TY - JOUR

T1 - Keeping up with the Max Plancks?

T2 - Germany’s quest for university excellence and the role of public research institutes in doctoral education

AU - Buenstorf, Guido

AU - Koenig, Johannes

AU - Otto, Anne

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2024.

PY - 2024/11/25

Y1 - 2024/11/25

N2 - Doctoral education is a crucial stage in the academic socialization of early-career researchers. Prior research has shown that career paths and activities of Ph.D.s are shaped by the universities and departments in which they were trained. To widen this focus, we analyze the role of public research organizations (PROs) and private-sector firms as organizational employment contexts of doctoral education. The empirical context of our study is Germany, where PROs and firms employ large numbers of doctoral candidates and provide the organizational environment for their dissertation research. Utilizing a novel process-generated dataset that covers about 40,000 STEM Ph.D.s who graduated from 1995 to 2011, we find that Ph.D.s employed at PROs during doctoral education are more likely to stay in academia than their university-employed peers. Despite extensive policy efforts that sought to strengthen the research performance of German universities, doctoral candidates employed at basic research-oriented PROs had the strongest cross-cohort increase in their post-graduation academic employment share. This group also experienced the most pronounced fall in the share of high post-graduation income owners. Industry-employed doctoral candidates are unlikely to migrate to the academic sector and have the highest likelihood of obtaining high post-graduation incomes.

AB - Doctoral education is a crucial stage in the academic socialization of early-career researchers. Prior research has shown that career paths and activities of Ph.D.s are shaped by the universities and departments in which they were trained. To widen this focus, we analyze the role of public research organizations (PROs) and private-sector firms as organizational employment contexts of doctoral education. The empirical context of our study is Germany, where PROs and firms employ large numbers of doctoral candidates and provide the organizational environment for their dissertation research. Utilizing a novel process-generated dataset that covers about 40,000 STEM Ph.D.s who graduated from 1995 to 2011, we find that Ph.D.s employed at PROs during doctoral education are more likely to stay in academia than their university-employed peers. Despite extensive policy efforts that sought to strengthen the research performance of German universities, doctoral candidates employed at basic research-oriented PROs had the strongest cross-cohort increase in their post-graduation academic employment share. This group also experienced the most pronounced fall in the share of high post-graduation income owners. Industry-employed doctoral candidates are unlikely to migrate to the academic sector and have the highest likelihood of obtaining high post-graduation incomes.

KW - Career outcomes

KW - Doctoral education

KW - I23

KW - I26

KW - Industry-trained Ph.D.s

KW - J48

KW - Public Research Organizations

KW - STEM Ph.D. Graduates

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85210150074&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s11192-024-05195-w

DO - 10.1007/s11192-024-05195-w

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85210150074

JO - SCIENTOMETRICS

JF - SCIENTOMETRICS

SN - 0138-9130

ER -