The Postdoc Accord in Theoretical High Energy Physics (2024)

3.1 Demographics

As of June 13, 2023, we have received 588 responses, of whom 530 chose to identify themselves.All the named respondents were verified to be members of the HET community.We can therefore be confident that the survey was not significantly biased by malevolent actors and/or bots. The demographic distribution of the respondents is summarized in Tab.1 and Fig.3. For the geographical information, respondents were asked to indicate where they are currently based as opposed to their region of origin. The options provided were “North-America,” “Europe (including UK),” “Asia,” “Oceania,” “Middle East” and “Central and South America,” in addition to a write-in option. For subfield, the given options were “Formal Theoretical Physics,” “Phenomenology/ Beyond the Standard Model,” “QCD (including Lattice, SCET, etc.),” “Cosmology” and “Astrophysics,” as well as a write-in option. Respondents were allowed to indicate more than one choice on this question, in which case we included them in all categories they indicated. A fraction chose to provide a write-in answer, which were often slight variations on the categories above. In those instances, we included the respondents in the one or more categories considered closest. Finally, for the seniority category, the respondents were asked to chose between “faculty” and “graduate student or postdoc,” with no write-in option.

We consider the overall distribution of respondents to be reasonably good reflection of the community. However, it is possible that some sectors of the community did not receive as much advertising as others and that we are thus missing a systematic effect. To address this concern, the survey will remain open until July 21st, 2023 and we hope this arXiv posting (which is cross-listed broadly) will encourage additional responses from anyone who, to date, was unaware of this ongoing exercise. Our results will be updated accordingly, and we will post them on a companion web pagewebsite .

3.2 Results

The respondents were asked to rate four options for possible deadline dates: “January 7 (current deadline),” “Mid-January (around January 15),” “End-of-January (around January 30),” “February 15 (astronomy deadline).” These options were chosen after extensive informal interaction across the community, which indicated little support for bringing the deadline either before the winter break or into March. The results for this question are shown in Fig.4. A large majority of respondents indicate that the current January 7th deadline is either “not preferred” (399 respondents, 68%) or “administratively impossible” (44 respondents, 7%).The degree of preference increases for later dates, with the February 15th option being the most preferred. The “End-of-January” choice was, by a small margin, the least disliked; it had the smallest contribution of“not preferred” (83 respondents, 14%) and “adminstratively impossible” (9 respondents, 1.5%). For the February 15th option, 86 respondents(15%) indicated “not preferred” and 22 respondents(3.7%) chose “adminstratively impossible.”There is no significant difference when breaking the data down according to seniority. These qualitative trends hold true also among the 10% of respondents that chose to remain anonymous, but with milder hierarchies.

For the same range of options, Fig.5 shows the first choice of the respondents for a joint deadline. A majority prefers the mid-February option, followed by the end-of-January and middle-of-January options. The current January 7th deadline is the least preferred among the options proposed, by a rather wide margin. The results are again similar when broken down by seniority. Fig.6 shows the first-choice option, broken down according to geographic region. The two largest groups, Europe and North America are broadly consistent with one another. The responses from Asia are more mixed, and the January7th deadline appears to enjoy more support than it does in Europe and North America. This may be because of the Lunar New Year, which tends to fall at the end of January or mid-February. There appears to be overwhelming support in Oceania to move away from the early January deadline, likely because it falls in their summer break. For both Oceania and Asia, the sample size is small however, and one should exercise caution in over-interpreting these results. For South/Central America (5 respondents) and the Middle East (8 respondents) the sample size was too small to draw any meaningful conclusions.

When broken down according to subfield (see Fig.7), the trends described above broadly hold, with one exception. The support for February 15th is much greater among those working on astroparticle physics and/or cosmology. This is not surprising, given the better match with the astrophysics deadline on February 15th.

Finally, it important to note that community unity on the acceptance deadline appears to be of critical importance for many. This was already evident from our many private interactions with colleagues before launching the survey, and the survey questions were therefore deliberately and carefully formulated with this concern in mind. To measure this sentiment to some extent, we asked respondents to indicate whether they agree with the statement: “If a new agreement is drafted, I would prefer it to include a clause stating that the agreement only go into effect after a large fraction of the institutions which signed the original 2007 agreement have signed on.” An overwhelming majority responded in the affirmative, as shown in Fig.8, indicating that the existence of a joint deadline outweighs the particular deadline date for a large fraction of the community.

