Work Description

Date: 5 April 2024

Dataset Title: Dataset for Updated Solar and Space Physics 2024 Job Ad Study

Dataset Creators: M. B. Moldwin

Dataset Contact: Mark Moldwin mmoldwin@umich.edu

Funding: NSF

Key Points:
- An update to Job Ad Survey of the Solar and Space Physics community provides data from 2011 to 2020.
- The number of Faculty, Research Scientist, and Postdoctoral positions all rebounded from the "Great Recession" by 2015.
- In the later years of the decade, the absolute number of research scientist and postdoc positions were a factor of two higher than in the previous 15 years.

Research Overview:
The previous 2013 Solar and Space Physics Decadal Survey (NRC, 2013) compiled the number of job ads posted in the AGU SPA and the AAS SPD Newsletters for postdoc, research scientist and faculty positions (Moldwin et al., 2013). An alarming finding was that global faculty job ads fell to seven in 2010 (just into the great recession of 2008/2009) from the typical 15 to 25 per year from 2001-2009. This study was repeated with the same methodology for the years 2011 to 2020 and the results are summarized here. It should be noted, that with COVID-19 there was a huge impact on Faculty positions in all disciplines in 2020 (Lankin, 2020) arguing for the need of regular updates of hiring trends in solar and space physics. The Deep Blue Data Base contains the data and data base used in the new updated study.

Summary of Results: For faculty positions, the numbers rebounded in 2011 through 2015 back to the 20 per year range and has effectively doubled since 2015 to the 30 to 40 per year range. For ease of observing change from previous survey, the plots below include the data from the previous decadal and paper.

The trends for Postdoc and Research Scientist positions shows similar trends this past decade – recovery to about 50 per year until 2015 and then increasing by a factor of 2 to 3 in the last have of the decade.

See https://dx.doi.org/10.7302/22450 for figures and further details (Moldwin, Summary of Dataset for Updated Solar and Space Physics 2024 Job Ad Study).

Methodology:
The database was developed by compiling job advertisement postings from the American Geophysical Union Space Physics and Aeronomy (SPA) and the American Astronomical Union's Solar Physics Division (SPD) Montly Newsletters over the years 2011-2020 broken down by job type (faculty, research scientist and postdoc). The methodology was identical to that used in Moldwin, M. B., J. Torrence, L. A. Moldwin, and C. Morrow (2013), Is there an appropriate balance between the number of solar and space physics PhDs and the jobs available?, Space Weather, 11, 445–448, doi:10.1002/swe.20075.

Instrument and/or Software specifications: NA

Files contained here:

Job_Ad_Study_2011-2020_-_All_Listings.csv

Above file contains the "raw" entries from the newsletters with for each job listing

The columns in this file are:
Date of Newsletter; Name of Job -> As listed in the job ad; Type of Job -> postdoc, researcher, faculty; Name of Organization; Type of Organization - > National Lab, Government Lab, University; Sub-Field -> IT, Mag, Solar Physics, Astrophysics; U.S. vs. Foreign; Job Ad Link; Salary; Notes; Recurring? -> if job ad appeared in multiple consecutive monthly newsletters; Repost? - > if same ad appeared in non-consecutive monthly newsletters

Data-US-Intl-all-titles-new

Above file contains the cumulative number of positions per year

Related publication(s):

Moldwin, M. B., J. Torrence, L. A. Moldwin, and C. Morrow (2013), Is there an appropriate balance between the number of solar and space physics PhDs and the jobs available?, Space Weather, 11, 445–448, doi:10.1002/swe.20075.

National Research Council. 2013. Solar and Space Physics: A Science for a Technological Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/13060.

Solar and Space Physics Decadal Survey State of the Profession Appendix, NAS, 2024 Forthcoming.

Use and Access:
This data set is made available under a Creative Commons Public Domain license (CC0 4.0).

To Cite Data:
Moldwin, M. B., Dataset for Updated Solar and Space Physics 2024 Job Ad Study, [Data set]. University of Michigan - Deep Blue. https://doi.org/10.7302/fpp2-pc60