Where postdoctoral journeys lead?
https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.03938

The prestige of a PhD-granting institution is well known for influencing faculty hiring and career progression in American academia. But what about the postdoc stage—what impact does it have on shaping academic careers globally?

Based on the data*, high-impact publications and mobility with a little twist over the research topic during the postdoc are key to enhancing your academic career. Surprisingly, the prestige of the institution you move to is less influential than expected. So, regardless of your success in PhD, your odds improve by making moderate shifts in research focus and location with significant shifts in publication quality.

*: The authors used a comprehensive dataset by combining publication records from the Microsoft Academic Graph (MAG) with career data from a major online professional network. Spanning 25 years and encompassing 45,572 careers from various disciplines, the dataset specifically examines the influence of postdoctoral experiences on early academic success—considering factors like relocation, topic change, and early high-impact publications.