Visa Issues:

We received 13 comments about various concerns related to visa applications. Particular examples that were highlighted were the H1B visa process in the US and non-EU visa processes in Europe. For example, two respondents deemed it impossible to obtain a work-permit for non-EU citizens after February 15th in time for a September/October start, due to Belgian immigration rules.In addition, some comments expressed the concern that postponing the deadline could result in potential disadvantages for vulnerable groups. Ensuring equal opportunities for candidates from countries without visa waivers is of utmost importance. Moreover, it is crucial to consider the situation of international applicants who do not receive offers in the initial round and consequently face a waiting period before commencing the offer/negotiation process.

Schooling and Family Issues:

We received 5 comments about issues related to schooling of postdocs’ children and other family-related issues.It was emphasized that deadlines should be arranged in a way that allows recipients sufficient time to discuss their options with their families and advisors. One important reason for this is the challenge associated with finding daycare spots for young children. Another highlighted issue is the proximity of the public-school enrollment deadline to the postdoc acceptance deadline. Moreover, many school districts require families to secure housing before allowing enrollment.A further reason for this is that partners of applicants also require adequate time to find employment in the new location. As one respondent said, the overarching focus of any postdoc agreement should be on providing flexibility and options to recipients, taking into consideration the profound impact of deadlines on their personal, professional, and family lives.

Holiday Schedules:

We received 22 comments generally related to how the postdoc hiring season overlaps with the holiday schedule making it hard for faculty to communicate with administrators, postdocs to communicate with mentors, and everyone to be able to have time with their family.School and daycare closures over the holidays make working over the holidays difficult for people with caring responsibilities.It was also noted that the schedule for holidays over the December–February period is very location dependent. For instance, countries where Epiphany is a publicly celebrated holiday are still on holiday until January 7th, with staff often absent for a little longer. Institutions in the Southern hemisphere are out-of-sync with their Northern hemisphere counterparts. Additionally, the long summer break is over December–January.This issue is further complicated by those holiday schedules that are based on the lunar calendar and shift around annually.It was also noted by some respondents that application deadlines should not be shifted back by any substantial amount.

A related issue that was brought up in 2 comments is that a fixed date for the deadline occasionally falls on a weekend. This problem could be removed by defining the deadline not as e.g.January 30th but instead as the e.g.the last Wednesday in January. However, even this has complications since, for instance, the third Monday in February is a holiday (Presidents’ Day) in the US.

Concern about CERN:

Best Practices:

We had 6 comments advocating for the development of a set of “best practices” for postdoc hiring in the field. These included a minimum amount of time that a candidate should be allowed between an offer and a deadline. This would be especially important for offers made after the deadline in the postdoc accord. Suggestions of 1 or 2 weeks were made. It was also suggested that applicants should be strongly encouraged to never hold more than 2 or 3 offers simultaneously, for any extended period, and that postdoc advisors/mentors should encourage this behavior. Some respondents furthermore emphasized that Academic Jobs Online(AJO)ajo provides a central application site and that it would be helpful for applicants as well as letter writers if all institutions utilized it, rather than using their own bespoke interfaces. Finally, it was pointed out that while interviewing candidates to determine how well-matched they are to an institution is beneficial, candidates should not be asked to make a commitment before receiving an offer.

Fellowship Outcomes:

A deadline for regular postdoc decisions after the deadlines associated with prestigious fellowships (e.g.Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions) allows applicants with outstanding applications for these fellowships to make decisions with full knowledge of their options.It is also beneficial to institutions since it removes the risk of their position beingvacated shortlyafter acceptance. This may be of particular importance if the fellowship is cross-disciplinary and the leading HET candidate is not selected because they have accepted a non-fellowship position. Tab.2 contains a list of multi-disciplinary fellowships known to us, with their respective deadlines. We will keep an updated list of multidisciplinary fellowships on our web pagewebsite and invite the community to submit such fellowships to us at het.postdoc.deadline@gmail.com.

Alignment:

There were 20 comments about alignment with other deadlines. Several respondents identified the need for alignment between postdoc application deadlines and the timing of permanent job/research assistant professor/fellowship searches to prevent star candidates from turning down multiple postdoc offers for permanent positions. Others focused on the coordination of deadlines between fields—interdisciplinary applicants working in both particle physics and either astrophysics or mathematics. Maximising alignmentfavors the deadlines in February over those in January.