Collection and analysis of existing data on researchers careers and Implementation of new data collection activities

This contribution to the RESCAR project analysed research team characteristics and career paths of young researchers in two major areas of European research: the social sciences, and engineering. Like its predecessor for the life sciences (www.netreacteu. org), the study is to inform Commission policy on the European Research Area, in particular, policy in regard to human resources in research. A sample frame of research teams was compiled based on a universe of research departments. A survey instrument was created and tested and results from the online survey analysed and reported. The survey is representative of university based research in engineering and the social sciences across 10 European countries: the Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, France, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and the UK. A characterisation of doctoral students and of post-doc researchers in the disciplines is presented, as are findings on the career paths of doctoral students and post docs after leaving European university-based research teams. Information on the origins of post-docs and doctoral students in European research teams were a major focus as was the description of patterns in the career destinations of both groups leaving research teams. It was found that a high proportion of young researchers leave research teams directly into permanent employment, but that some of the remainder take significant periods of time before they achieve this level of employment security. This picture is generally consistent across the countries studied, however, there are particular groups which clearly face poorer employment market conditions than the average.