RESCAR Report on researchers careers

This contribution to the RESCAR project analyses experienced EU life scientists. Experience was determined by a set of parameters developed for the citation and patent information sources and according to criteria such as number of citations and number of patents according to national representativeness. A sample frame of life scientists in ten countries (Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK) was compiled based on experienced life scientists listed in citation and patent databases. A survey instrument was created and piloted and carried out online. The results of the survey were analysed and reported on. For each of the main areas of interest (personal and education profile of the life scientists, career characteristics and job satisfaction), research partners prepared individual country reports. Key findings were extracted and compared and contrasted. Information on the personal and education profile was a key starting point to inform on the profile of the sample and to provide for development of indicators (e.g. different choices among men and women; national similarity and contrast). A major focus is on the mobility of European experienced life scientists and sector and international mobility is analysed. A second major area of interest is on job satisfaction of experienced life scientists. The final report has been prepared to include a thorough documentation of the methodology, discussion of key findings and implications and a presentation of ten individual country reports. An electronic database of the entire data set (anonymised) has been assembled and generated in user-friendly .csv format amenable to a variety of packages (e.g. MS Excel, SPSS, Dbase). This Report presents only the common general prts (written by Wendy Hansen) and the results of the research activity carried out by CNR-Irpps (Sveva Avveduto and M. Carolina Brandi) on the three contries selected: Italy, Spain and Portugal.