Bridging the gap

While undergoing any big life change is a stressful process, the final part of a PhD is particularly intense. Students must balance planning for their next steps – securing a job, moving house and publishing their PhD research – alongside the requirements of their doctoral programme, namely completing experimental work and submitting a thesis on a rigid timeline. However, managing these demands is becoming increasingly difficult.

Pressure to publish

In particular, the requirement for first-author publications to qualify for postdoctoral positions is a huge point of conflict. ‘Rightly or wrongly publications are the currency in academia and that’s been the perception for a very long time,’ says Angela Russell, a medicinal chemist and PhD supervisor at the University of Oxford, UK. ‘Productivity is evidenced through publications and those candidates are inevitably ranked more highly when applying for postdoc positions.’

However, in many cases this is no longer a realistic expectation. ‘The requirements for a paper are more stringent than the requirements for a PhD, but in the UK there’s a hard four-year deadline on submitting your thesis,’ explains Ian Sudbery, a bioscientist and PhD supervisor at the University of Sheffield. Students are therefore obliged to prioritise writing their thesis over collecting additional data or otherwise finishing work for a paper.

Changing publication standards are a further complicating factor, meaning that often the PhD timescale is just too short to produce a peer-reviewed paper. ‘Over the last few decades I think there has been an inflation in the size of the minimum publishable unit and in some fields, a single paper can often contain multiple PhDs-worth of work,’ adds Sudbery. Consequently, many recent graduates are forced to delay applications for postdoc positions or even to turn away from academia entirely.

I don’t know anyone who has managed to time it all perfectly 

For those who choose to remain in research, this creates an awkward period of uncertainty, leaving students unable to plan and unsure about when (or if) they will be eligible to apply for academic positions. Despite publishing a first author paper within a month of her PhD submission, Isabel Wilkinson had to wait almost a year to begin a postdoctoral fellowship and believes that the strict publishing requirements and long application timeframes make the process unduly stressful for transitioning students. ‘The tricky thing is getting the eligibility requirements fulfilled before the closing of application rounds for the different fellowship programs,’ she explains. ‘Some only have one funding round per year so if you miss it you have to wait another year before you can apply.’

Rather than moving directly to a postdoc position as planned, Wilkinson accepted a three month-long policy internship and later, with support from her supervisor, secured a short period of doctoral funding to work on a separate project. After 10 months, she was finally able to take up an EMBO fellowship in Germany but still recalls the stress and anxiety caused by this protracted uncertainty about her longer-term future. ‘I don’t know anyone who has managed to time it all perfectly – finishing up, writing your thesis, getting papers out, and finding a job all at the same time,’ she says. ‘It’s a lot of work – evenings and weekends on top of some kind of salaried day job. Reflecting back on that time, I had the worst anxiety, especially over whether the papers would be accepted in time for fellowship application deadlines.’

Taking space

For those moving into careers where PhD publications are less essential, the transition to the next stage is still not straightforward. Economic pressures mean most students must begin a paid position as soon as their stipend expires. But lengthy application processes, in addition to the mandatory training and assessments required for some careers, take valuable time out of the final stretch of a PhD, once again creating conflict between the demands of the degree and the preparation needed to enter the workplace.

Robert Arnold was therefore delighted when his supervisor at the University of Nottingham, UK, was able to offer him eight weeks of funded work after he submitted his thesis. ‘Knowing I had this funding made the end of my PhD much easier. It meant that I could focus on my thesis and it gave me a bit of a buffer to find a new job after,’ he says. ‘Getting further results also put me in a better stead for my viva as I could foresee some questions and bring out another document to discuss those research avenues.’

Arnold secured a job in industry a few weeks after handing in and during the interim period was able to scale a route towards a crucial intermediate in his synthetic project. Although the work wasn’t published for another four years, this short funded stint relieved the pressure on the final months of Arnold’s PhD and provided a valuable opportunity to hand over the project for ultimate completion by another group member.

Restricted support

Unfortunately, Arnold’s experience is the exception. His supervisor had been able to set aside money generated from consultancy work, giving him the flexibility to choose how and where to spend it. Conversely, the majority of principal investigators depend entirely on external grant funding, which is governed by far more restrictive rules and generally prevents supervisors from financially supporting former students beyond their funding period.

