents 20,000 postdocs across the United States, runs online courses to help researchers to develop skills that will support their career progress. Some of the courses cover grant writing, self-advocacy, conflict management, networking and constructive communication. “We see a strong demand from postdocs to build their ‘smart skills’,” he says, “and help them to drive their personal and career success.”
