Policy Data Collection for Advocacy for PhDs
Simulation co-authors – Adriana Bankston, PhD and Gary McDowell, PhD
Simulation vetted by professionals from the Future of Research
Simulation Objective:
Gathering Information About Career and Training Opportunities
Associated Simulation Library:
Background
Professionals in advocacy groups work to change existing systems and infrastructure for the benefit of one or more group of stakeholders. Data collection is essential for effective, evidence-based advocacy. These data can be anything important to advocacy group. Such data is used to sway stakeholder opinion, to identify policies that require revision, and to develop recommendations for systemic change.
The Process
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A set of policies or aspects that you wish to investigate
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Determine the criteria by which you will research and gather data
Go to the funding organization’s website and search for information
Create a table of information
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If necessary, reach out to individuals at an organization for additional information to fill in missing information.
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Collect and display this information as a resource
Create an advocacy fact sheet. This may serve as another place to work on your specific topic of interest
Use social media, and mention the resource in general communications and blog posts, to spread awareness of the tool and to solicit feedback, in particular information that is missing or useful ways of presenting/searching the data.
Resources
Fellowship lists for postdocs:
National Postdoc Association (NPA) website
A few university sites that list postdoctoral funding opportunities
UC and national postdoc programs that are inclusive of historically marginalized groups
NIH funding sites
NSF funding sites, see Special Programs for postdoc or grad student specific opportunities
Private foundation sites
Fellowship lists for graduate students
International Fellowships
International sites like FindAPhD
The Exercise
Collect data on graduate and postdoctoral training fellowships to assist in populating a database. Create a fact sheet on fellowships and the institutional policy for disbursing the fellowship.
This job simulation is unique, because you will be contributing to a real advocacy project. For this exercise, you are an intern at an advocacy group and want to gather data on a specific topic of interest for junior scientists. You will perform Step 3 of the process above.
NOTE: The non-profit organization Future of Research (FoR) is an advocacy organization that seeks to improve graduate student and postdoctoral biomedical training, creating a more sustainable scientific workforce. To achieve these goals, they are working to collect robust career outcome data, improve transparency around employment contracts, and provide resources for individuals to advocate for change at their own institutions.
By completing this simulation you will contribute directly to the efforts of FoR and adding to their database. As this is a nationwide effort, we don’t want to duplicate efforts. Before starting on the task please contact Adriana Bankston (abankston81@gmail.com) to agree on the fellowship that you will research.
Task 1 - Identify Fellowship Opportunities for Junior Scientists
Current institutional practices around setting of pay scales, handling of fellowship support, and setting of benefits, vary drastically. For example, some fellowships require the award holder to give up health or other benefits. For this task, you will investigate a specific fellowship opportunity, determining stipend level, benefits and eligibility requirements. You will then look at how such a fellowship is handled at your university, and at one or more additional institutions. The goal is to collect sufficient data to enable comparison of trainee support across your institution, and thereby advocacy for equitable policies, e.g. ensuring that benefits are accessible to all junior scientists regardless of fellowship status. The data you provide will also be part of a crowd-sourced effort to examine policies and practices nationwide.Choose one fellowship and two institutions of interest to you. Research the specific fellowship in terms of various criteria that include, but are not limited to:
Pre-award
Eligibility requirements
Application requirements
Benefits of the fellowship
Contact and website information
Post-award
Institutional contact for fellowship
Disbursement handling (lump sum, taxable, in payments, how does it affect benefits)
Is a supplemental provided by the university if the salary does not meet NIH or institutional standards for pay?
Fellowship categories
Fellowships for US citizens or for international students/postdocs?
Fellowships in a specific field
Fellowships from a specific funding agency
You may choose to look at how such a fellowship would be handled at your university. Institutional policies around fellowships vary, and one goal may be to advocate at your university for equitable policies, e.g. ensuring that benefits are accessible to all junior scientists regardless of fellowship status.
Example: The non-profit organization Future of Research (FoR) recently collected information on how institutions comply to a federal labor law affecting postdoc salaries. The outcome was an online resource cataloging whether institutions would raise postdoctoral salaries, or require postdocs to record their time and claim overtime. When an injunction was granted blocking the update, FoR then tracked whether institutions kept their promise to raise postdoc salaries. This resource centralizes information in an accessible place for interested individuals (i.e., postdocs, administrators, staff) to advocate for change at their institutions, and also provides a place for them to compare policies at their institutions with those of other institutions.
Task 2 - Social Media Communication
Craft a tweet or write a short blog post to share with your community describing what you’ve learned about the fellowship. Tweet using the hashtags #FoRData, #postdocs, #gradschool, and #ECRchat. Your blog post can be sent to FoR at info@futureofresearch.org.
Deliverables
Task 1 - Create an Advocacy Fact Sheet
A fact sheet is a one page document with the above information that is used to advocate for change in policy at the institutional level, or that is distributed to stakeholders (eg. graduate students and postdocs) to help them make decisions about their own career or training. It should be concise and easily digestible to the reader, but thorough. Be sure to revisit the data you’ve collected: consider whether there is information missing, whether there is discrepancies in the data presented, and revise your fact sheet if necessary.
Share your fact sheet with FoR. FoR will compile completed fact sheets and create a resource on fellowships using the data that has been collected. For an example of a database that FoR created to advocate and report on salary standards, see the Fair Labor Standards Act resource on FoR’s webpage.
Additional Tasks
Future of Research (FoR) is a non-profit organization aiming to give young scientists a voice in science policy. FoR advocates for transparency in the academic system and promotes effective, sustainable training and research practices. Data collection is imperative for FoR to create evidence-based policy changes at an institution. The goal is to bring benefit to young scientists, the whole scientific research enterprise, and the public. If you are interested in being more involved in our projects, please contact us at info@futureofresearch.org.
Skills Used to Perform this Task
Clear, concise writing
Research and synthesis
Ability to condense larger amounts of information
Skills Used in the Field
Research
Communication skill
Writing
Problem solving
Leadership and teamwork
To view detailed lists of skills in job descriptions for policy careers, please see workforce data generated by Boston University’s BEST program.