Question about tenure track faculty positions and publications/grants?

[futureapppsy2]

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This is purely hypothetical (especially as I am in no way, shape, or form assuming I'll get a tenure track job,), but I'd still be curious to hear your thoughts...

It's my understanding that any publications and any non-continuing grant funding you have prior to the start of your appointment essentially "disappear" in terms of counting towards tenure/progress/promotion review. Is this correct? If so, does this pretty much make it pointless to submit short-term/grad student grant applications and manuscripts after getting an offer, or is it best to just keep publishing, submitting, and applying for grants as normal?

Similarly, I've also heard that you should hold off on submitting things the year that you go on the market (with the assumption that they'll potentially get accepted in between application review and, assuming hire, your tenure clock starting and thus will count towards neither your application nor tenure), while others say that that's foolhardy, presumptuous, and a good way to seriously annoy your collaborators. On a gut level, I lean towards the latter, but I don't really have any authority or experience to have an opinion, honestly.

 

[MCParent]

It never even occurred to me to sit on pubs while I was waiting for my job. Huh.

I don't think it would be too practically useful. You'd get a boost in your first semester/year, but then you'd go back to your actual productivity level quickly and level off. Plus as you said you'd tick off your collaborators.

I was so busy my first semester, I would not have wanted to deal with a backload of R&Rs while I was setting up my lab and everything.

 

[HomeworkHelper]

I had heard it might be helpful to make sure that it counts for tenure (so maybe waiting might be in order). However, I can't remember who told me that, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[Ollie123]

This varies by institution. Some do count previous publications/grants. I'm halfway to tenure at one institution I've been eyeing for a long-term move (strictly in terms of pubs) . No guarantee about ending up anywhere in particular though, so who knows. From what I have seen, if they care about grants at all the ones you can realistically pull in as a grad student won't mean a thing come tenure time. Maybe a SLAC would find it impressive, but at R1-type places a 100k F31 isn't going to look like much if they expect everyone to have an R01 (or several R01s) at any given time.

I'm honestly not sure how much benefit there would be to sitting on pubs regardless. Tenure is a thorough enough process at most places, I think they will generally see right through it. Someone with a super-productive first year whose productivity trails off right after isn't exactly going to look much better. I think the better way to go is to strategize that first year, make ample use of the startup to run a few quick & dirty projects that don't require much setup (or alternatively - rich datasets) and have some secondary analyses planned or public use datasets ready to go (review papers may be good too, though can be a surprisingly large time-suck if aiming high). Basically, just find a way to make sure the first couple years aren't spent waiting around for the data to come in. At least that is my plan.

 

[Member1928]

I agree with Ollie about getting some quick data that first year. Its pretty easy to plan an online survey study that you could conduct your first year. As a postdoc you can put everything together in terms of the survey instrument and whatnot. Then once you have the position you can start data collection.

The tenure process almost always starts at the department level so finding out what your department expects is important. From what I've seen, and this gets at Ollie's suggestion, departments have objective criteria for research in terms of the # of pubs/grants that they expect (e.g., 2 quality pubs per year and at least one NIH or comparable grant application in the pre-tenure period). However, other expectations may not make it into the criteria. For example, your department may expect 2 first author or single authors pubs/year during the pre-tenure period. However, by the third year and beyond they may expect that both of these pubs are based on data you collected while at your current institution. So going along with MCParent's comment, don't set things up such that you have so much to do in terms of pubs that are already in the pipeline that you neglect to get new projects up and running. Also, if you are someone with a lot of existing collaborations, you want to make sure that your work on these projects will result in products that are going to benefit you when going up for tenure. Your department may be happy about the fact that you were a co-author (e.g., not first author) on 20 papers during your pre-tenure period; however, if your work on those projects limited your ability to get first author or single author papers out the door, then you may want to scale back or reconfigure your roles on the other projects so that you have more time for your own work. So rather than agreeing to do XX, YY, and ZZ for a second author position, you might agree to just do YY for fourth author.

Also, remember that University BS can make the process of getting your lab set up take much longer than you expect. Everyone I've talked to has said that they cannot believe how long it took to get their labs up and running.

