PhD and Beyond

5. Research & Publications

If one pursues a career in research, it is not sufficient to "just" get a PhD. You really need to do good research to distinguish yourself. In this section, we explore more about what PhD level research means. I will also contrast that with research students asked to do at a lower level.

In the US, students are asked to start writing "research" paper at a young age. Even my kids, who are going to elementary school, are asked to do "research" and write "papers". Typically, a research paper, in abroad sense, requires the author to find information relevant to the topic, add in his own thesis and arguments, and write it up in a coherent fashion. This definition can be used to describe research papers up to undergrad/master level work. Obviously, in some master thesis, there may be some additional professional research elements that may approach PhD level research. It is not common to see this at all in research paper as class assignment. Master thesis, if done well, may include some PhD level research.

So the obvious question is “what is PhD level research?”. There are several considerations.

First, the research has to be original. That means that it is not sufficient to just find information and put them together. An example in a scientific field is that the researcher developing a new mathematical model to explain a previously unexplained phenomenon. Another example is designing and conducting of a new experiment with a new discovery.

Second, the research has to be done "right" with rigor. This point is more relevant to scientific fields (including math & social sciences) than humanities. However, even in humanities, you need to do the research with "good" methodological considerations.

Third, the research has to have a minimal level of impact and add to the literature. That means that it is not sufficient if I take someone else's experiment and do a trivial variation.

These considerations are often hard to judge. Thus, the major method of evaluating research is through the peer-review process. Papers sent to journals are reviewed by multiple experts (typically 3) in the field in an anonymous fashion. Top journals, Management Science for example, has typical publication rate of 10-15%. Not all fields use journals as the primary publication vehicle. For example, in CS, top conferences (like ACM-e-commerce) are more prestigious and more difficult to get in.

PhD dissertation research is usually required to have the *same*quality as professional peer-reviewed research although it is done via a different process. Because of the time constraint, it is usually not possible for a PhD student in fields like business or econ to get their research published by journals (typical review cycles can go for months and even years). The usual way it is done is the PhD dissertation will be reviewed by a committee which can ok the research. The normal expectation is that the dissertation will then be turned (rewritten and may be broaden) into multiple papers.

Typically in business schools (and Econ, IE/OR depts), a graduating PhD student will have one or two submitted (and may be accepted) papers in journals. CS is different because conferences reviewing cycles are much shorter.

Research projects can take substantially amount of time. Usually each project is a significant investment of time on the part of the researcher. For example, a supply chain decision experiment can easily take 6 months to 1 year just to do the research. Furthermore, it is not uncommon to take another 6 months to write up the results.

Publishing in top journals is difficult. Even faculty would have problem publishing in a top journal like Management Science.

6. Job Search and Career Opportunities

6.1 Getting the first job

PhDs are evaluated very differently from taught masters and other taught degrees. If you apply for professional research jobs (include tenure professionships, research positions in industry, government or think tanks ...), people will scrutinized your research, not your grades (in fact, grades won't matter at all). A typical interview will involve the candidate giving a talk on his research, then being grilled by everyone, followed by one-on-one interviews with the whole dept.

A person will be evaluated on multiple dimensions including his research, how smart and creative he is, his communication skills, motivation, independence and team work.

6.2 Industry vs Academia

Career opportunities exist both in industry (a typical job title is “scientist”) and academia. Once again, since the US is a major player in research, most of the discussion focuses on the US environment. There are trade offs between industry research positions and academia tenure track positions.

First, the obvious observation that you have more freedom in academia than in industry is correct. However, the picture is absolute. Let's start with industry.

The amount of freedom you have in industry depends on the organization as well as your track record. Research organizations like HP Labs (and the formal glorious Xarc) give researchers relatively plenty of freedom. This is easiest to illustrate with examples. Thus, I would use my own experience as anecdotal evidence.

First example, the guy in the next office to mine does nothing but publish.

However, do not confuse between freedom & usefulness of the research. I can pretty much do whatever research I want but it has to have some connections, no matter how thin or far into the future, to actual applications. Roughly speaking, my research is half basic research (the type of stuff you see in management science) and half applied research (Interfaces). Note that real problems are not necessarily less interesting. So industrial research is not a bad option if you research is applied (or have consequences that can be applied) oriented.

There are other (sometimes as important) trade offs aside from freedom of research. For example, resources are a bit more plentiful in the industrial side. I have a lab, several interns, a contractor to do experiment implementation, a team in India to do research software, enough money to run any experiments that I want and I spent less time on grants than my academic counterparts. I have no teaching duties (although I like to go give guest lectures from time to time) and we pay better than almost all academic departments except may be the top business schools.

