Overseas Case: National Postdoctoral Association (USA)

There are many resources out there to help early career researchers plan their careers. However, sometimes young researchers may not be aware of or able to access that information. Sometimes, they do not receive adequate encouragement to pursue that information, especially if they are from an international background or a disadvantaged background.

Back in 2003, when the NPA was founded, there were many institutions that focused on the needs of graduate students and faculty, but no institutions focused specifically on postdoctoral researchers. The NPA stepped up to fill that gap to discuss issues, share information, and advocate on behalf of postdoctoral researchers.

The NPA recently revised its strategic plan to include four pillars. The first is for externally facing advocacy on behalf of postdocs, the second promotes postdoctoral diversity, equity, and inclusion, the third pillar focuses on members and providing them with the tools they need to succeed, and the final pillar is devoted to the NPA internal operational excellence.

The team at the NPA offers a number of activities in its three service areas throughout the year. It regularly conducts webinars on a variety of themes that are relevant to postdocs with the aim of furthering their professional and personal growth and development.

In 2022, the NPA launched its SmartSkills course. It is a free training program for their members, where every month a different expert will teach a virtual webinar to help members pick up skills like leadership and public speaking. These webinars will also aim to teach early career researchers how to handle their mental health and wellness. As of March 2022, SmartSkills has over 600 registrants, making it the largest program in the history of the NPA.

The NPA also has a program called the IMPACT Fellowship for people from underrepresented minority backgrounds. The IMPACT Fellowship Program allows the NPA to get some more facetime with individual postdocs and get to know the challenges they face. The NPA is always seeking sponsors of this novel program who want to help increase diversity and equity in the postdoctoral space, including universities, research institutions, philanthropic entities, and corporations.

As a part of its services, the NPA also publishes guides and toolkits on various themes that enable postdocs to make decisions about their future career and select the path that is best suited to their professional goals. Many of the guides developed by the NPA are created based on the needs of the researchers at that time. For example, they have helped many institutions create their own Postdoc Office and Postdoc Association. Sometimes the guides are developed based on grants, such as the recent guide on maternity and paternity leave that was written as part of an advanced grant with the National Science Foundation.

One of the most important guides developed by the NPA focuses on creating an individual development plan (IDP). Early career researchers need a concrete plan for their professional development. More often than not, this plan materializes in the form of an IDP. IDPs are essential tools for postdocs that allow them to develop a future plan in line with their career interests. An IDP allows an early career researcher to understand and assess their career journey, without having to rely only on their principal investigator (PI) or mentor. It provides young researchers with a plan of action on how to grow, not only in the lab or workspace, but in professional spaces outside these as well. In the coming year, Ms. Wilson of the NPA will be leading the process of refreshing the guides and relaunching the website.

The NPA Annual Conference is also a major focus of the NPA’s activities. It helps postdocs connect with each other. In 2021, the conference was held for the first time on a virtual platform, which helped the NPA double the number of attendees. In 2022, the NPA is hoping to offer a hybrid structure for their annual conference with an event in person in Chicago from April 1–2 and some events online through the NPA Virtual Conference from April 28–29, accessible worldwide. This is in line with their mission of equity, opening up the conference to attendees who might not have the resources to travel to the conference. This includes international attendees, as well as attendees in the USA. The NPA is also looking at other ways to combat postdoc isolation.

A key mission of the NPA is to address the needs of marginalized and disadvantaged researchers. There are many deficits in academia in terms of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The NPA has made some exciting strides to support women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and social, behavioral and economic sciences (SBE). The NPA also held their first Gender Equity Summit in 2021, where many different organizations participated to present materials to people of all genders—including researchers outside the gender binary. The Gender Equity Summit also allowed the NPA to converse with a group of researchers from diverse positions on the gender spectrum and better understand the barriers they face to accessing the resources they need for development.

Further to the goal of gender equity, the team received a grant for the Elsevier Advancing Postdoc Women Clearinghouse, which has made it easier for their members to access guides online. Publications by the NPA are now listed in the online Clearinghouse, which lists different resources from associations and professional societies.