Careers of Doctorate Holders
(CDH) Project
SEMINAR – WORKSHOP ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION INDICATORS
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
18-20 Nov 2008
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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
• Now being piloted
• 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 and Process
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
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.
 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 and Task forces
Objectives:
 To design an internationally comparable tool for tracking the
careers of doctorates holders and highly qualified people in
different countries.
 To pilot tests of 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.
Task forces:
 Production of output tabulations, and development of common
definitions (led by OECD and Canada)
 Drafting of methodological guidelines (led by Eurostat and
Portugal).
 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 seven
broad groups: personal characteristics,
educational history, work history, scientific output,
perception of current work situation, international
mobility retrospective and future plans.
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Definitions
• Doctorate;
• Citizenship and residential status;
• Recent doctorate recipients;
• Employed persons;
• Unemployed and inactive persons;
• Researcher;
• Temporary/permanent employment, full-time and
part-time employment, etc.
• Postdoc
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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
(doctorates) 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
• 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
• 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
• Doctoral Education (EDU)
• Recent graduates (REC)
• POSTDOCS (POS)
• Employment situation (EMP)
• Career-related experience and scientific
productivity (CAR)
• International mobility (MOB)
• Personal characteristics (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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Recent graduates
• Data on the holders of doctorate who
received their degree in the last 2 years.
• Provides a complete educational history,
including names and locations of secondary
and each postsecondary institution, dates of
attendance, field of study, and date of
degrees.
• Enquires about the time elapsed before
obtaining first CAREER PATH JOB .
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POSTDOCS
• Would your principal job be considered a
POSTDOC position in your country of
residence? (PROBLEM WITH DEFINITION)
• Title, Field of S&T, total length of
POSTDOC
• Reasons for taking this POSTDOC
• Activities involved in POSTDOC (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.
• Section for unemployed and inactive.
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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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Career-related experience and
scientific productivity
• Data on scientific output and experience, as
well as teaching.
• Section for researchers, including reasons
for taking up research careers.
• Enquires about international cooperation
activities.
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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!
• Presentation of results:
International Conference on CDH,
Brussels, 1 December 2008
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Thank you!
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UNESCO Institute for Statistics
C.P. 6128 Succursale Centre-ville,
Montreal, Quebec, H3C 3J7,
Canada.
TP: (1 514) 343-6880
Fax: (1 514) 343-6872
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