A variety of topics were covered in the survey, and a brief summary of the findings and policy recommendations from each section follows.

Career aims and aspirations

More than 80% of respondents want to have a career in research over the medium- to long-term, and more than 50% of the respondents stated the primary reason for starting a postdoctoral position was as a stepping-stone to a full-time research career. A lack of job security and a lack of funding (37% for each) stand in the way of those goals. Nearly 60% believe Australian researchers had to have overseas experience to be competitive for funding and promotion, and 55% have considered moving their research programme overseas. As the funding wanes and waxes in Australia, we should be aware there are other countries who are very willing to hire our technically proficient and highly skilled future leaders. In addition, without a strategic plan for research funding that the major funding bodies have agreed to, it is a challenge for researchers to plan their career in a way that maximizes the potential of funding success long-term.

Career development

More than 80% of respondents reported somewhat or significantly developing new research skills during their position, and the most cited sources for skills development were self-directed learning (70%), working with peers (48%), and working with senior scientists or their supervisor (33%). About 65% of respondents had either an informal or a formal discussion about their career plan, and 75% report having few or no opportunities to undertake work experience or other opportunities to upskill. This emphasizes institutional barriers to access, and suggests an exchange programme between institutes that contain similar disciplines could be developed, similar to the NHMRC TRIP Fellowship. In addition, this highlights the need for supervisors and senior scientists to be available to their laboratory members, and not overburdened with grant writing or administrative duties.

Networking and mentoring

More than 20% of respondents reported the total lack of a mentor, through either formal or informal channels. Although the idea of a mentor and what that relationship entails varies by field, the goal of using a mentor as an advocate and springboard to a wider network in the scientific community should transcend disciplinary boundaries. Ethical considerations of the mentor-mentee relationship should be made clear from the beginning, and in some cases a mentor can be an advocate for an early-career researcher who is experiencing harassment or pressure to act unethically. As recent examples have shown, a mentor can play a critical role in scientific fraud (Fanelli, 2009).

Publishing and applying for funding

All researchers, even at the beginning of the career pathway, understood that to be hired and promoted required publication of peer-reviewed articles and a track record of research funding. Like any technical writing, these are skills that require time to develop—time postdoctoral researchers often are not afforded in short duration contracts. Further, funding bodies often require that the applicant holds a funded position to be eligible for research grant rounds, which places a unique burden on postdoctoral researchers. For an ecosystem that runs on high-impact publications, it is perhaps unsurprising that 55% of researchers work at institutions that provide clear guidelines for ethical conduct in published research, and 70% are encouraged to consider publication or measurable metrics like patents when designing experiments. However, only 27% received guidance about predatory publishing. In an era of “publish or perish”, postdoctoral researchers are trapped behind a mountain of unpublished data and high publication fees some open-access and some high-impact journals. Dissemination and engagement are becoming buzzwords for people responsible for allocating funding, so support should be provided for the best homes to be found for our research.

Teaching and supervision

Figure 1 illustrates the discrepancy in how much postdocs value teaching and supervision, compared to how much it contributes to promotion and to the quality of RHD student experiences. Postdocs are the front line of supervision for RHD students, but often are omitted from formal agreements that assign supervisory duty. A “supervisor audit” could help identify those postdocs who have been particularly active and involved mentors, and perhaps an informal “technical advice” category or similar could be formally added to the advisory team structure. This would be particularly useful for technical staff or people responsible for individual instruments or teaching techniques. That enables postdocs to continue to do work they are well-suited to and qualified to do, while adding ways to illustrate technical proficiency on their resume and to their supervisor.

Outreach and engagement

Although 94% of respondents conduct research that is wholly or partially funded by industry, only 9% report being introduced to those industry funders. Support for researchers to grow their networks with industry partners (including NGO and government bodies, as appropriate) should be provided, possibly in conjunction with conferences or state-based advocacy groups like Life Sciences Queensland (http://www.lsq.com.au/). Certain regions require more funding than others to meet these goals, for example our second-largest state, Queensland. Queensland is a state 2.5 times the size of Texas, and has the third largest population of any state or territory in Australia, not considering the Australian Antarctic Territory.

The quality and type of outreach and engagement activities should be reviewed on an institutional basis, and should be modular so training can be tailored to the goals of each postdoctoral researcher. On completion of a training programme participants should be formally recognized, as it then becomes a CV-worthy bullet point. Clear aims and outcomes from engagement work should also be evaluated, and definitions for “impact” and “engagement” standardized across institutions and by funding bodies to ensure researchers know on what they will be evaluated.

Working Conditions

Around 75% of respondents work more than 41 hours each week, including 20% who work more than 50 hours each week. The amount of unpaid labour contributed to the science economy by postdoctoral researchers should be evaluated by individual institutions, and the option of flexible work conditions (especially for time-sensitive experiments) should be considered. For short-term contracts that are less than a certain duration (for example, 3 months), the possibility of employing postdoctoral researchers through a central fund as hourly contractors entitled to penalty rates could be considered. Implications of short-term contracts and long hours outside the normal work week should be considered from an equity perspective also, as it acts as a deterrent to those who hope to return to research after a career interruption or who have primary caregiving responsibilities.

Equity and diversity

The pathway to a more diverse workforce that includes more researchers from traditionally underrepresented groups is to hire and retain more persons who identify in those ways.