The flip side is that you have to deal with business people (but sometimes they give you data which is a dream come true if you are in business school research), and you don't get summer off.

Now let's go to academic side of things with respect to research freedom. While, to some extent, it is true that you can pretty do whatever you want as long as you publish, there are more subtle considerations. For example, often it is necessary for new assistant professors to collaborate because otherwise they can't publish efficiently In fact, how many assistant professors can do management science papers on their own right from the beginning? The answer is not many and not often. It is much easier to publish with a partner in the beginning.

Thus, the ability to attract others to work on your problem is also important. So whether you research is viewed favorably in a dept has some impact on your ability to do research. Plus that it obviously has implications of whether you can get funding easily or not.

6.3 Financial Compensations

While one should not be in the research game purely for financial gains, professors and scientists typically make a very comfortable living. However, compensations can differ greatly from one field to another. For example, business schools, law schools and medical schools compensate professors a lot better than other departments.

In the US, schools have very high flexibilities (including public schools like Berkeley although they have a bit more restrictions and bureaucracy) to hire professors, particularly the stars. B-school are typically cash cow of the school with large endowments. Furthermore, they want to draw people from their own and other disciplines (economics for example). Thus, they typically offer much larger salaries (and research support) compared to other depts. B-schools also have to compete with industry for obvious reasons.

BTW, industry also pays well. For example, an industrial lab can pay better than almost all academic depts except business schools. It is not uncommon for Fresh PhD to start in the range of $100-120k (for 12 months). And we haven't talked about stocks and bonus yet.

6.4 Tenure Track Academic Positions

Obviously academic employs a large bulk of researchers. Almost all research universities have a tenure system. The idea is that once a professor has proven himself, he should be given freedom to pursue whatever research he wants to do. And to ensure this freedom is not tempered with, he would be offered a life-long contract at that point so no one can fire him because of his research.

The system usually works the following way. A fresh PhD is hired at the rank of the assistant professor. He/she will be reviewed for tenure in 6 years. (Usually there is also a mid-point review at 3 year but that is more like a progress report than a decision point.) If he/she receives tenure, he/she will be promoted to associate professor and no one can fire him/her without cause (such as committing a felony or unethical behavior).

After a grad got their first assistant professorships, normally he or she starts to turn his dissertation into papers. At this point, the amount of publication is important. A typical 2nd tier school (like Kansas) would require around 4 a-list publications (like management science) to get tenure. A place like Berkeley will require 8-10. This is not counting the quantity (about the same number or more of lesser papers). That is extremely tough to do in 6 years. We are talking about almost 1 top publication per year. Tenure review also requires recommendation letters.

6.5 Industry Positions

Different companies have different systems. However, industry labs usually have technical career track so that top research talent does not have to go into management. A typical promotion path is scientist -> senior scientist -> principal scientist -> fellow -> senior fellow.

A fellow or a senior fellow would be equivalent to a chair professor in academia. There is no true one-to-one correspondence because the criteria of judging a scientist can be different than that to judge a professor. For example, a scientist may be evaluated based on his publication, as well as his patents and/or the relevancy (to business) of his research.

6.6 Post-doc Position

In China,post-docs are extremely common and some actually expect it to be part of aresearcher’s career. In the US,the situation is much more varied. Post-doc, short for post-doctorate, is theunofficial name for visiting positions in a research organization. Bothindustry and academia offers these kinds of positions, usually to fresh PhDs. Theactual title may be visiting scholar, visiting professor and something of thatnature. Usually, the position is for a pre-determined limited amount of time (1year is the most common but it can be two or even 3).

Inindustry, there are also post-doc positions that are designed to act as a trialperiod and have the possibility (and sometimes with very high probability) ofturning the position into a regular scientist position.

Whetherit is a normal part of a researcher’s career depends highly on the field. Forexample, most business school PhDs and economists go directly to tenure trackacademic positions. It is more common to do post-doc in physics and otherphysical sciences.

While atfirst glance, a post-doc position may seem less desirable than a tenure trackposition because of the uncertainty involves (no one wants to be on the jobmarket AGAIN in a year), it has its own advantages. First, most post-doc position,even in academia, is research only and there are no teaching duties, so you canfocus on your search. Second, if you start as an assistant professor, thetenure clock starts ticking right away. A post-doc position will allow you moretime to build up a research track record, which will count towards any futuretenure review.

Asidefrom career considerations, a post-doc position may also open the opportunitiesto work with particular people in the field.