Establishing career platforms for postdocs through individual development plans.

Disease Models & Mechanisms The end result is an abundance of recently trained young scientists – the vast majority of whom will not land a traditional faculty position, despite that being the main focus of their training. With over 80% of these scientists moving into nontenured positions, whether they be in industry or fields peripheral to research, there is a pressing need for them to develop the kinds of translational skills that simply cannot be provided by spending all of their time at the laboratory bench. With this in mind, many of the sessions at the recent, annual NPA meeting focused on ways to help young scientists develop these skills. One method that is quickly gaining needed acceptance is the adoption of individual development plans, or IDPs (http://opa.faseb.org/pdf/idp.pdf); postdocs taking part in the IDP process complete an annual assessment with their mentor in order to guide them during their training. Typically these assessments require postdocs to take a critical look at their own performance, and identify what they see as their mediumand long-term career goals. In consultation with their mentor, they then create a development plan including things such as specific skills to be developed and a timeline with milestones so that progress can be evaluated along the way. This plan outlines the postdoc’s goals and helps him or her to develop the foundation that will support their future career. Data gathered over the past few years, such as the Sigma Xi ‘Doctors without orders’ report (http://postdoc.sigmaxi.org/ results/), have shown that postdocs who have IDPs publish more material, and consider their careers to be more satisfying, than those without IDPs. The Sigma Xi survey suggested that implementing an IDP had the same effect on a postdoc’s personal well-being as a $20,000 pay raise! Considering this, it is not hard to imagine that the implementation of IDPs will quickly become much more widespread. The NSF’s new funding guidelines require grant holders to take the concept of mentoring more seriously than they have in the past. Postdocs and faculty members reading this article should not necessarily wait for funding bodies or institutions to mandate an IDP policy; postdocs who publish more papers and enjoy better job satisfaction inherently benefit the careers of their mentors as well as their own, so instigating a development plan creates a win-win situation. As part of its efforts to improve the postdoctoral experience, the NPA is developing a core competencies document (http://www.nationalpostdoc.org/ site/c.eoJMIWOBIrH/b.1390015/ apps/s/content.asp?ct=5237389) outlining a range of skills that should be expected of researchers – in a similar manner to those used in medical training. The organization hopes this will bring much needed clarification of expectations and standardization of goals to training scientists and their mentors. A sample outline of an IDP can be observed on the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology’s (FASEB’s) website, at http://opa.faseb.org/pdf/SampleAnnualReview.pdf.