 

[MCParent]

Also, remember that University BS can make the process of getting your lab set up take much longer than you expect. Everyone I've talked to has said that they cannot believe how long it took to get their labs up and running.

FOREVER. Not through any fault of the department, in my experience, either. Often they can't even get money allocated or start buying things until your actual start day. Then, money from higher up gets delayed, companies that ship special equipment you might need take forever, etc. Even Dell once took like a month to get me a laptop. Be happy if your desk and chair are there when you get there.

 

[EmotRegulation]

I wouldn't wait to submit anything until being "on the clock"...stuff doesn't get accepted right away, so better to have things in the pipeline. Departments and programs know how the tenure stuff works, so just (as everyone else has said) keep working on stuff! Personally I think the idea of having a few R&Rs to deal with my first year would have been good. I also echo what other people else said about quick-and-dirty data collection when you can, and continuing collaborations with others so you can get a few things out that first year when you're busy with adjusting to the politics of the academic life, setting up a lab, and most likely doing a ****ton of teaching prep.

One thing that can really help in the lab setup department? Taking a grad student. It's not always possible in a SLAC or even in a grad-degree institution, depending on the time of the year you are hired, but I know it made the world of difference for me. Having someone else do the grunt work (network connections, getting the rooms set up, helping with the IRB, training research assistants) and helping with the intellectual work was so useful, and also made me be accountable to someone besides myself.

 

[DynamicDidactic]

futureapppsy2, from reading your other threads I have a feeling you will be a desired applicant where ever you apply. Wish you luck with the process.

 

[Pragma]

Futureapp, I would say that if you have a few manuscripts on deck, it might make sense to wait on sending some off until right after you get there. Because of things like the red tape of getting your startup going, it can hep you start off productively. I wouldn't sacrifice productivity in any meaningful way that would be obvious to outsiders, as that would be viewed negatively I am sure. But if you have several projects going and a handful could wait until fall of year 1 at your new gig, then it might be nice to submit a couple of papers while you are getting your lab going. I did something like that and it worked out well. Again, I wouldn't do anything to inflate your productivity, but to keep it going consistently while you are getting things going in your lab. I know where I started off at, I had to make a lot of things happen before I could collect data. It was nice to have some data to keep publishing during those first couple of semesters to avoid a gap in my CV. But only if you have enough where you can spread it out reasonably without making any collaborators mad.

Re: "Quick data" - that completely depends on your research paradigm. If you are a clinical researcher like myself, then you can't really do anything meaningful with an online survey of UGs. You have to get your clinic up and running, IRB going, etc, and then gradually collect that data. Sometimes I envy other subfields that can get data with so little effort. I either have to have external funding or do it all one patient at a time - or collaborate with others that have data. As such, for me, having a couple of pubs in the hopper while I got my lab going and started getting data going worked quite well that first year on the job.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Futureapp, I would say that if you have a few manuscripts on deck, it might make sense to wait on sending some off until right after you get there. Because of things like the red tape of getting your startup going, it can hep you start off productively. I wouldn't sacrifice productivity in any meaningful way that would be obvious to outsiders, as that would be viewed negatively I am sure. But if you have several projects going and a handful could wait until fall of year 1 at your new gig, then it might be nice to submit a couple of papers while you are getting your lab going. I did something like that and it worked out well. Again, I wouldn't do anything to inflate your productivity, but to keep it going consistently while you are getting things going in your lab. I know where I started off at, I had to make a lot of things happen before I could collect data. It was nice to have some data to keep publishing during those first couple of semesters to avoid a gap in my CV. But only if you have enough where you can spread it out reasonably without making any collaborators mad.

Re: "Quick data" - that completely depends on your research paradigm. If you are a clinical researcher like myself, then you can't really do anything meaningful with an online survey of UGs. You have to get your clinic up and running, IRB going, etc, and then gradually collect that data. Sometimes I envy other subfields that can get data with so little effort. I either have to have external funding or do it all one patient at a time - or collaborate with others that have data. As such, for me, having a couple of pubs in the hopper while I got my lab going and started getting data going worked quite well that first year on the job.

Great info; thanks!