On average what is the likelihood that a research fellow will eventually become a lecturer or an assistant professor?

Question

I was trying to determine the probability that someone who is currently a research fellow will become a lecturer or assistant professor within the next five years and I was wondering if someone could approximate it here.

I suppose that it is dependent on many factors but is it possible to calculate a rough estimation without additional details or with stated assumptions?

Can you estimate it by taking the number of lecturers/assistant professors in your department and dividing by the number of research fellows? — Allure, May 05 '21 at 23:02
Very discipline and university specific. In my school, the probability is zero. — Prof. Santa Claus, May 05 '21 at 23:11
@Allure That won't quite get at it because professors are in their jobs longer. Probably a closer estimate would be # professors retiring/number of research fellows or equivalent, if we assume all professors are hired from people in research fellow positions or equivalent. — Bryan Krause, May 05 '21 at 23:24
@BryanKrause That assumes professors who retire are replaced. In many places the positions end up simply eliminated, with the necessary teaching being covered with larger classes, higher teaching workloads for current staff, or poorly paid temporary staff. — Alexander Woo, May 05 '21 at 23:39
@AlexanderWoo True, but it's still about as close as you can get. There are also fields that are growing where the math is more favorable, etc. — Bryan Krause, May 05 '21 at 23:46
Is this a research question or are you just wondering about your own chances? — Buffy, May 05 '21 at 23:49
Does this answer your question? What ratio of PhD graduates in STEM fields ultimately end up as (tenured) professors?
Please clarify on which sector/country/gender you are interested: that would be fun! — EarlGrey, May 06 '21 at 02:25

score -1 · Accepted Answer · answered May 06 '21 at 00:37

As was alluded to in the comments, this really depends. I'm speaking from the perspective of computer science, which on average has a better job market than other disciplines. If you're talking about a research fellowship in very small fields (say, abstract math), you'll probably need to reconsider everything written below.

Successful research fellowships lead to the RF obtaining a number of impactful publications, an additional enthusiastic reference letter writer or two, and a broader research network. They may gain valuable experience writing grants and advising students, which further bolsters their prospects.

If these conditions are met, I'd say that in an average to good job market, such a research fellow is more than %50 likely to obtain a tenure-track faculty position in a reasonable university.

In a bad job market (e.g. the one we had in 2020), these chances decrease dramatically, but still - small, less reputable universities may still be willing to hire a good researcher as an opportunity hire (one that won't be available to them under normal circumstances).

Overall, the chances of a research fellow getting a permanent position are no better than those of a fresh PhD getting one, assuming all else is equal.

"Overall, the chances of a research fellow getting a permanent position are no better than those of a fresh PhD getting one, assuming all else is equal." I find this claim hard to believe. — Anonymous Physicist, May 06 '21 at 06:22
@AnonymousPhysicist Yes that seems unlikely. Can you give better probabilistic bounds? — Katherine, May 06 '21 at 10:44
Assuming all else is equal - yes. Lots of people do 6 or 7 years of PhD precisely to avoid needing to do a postdoc. Again, this is not data, just anecdotes. — Spark, May 07 '21 at 02:37

On average what is the likelihood that a research fellow will eventually become a lecturer or an assistant professor?

1 Answers1