SIGMOD 2013
NEW RESEARCHER
SYMPOSIUM
Martin Theobald
University of Antwerp, Belgium
D ISCLAIMER
The views and opinions in this presentation
are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the actual policies of any
of the entities mentioned therein

O UTLINE
 Some Class Photos
 Research in Europe vs. U.S.
 Do’s & Dont’s
MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE
ANNO 2003
MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE
ANNO 2005
S TA N F O R D I N F O L A B
ANNO 2007
MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE
ANNO 2009
UNIVERSITY OF ANTWERP
ANNO 2013
R ESEARCH IN E UROPE
 Research mostly in public universities/institutes
and only in a few big companies. (IBM, SAP, Yahoo!,…)
 European funding (EU STREP/FET, ERC)
• Very generous and prestigious, but hard to get.
 Few companies (Google) competitive to EU funding.
 Gap between south/north & west/center/east.
• Center/north doing much better than south.
R ESEARCH IN THE U.S.
 Most research takes place in private/state
universities and in company labs.
(IBM, MSR, Oracle, Google, Yahoo!, …)
 Much stronger startup culture than in Europe.
 Funding from both public agencies (NSF, NASA,
DARPA) and industry, business angels, etc.
R ESEARCH IN G ERMANY
 Germany provides excellent funding options
for temporary research positions.
• “Excellence Initiatives” at various universities.
• Research institutes & societies: Max Planck,
Fraunhofer, Helmholtz, Leibniz, …
• 1.5B EUR annual budget of the Max Planck Society
(~170 institutes) vs. 4.4B USD at Stanford University.
• 6-year rule for public employers applies as well.
R ESEARCH IN G ERMANY
 Permanent academic positions
( professorships) are very rare.
• 1-2 university openings per year in Databases &
Information-Systems or Applied Informatics.
(10-20 competitors with at least equally strong C.V.’s)
• Very few new professorships are being created.
• Academic job market might improve in 10 years.
S OME S TATS
Source: Wikipedia, Population Reference Bureau 2009
 Germany has one of the lowest birth rates in the world.
 By 2030, more than 50% of the German population will be above 50.
 Only 28% of young people study (compared to 39% in OECD).
T ENURE IN G ERMANY
 Germany is one of the few European
countries that (still) has no tenure-track system.
• People do post-docs and habilitations (PD), which
means a temporary position (and title for teaching).
• Few Junior professorships (W1), which are usually not
tenured and have no option to “upgrade”.
• You will have to move more often after your Ph.D.
than before. 6 years to obtain tenure is usually tight.
R ESEARCH IN B ELGIUM
Source: Wikipedia
 Europe is much more
heterogeneous than
the U.S.
 33 countries, 270
administrative regions,
23 languages.
 I’m currently learning
Dutch 
R ESEARCH IN B ELGIUM
 6 Flemish universities for higher education
(at ~6.5 Million inhabitants)
•
•
•
•
•
Antwerp
Brussels (2x)
Gent
Hasselt
Leuven
 Funding primarily at university-level and by the
Flemish research foundation (FWO).
T ENURE IN B ELGIUM
 4 levels of university professorships,
all of which are principally tenured.
•
•
•
•
Docent
Hoofddocent
Hoogleraar
Gewoon Hoogleraar
 New 6-year tenure-track system.
 Hiring based on your level of experience.
 You can upgrade (i.e., apply for promotion) at your
home university.
D O ’ S : P H .D. S TUDENTS
 Focus on your (given) research topic but also
grasp beyond your own nose.
 Convince your supervisor to let you work on
real-world problems, which may also be of
interest for your potential future employers.
• Big Data, MapReduce, Web stuff, …
D O ’ S : P OST-D OCS
 If you are aiming for an academic position:
• Focus on research, but also try to get involved in teaching
and supervision (Ba/Ma, Ph.D.) as early as possible.
• Establish your own research topic and try to gradually
“decouple” from your advisor.
 If you are aiming for industry:
• Hey, why are you doing a post-doc? You could probably
earn much more money somewhere else.
D O ’ S : T ENURE -T RACK P EOPLE
 Minimize the amount of teaching you need to do
yourself.
 Find a trade-off between depth and usability of your
research. (No point in doing research on a topic that is already
handled by Google at 100,000 times the scale.)
 Watch out for funding options and write proposals
(Europe), or try to convince industry partners (U.S.)
whenever possible.
L AST B UT N OT L EAST
 The earlier you know what you want, the better.
 Don’t focus on a too broad or too narrow
research topic, but establish your own profile.
 Interact with other researchers/industry as much
as possible.
 Stay flexible and always have a backup in mind.