Careers of Doctorate Holders (CDH)
TRAINING WORKSHOP ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION INDICATORS
Cairo, Egypt
28-30 September 2009
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UIS approach to Human Resources
statistics: CDH project
• Methodology developed “from the scratch”
together with OECD & Eurostat.
• Aimed both at developed and developing countries
• With participation from experts from both
developed and developing countries
• Promoting the methodology by encouraging
developing countries to conduct such surveys and
produce cross-nationally comparable statistics on
careers of doctorate holders
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Relevance of the CDH project
• World economy is increasingly based on knowledge and
information.
• Knowledge is now recognised as the driver of productivity
and economic growth.
• As a result, there is a new focus on the crucial role of
highly qualified individuals who represent a key to the
production, application and transmission of knowledge.
• Statistics on the global trends in human resources for
Science and Technology (HRST) are very week.
• The quality and comparability of international data on
migration is particularly weak.
• Diversity of data collection methods hinders international
comparability, and does not provide information on career
paths and mobility patterns.
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Background
‘Brain drain’ or loss of skilled personnel identified
as priority by UIS and UNESCO Paris
OECD and EU are interested in
skills loss from developing countries
Moves from university to industry
US NSF also interested in changing US patterns
of academic recruitment
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Process
To meet the users demands UIS, OECD &
Eurostat launched a project on “Statistics on the
Careers of Doctorate Holders”.
Each organization took responsibility for issues
appropriate to their mandate. Expertise and
resources are shared across the three partners.
Initial expert group: Argentina, Belgium, Canada,
China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy,
Japan, Malaysia, Portugal, Russian Federation,
Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine, Uganda, the United
States.
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Objectives
To design an internationally comparable tool
for tracking the careers of doctorates holders
and highly qualified people in different
countries.
To pilot test this instrument in volunteer
countries.
To collect and exchange information on the
career paths of holders of doctorates from
existing data sources and the new survey
tool.
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Task forces
Production of output tabulations, and
development of common definitions (led by
OECD)
Drafting of methodological guidelines (led by
Eurostat).
Development of a model survey with a
supporting methodology (led by UIS).
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Output tabulation program
•
Conceived to be used by countries when
delivering the requested data to the international
organizations;
•
Consists of several tables organized in four
broad groups:
1. personal characteristics
2. education characteristics
3. employment situation and perceptions
4. international mobility: inward and outward
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Definitions (1)
• Research qualification
• Recent doctorate recipient
• Age
• Citizenship status
• Residential status
• Country of citizenship / birth / residence /
doctorate award / prior education / …
• Time to completion of doctorate
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Definitions (2)
• Employed/Unemployed/Inactive/Employee/Selfemployed workers
• Temporary/permanent employment
• Full-time/part-time employment
• Gross annual earnings
• Field of research qualification
• Sector of employment
• Occupations
• Internationally mobile research qualification holder
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Methodological guidelines
• Define and structure the target population
• Describe the sources for building sampling
frames
• Present some aspects of data collection,
data processing and results estimation.
• Should be seen as an orientation for
countries that plan to launch a CDH survey
as well as a tool to improve and align their
existing national surveys to an international
standard.
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Target population
Consists of individuals fulfilling the
following criteria:
• having an education at ISCED 6 level
(research qualification) obtained
anywhere in the world, and
• being resident (permanent or nonpermanent) within the national borders
of the surveying country.
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Target population structure (1)
• Target population, residents in country X (the surveying
country) that are:
A. Citizens of country X with doctorate awarded within
country X
B. Citizens of foreign countries with doctorate awarded in
country X
C. Citizens of country X with doctorate awarded abroad
D. Citizens of foreign countries with doctorate awarded
abroad
• Non-target population, residents outside country X that
are:
E. Citizens of country X, with doctorate awarded within country X that
have left country X
F. Citizens of foreign countries, with doctorate awarded in country X
that have left country X
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Target population structure (2)
• What to do with doctorates abroad
- Groups E and F are usually taken into consideration in the
reporting countries where these doctorate holders are
resident.
- If countries are able to construct a sample frame, and
reach group E, the survey could also be extended to this
group, even if countries are not requested to report
information to the international organizations on them.
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Sources for constructing sampling
frames
• National education registers
• Universities
• International and national foundations
• National libraries
• Population censuses
• Research institutes
• Professional organizations
• Central registers of foreigners
• Alumni organizations
• Previously conducted surveys on doctorate holders
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Survey types
• Cohorts of recent graduates:
• administered on graduation and repeated every few years
• simple and straightforward, but
• limited coverage of the target population
• Snapshot surveys (cross-sectional retrospective
sample of all doctorates):
• one time, administered on an occasional basis
• more appropriate tool for collection of information related to the
entire target population
• covers all cohorts at the same time
• quickly provides information on the mobility and career
development of doctorate holders
• Should not be seen as mutually excluding but rather
complementary
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Instruments (developed by UIS)
• Core model questionnaire containing “core questions”
which would provide data to fill in the output tabulations.
The questionnaire will be accompanied with a manual
comprising the definitions and other guidelines.
• CDH questions data base comprises the set of
questions among which the suitable questions can be
chosen and applied by countries when designing CDH
surveys. CDH data base will be web-based and openly
accessible.
• The core model questionnaire is mainly foreseen for
countries which do not have CDH type surveys yet.
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Construction of Core model
Questionnaire
The following existing CDH questionnaires were used:
• USA (SED and SDR),
• Canada (SED),
• Switzerland (Survey of Tertiary Graduates plus Doctorates
surveyed the year after they received their degree),
• Portugal (Survey of former PhD Scholarships receivers
concerning their professional situation),
• India (Pilot study on the Career Profile and Professional
Achievements of Doctorates in science from the Selected
Central Universities/Institutions),
• Ukraine (Structure of database of Doctorate Holders in
Ukraine)
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Modules
• Education of those with research qualifications
(module EDU)
• Early career research positions (module ECR)
• Employment history (module EMP)
• International mobility (module MOB)
• Career related experience (module CAR)
• Personal characteristics (module PER)
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Doctoral Education
Information on educational history of
doctorates holders, such as:
• institution
• field of science
• duration
• sources of financial support
• country of previous degrees
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Early career positions
• Often referred to as postdocs (definitional
problems)
• Title, Field of S&T, total length
• Reasons for taking this position
• Activities involved (Research, teaching,
other)
• Main source of financial support
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Employment situation
• Detailed information on employment status,
working hours, principal employer, sector and type
of employment (postdoc, temporary or permanent
employment, part-time or full-time job ), annual
earnings, job-satisfaction.
• Relationship of job & doctorate degree.
• Retrospective career history within ten past years
(including occupation, dates, years of experience,
and reasons for leaving position).
• “multi-job” pattern is foreseen.
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International mobility
• Information on mobility patterns, including inflows
(group D) and outflows (group C).
• Enables to distinguish temporary mobility from
permanent mobility as well as to identify the
reasons for departure and return.
• Provides data on intentions to move out of the
country within the next year including the
destination planned.
• Enquires about linkages with country of origin.
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Personal characteristics
• Marital status
• Number of dependents
• Place of birth, date of birth, citizenship
status (in order to better deal with dual
nationality as well) and residential status.
• Contact information
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Way forward
• CDH surveys are being carried out in the EU, AU,
US.
• The CDH kit has been published as a joint
publication with OECD & Eurostat.
• An international database is being constructed.
• Involve more developing countries!
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Thank you!
http://www.uis.unesco.org
m.schaaper@uis.unesco.org
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