Claude Kordon suspects that there are two important trends in European science employment — career paths are changing, and European scientists aren't fully prepared for these changes. Kordon — editor of the journal Neuroendocrinology, a researcher at the Necker Institute in Paris, and a former president of Euroscience, a young pan-European scientific society — reached his conclusions as a result of both anecdote and experience. And he has spent the past few years of his own career studying these European trends.

Kordon anticipates that there will be an increase in interdisciplinary interactions and a rise in short-term contracts across Europe. He says that more opportunities may arise in industry than academia, but adds that many European scientists are not aware of those opportunities — especially 'alternative' careers in areas such as law, finance and marketing — and are not prepared for them.

To complicate matters further, Kordon feels that the information currently available on the Internet about European career opportunities tends to be of limited use. “There are a certain number of databases, but usually they are local and fragmented,” he says.

As a first step to providing more global and complete information, Kordon is helping Euroscience to organize a November conference on new science- and technology-based professions in Europe. The conference will act as a sort of a survey by bringing together scientists, science managers, sociologists, teachers, employers, trade unionists and representatives of young-scientists' associations. Gathering data will be the easy part. Creating new career paths and making young scientists more aware of them will be much more difficult. “We still have a long way to go,” Kordon says.