Grant money is siloed and everything must be accounted for, explains Sudbery. ‘When I apply for a grant, we say to the funder, “I need this much manpower, and these consumables,” for this project and that’s the money you get. But there are certain restrictions around how the award money can be spent.’

It’s occasionally possible to transfer money between these rigid categories but even then, supervisors still face tough decisions about the fairest and most impactful way to spend it. ‘The most fair outcome would be for that money to go to extending the person who’s employed on that grant’s tenure,’ explains Sudbery. ‘But there are other factors. Is that funding going to help them get the paper out? What are that person’s career aims? Does that person have a job?’

Allowing anyone to work unpaid devalues labour within chemistry

This shortage of available money means many students, particularly those aiming to enter an academic career, are confronted with a dilemma: finish the project unfunded, or leave and risk the research going unpublished. Whether working for free should even be allowed creates another ethical dilemma for supervisors. ‘This is a big issue for diversity because it selects for people who are able to work without a salary for X months and clearly this disfavours those from disadvantaged backgrounds,’ explains Russell. ‘But at the same time, you can understand the motivation for individuals who can afford to work for free – from their perspective, this is the only way. It raises the important question: are there inherent barriers in the way that expectations are laid out?’

Both Russell and Sudbery are adamant that the decision to continue on a project post-submission has to be driven by the student and that lab work should always be paid. However, this is by no means a universal opinion within the research community.

Recent years have seen a significant shift in attitudes towards ‘voluntary’ lab work and there’s a growing recognition of the intrinsic inequalities perpetuated by unpaid opportunities, most notably summer placements. Many universities now have an official policy requiring supervisors and departments to secure funding before accepting undergraduate placement students. ‘If we can apply this mentality in that setting, then surely we should be applying it in the same way post-PhD,’ says Russell.

Recent graduates also feel strongly that this unethical practice highlights some of the darker aspects of academia. ‘Allowing anyone to work unpaid devalues labour within chemistry, which doesn’t help with arguing for better wages and job security within the industry,’ says Ríona Devereux, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Oxford.

‘There’s a power imbalance,’ adds Wilkinson, who left research in 2022. ‘It isn’t exactly a free choice to work on papers after submission because of a system that creates that expectation if you want success in academia.’ 

Funding the transition

The reality is that preparing for the next career step – whether that’s completing publications to qualify for postdoc positions, or building skills to secure a job in another sector – takes time, a resource in short supply in the final stages of a PhD. ‘Wellcome conducted a survey of graduate students in 2018 and this was one of the major points that came out,’ says Russell. ‘Students really concerned themselves with this double stress of trying to complete work for a thesis, and get decent authorship on a paper or develop other skills for a career outside of research.’

In response to this feedback, Wellcome introduced the transition fund, a special budget allocated to post-PhD work on all new programmes. The fund, which is available to everyone on eligible programmes, covers around nine months of work and is completely open-ended, allowing graduates to choose how to use the time and focus their research within the remit of medical sciences. ‘The student has to make a case, come to us with a proposal and justify why it’s important and how it will impact their career, and that’s been a valuable experience for the students as well,’ says Russell.

Financial cost means this type of funding is still incredibly limited

Devereux is part of the first cohort to take advantage of this funding and has found it a transformative opportunity to prepare for a future in academia. ‘I started my project from scratch and am really passionate about it. Obviously, going down the academic route, getting a first author paper from my DPhil is quite important, but beyond that, it’s further developing my skills,’ she says. ‘I’m in a postdoctoral role now so there are more responsibilities that come into that compared to my DPhil and it’s also allowed me to further network within the university and with collaborators, building those relationships.’

Supporting students by providing this type of bridging funding is a revolutionary idea and a crucial step towards equalising access to high-level scientific careers, says Russell. Wellcome stopped funding PhD programmes in 2024 so the transition fund will cease with the final cohort in 2028. However, other universities and programmes are beginning to offer a similar style of post-PhD support, including the University of Sheffield’s publication scholarships and Imperial College London’s Elevate fellowship.

In an ideal world, every student would have access to a paid bridging period but the financial cost means this type of funding is still incredibly limited. For Russell, the key question is therefore how we can use existing resources to help smooth post-PhD transitions. ‘We certainly don’t have clear guidelines,’ she says. ‘I think laying clear the issues is the first step towards trying to seek some sort of solution, both in terms of making it more equitable for those who have the motivation and the skill but perhaps lack the resources to succeed, but also addressing the expectations of those who are decision-making.’