C. FÜTTERER
More than 200 past and present Marie Curie fellows discuss progress in Paris.
Salary, mobility, benefits: postdocs in Europe and the United States share many of the same concerns. And postdoc organizations on both continents are addressing them in an increasingly organized manner. Their recent meetings have attracted high turnouts, although only time will tell whether their plans will lead to progress.
In Europe, the Marie Curie Fellowship programme — originally set up to encourage mobility — is being reshaped in consultation with past and present fellows. A meeting in Paris this March gave current fellows a chance to hear how the European Commission (EC) was responding to feedback on their mobility experiences. And a Brussels meeting attended by an EC official and the Marie Curie Fellowship Association (MCFA) allowed past fellows to discuss what further changes they would like to see.
In California this March, the US National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) held its inaugural meeting, aiming to influence programmes in the United States. But it struggled with the changing conception of a postdoc — from the old notion of someone in the midst of a training grant, to the more amorphous but accurate picture of anyone who is seeking a permanent career after completing a PhD.
EUROPEAN REUNION
The plight of Marco Vecoli, an Italian postdoctoral researcher in palaeontology at the University of Brest in France illustrates both the promise and problems with the old Marie Curie Fellowships, which only funded researchers to work outside their own country. Vecoli is happy to have had consecutive Marie Curie Fellowships in Germany and in France, but would like to return to a job in Italy after four years away.
Marco Vecoli: happy to have spent four years abroad, but now hoping to return to his native Italy.
Vecoli was one of 200 past and present Marie Curie fellows from 22 countries who attended a feedback meeting at the Curie Institute in Paris on 12–14 March. The session was organized with the aim of making the grants more attractive — especially to young researchers concerned about finding work in their home country after taking a fellowship abroad.
Georges Bingen, head of the Marie Curie Fellowships unit at the EC, acknowledges that repatriation has been a problem in the past. "We have to encourage young researchers to leave their home country knowing that they will be able to return," he says. But he believes that the new-look Marie Curie programme for human resources and mobility, part of the EC's Sixth Framework Programme for research which runs until 2006, addresses this issue — basically, by spending more money on fewer grants.
With a 
1.58-billion (US$1.7-billion) budget for mobility-related activities — an increase of more than 50% over the previous programme, which awarded 12,000 fellowships — the EC hopes that it will be able to incite some 8,500 researchers to pack their cases, but for longer periods away, and with more guarantees of a happy return. All postdoctoral fellows can apply for reintegration grants of up to 40,000, aimed at supporting research in the institution that appoints them on their return from a stint abroad.
Marie Curie fellows have also had problems in going to the country of their fellowship. Difficulties securing housing and health cover can be a nightmare in administration-heavy countries such as France, particularly for researchers coming from outside the European Union. The EC has taken heed of these concerns in the new programme by setting up a web-based mobility portal and national mobility centres — one-stop shops aimed at giving country-specific advice to researchers before they leave home.
Magda Lola, a member of the MCFA's board, says that fellows are generally positive about the changes made to the programme. "With no age limit and with fellowships open to countries outside of Europe, it is a much more flexible scheme," she says.
But some researchers fear that broadening the programme's range may slow down the application process for fellowships, already considered by some to be too long. "Science moves fast. We can't always wait to have the results of the fellowship before moving," says German postdoc Claus Fütterer, who has a Marie Curie Fellowship in biophysics at the Curie Institute.
Others question the requirement to secure a post before they can benefit from a reintegration grant. But Bingen insists that responsibility for mobility must be shared. "It's not the commission's job to pay for life-long salaries for researchers," he says. "The responsibility to provide jobs must be at the national level. But we can help to make them attractive."
The EC has put up money for mobility. But with only 5% of the finance for postdoctoral research in Europe coming from commission funds, the challenge is now for governments to make a more obvious commitment to the cause.
UNITED STAKES
Xenia Morin favours a broad definition of postdoc that could include anyone in transition from graduate studies to a permanent position.
In the United States, the biggest problem isn't funding of national research, it's the lack of consistency on benefits such as stipends and insurance. Benefits tend to vary from institution to institution — sometimes even when they are funded by the same agency.
It was to address these and other issues that the NPA held its inaugural meeting in Berkeley in March. "We must develop compelling strategies for implementing fair and equitable policies that are good for everyone," says Orfeu Buxton, a postdoctoral fellow in neuroendocrinology at the University of Chicago and a founding member of the NPA.
At the meeting, the association began work on a white paper of recommended postdoc practices. The association is soliciting input from members through its website, as well as from local postdoctoral associations. The group will eventually present its findings to the National Institutes of Health — one of the biggest funders of postdocs in the United States, and an organization that others look to for precedents.
Another important issue is the changing definition of a postdoc. The old criterion of a fixed-term training period no longer applies, says Xenia Morin, a Keck postdoctoral fellow and lecturer in biology and chemistry at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, who gave a talk on the subject at the NPA meeting. Morin, a teaching postdoc (see Naturejobs 5; 28 February 2002), says she is treated like a colleague. She favours a broad definition, encompassing anyone in transition from graduate studies to a permanent position.
No matter what route postdocs are taking, she finds that the line between training and employment is becoming increasingly blurred. Organizations such as the MCFA have shown that European postdocs can make the transition easier if they mobilize and persist. The NPA will soon learn whether US postdocs can effect similar changes when they band together.
Web links
US National Postdoctoral Association
http://www.nationalpostdoc.org
Marie Curie Fellowship Association
Marie Curie Actions
http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/fp6/mariecurie-actions/home_en.html