Careers of Doctorate Holders (CDH) Project

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Careers of Doctorate Holders (CDH) Project
SEMINAR WORKSHOP ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND
INNOVATION INDICATORSPhnom Penh, Cambodia18-20
Nov 2008
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UIS approach to Human Resources statistics CDH
project

• Methodology developed from the scratch together
  with OECD Eurostat.
• Aimed both at developed and developing countries
• With participation from experts from both
  developed and developing countries
• Now being piloted
• Promoting the methodology by encouraging
  developing countries to conduct such surveys and
  produce cross-nationally comparable statistics on
  careers of doctorate holders

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Relevance of the CDH project

• World economy is increasingly based on knowledge
  and information.
• Knowledge is now recognised as the driver of
  productivity and economic growth.
• As a result, there is a new focus on the crucial
  role of highly qualified individuals who
  represent a key to the production, application
  and transmission of knowledge.
• Statistics on the global trends in human
  resources for Science and Technology (HRST) are
  very week.
• The quality and comparability of international
  data on migration is particularly weak.
• Diversity of data collection methods hinders
  international comparability, and does not provide
  information on career paths and mobility patterns.

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Background and Process

• Background
• Brain drain or loss of skilled personnel
  identified as priority by UIS and UNESCO Paris
• OECD and EU are interested in
• skills loss from developing countries
• Moves from university to industry
• US NSF also interested in changing US patterns of
  academic recruitment
• Process
• To meet the users demands UIS, OECD Eurostat
  launched a project on Statistics on the Careers
  of Doctorate Holders.
• Each organization took responsibility for issues
  appropriate to their mandate. Expertise and
  resources are shared across the three partners.
• Expert group Argentina, Belgium, Canada, China,
  Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan,
  Malaysia, Portugal, Russian Federation, Spain,
  Switzerland, Ukraine, Uganda, the United States.

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Objectives and Task forces

• Objectives
• To design an internationally comparable tool for
  tracking the careers of doctorates holders and
  highly qualified people in different countries.
• To pilot tests of this instrument in volunteer
  countries.
• to collect and exchange information on the career
  paths of holders of doctorates from existing data
  sources and the new survey tool.
• Task forces
• Production of output tabulations, and development
  of common definitions (led by OECD and Canada)
• Drafting of methodological guidelines (led by
  Eurostat and Portugal).
• Development of a model survey with a supporting
  methodology (led by UIS).

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Output tabulation program

• Conceived to be used by countries when delivering
  the requested data to the international
  organizations
• Consists of several tables organized in seven
  broad groups personal characteristics,
  educational history, work history, scientific
  output, perception of current work situation,
  international mobility retrospective and future
  plans.

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Definitions

• Doctorate
• Citizenship and residential status
• Recent doctorate recipients
• Employed persons
• Unemployed and inactive persons
• Researcher
• Temporary/permanent employment, full-time and
  part-time employment, etc.
• Postdoc

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Methodological guidelines

• Define and structure the target population
• Describe the sources for building sampling frames
• Present some aspects of data collection, data
  processing and results estimation.
• Should be seen as an orientation for countries
  that plan to launch a CDH survey as well as a
  tool to improve and align their existing national
  surveys to an international standard.

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Target population

• Consists of individuals fulfilling the
  following criteria
• having an education at ISCED 6 level (doctorates)
  obtained anywhere in the world, and
• being resident (permanent or non-permanent)
  within the national borders of the surveying
  country.

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Target population structure

• Target population, residents in country X (the
  surveying country) that are
• Citizens of country X with doctorate awarded
  within country X
• Citizens of foreign countries with doctorate
  awarded in country X
• Citizens of country X with doctorate awarded
  abroad
• Citizens of foreign countries with doctorate
  awarded abroad
• Non-target population, residents outside country
  X that are
• Citizens of country X, with doctorate awarded
  within country X that have left country X
• Citizens of foreign countries, with doctorate
  awarded in country X that have left country X
• What to do with doctorates abroad
• - Groups E and F are usually taken into
  consideration in the reporting countries where
  these doctorate holders are resident.
• - If countries are able to construct a sample
  frame, and reach group E, the survey could also
  be extended to this group, even if countries are
  not requested to report information to the
  international organizations on them.

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Sources for constructing sampling frames

• National education registers
• Universities
• International and national foundations
• National libraries
• Population censuses
• Research institutes
• Professional organizations
• Central registers of foreigners
• Alumni organizations
• Previously conducted surveys on doctorate holders

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Survey types

• Cohorts of recent graduates
• administered on graduation and repeated every few
  years
• simple and straightforward, but
• limited coverage of the target population
• Snapshot surveys (cross-sectional retrospective
  sample of all doctorates)
• one time, administered on an occasional basis
• more appropriate tool for collection of
  information related to the entire target
  population
• covers all cohorts at the same time
• quickly provides information on the mobility and
  career development of doctorate holders
• Should not be seen as mutually excluding but
  rather complementary

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Instruments (developed by UIS)

• Core model questionnaire containing core
  questions which would provide data to fill in
  the output tabulations. The questionnaire will be
  accompanied with a manual comprising the
  definitions and other guidelines.
• CDH questions data base comprises the set of
  questions among which the suitable questions can
  be chosen and applied by countries when designing
  CDH surveys. CDH data base will be web-based and
  openly accessible.
• The core model questionnaire is mainly foreseen
  for countries which do not have CDH type surveys
  yet.

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Construction of Core model Questionnaire

• The following existing CDH questionnaires were
  used
• USA (SED and SDR),
• Canada (SED),
• Switzerland (Survey of Tertiary Graduates plus
  Doctorates surveyed the year after they received
  their degree),
• Portugal (Survey of former PhD Scholarships
  receivers concerning their professional
  situation),
• India (Pilot study on the Career Profile and
  Professional Achievements of Doctorates in
  science from the Selected Central
  Universities/Institutions),
• Ukraine (Structure of database of Doctorate
  Holders in Ukraine)

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Modules

• Doctoral Education (EDU)
• Recent graduates (REC)
• POSTDOCS (POS)
• Employment situation (EMP)
• Career-related experience and scientific
  productivity (CAR)
• International mobility (MOB)
• Personal characteristics (PER)

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Doctoral Education

• Information on educational history of
  doctorates holders, such as
• institution
• field of science
• duration
• sources of financial support
• country of previous degrees

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Recent graduates

• Data on the holders of doctorate who received
  their degree in the last 2 years.
• Provides a complete educational history,
  including names and locations of secondary and
  each postsecondary institution, dates of
  attendance, field of study, and date of degrees.
• Enquires about the time elapsed before obtaining
  first CAREER PATH JOB .

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POSTDOCS

• Would your principal job be considered a POSTDOC
  position in your country of residence? (PROBLEM
  WITH DEFINITION)
• Title, Field of ST, total length of POSTDOC
• Reasons for taking this POSTDOC
• Activities involved in POSTDOC (Research,
  teaching, other)
• Main source of financial support

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Employment situation

• Detailed information on employment status,
  working hours, principal employer, sector and
  type of employment (postdoc, temporary or
  permanent employment, part-time or full-time job
  ), annual earnings, job-satisfaction.
• Relationship of job doctorate degree.
• Retrospective career history within ten past
  years (including occupation, dates, years of
  experience, and reasons for leaving position).
• multi-job pattern is foreseen.
• Section for unemployed and inactive.

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International mobility

• Information on mobility patterns, including
  inflows (group D) and outflows (group C).
• Enables to distinguish temporary mobility from
  permanent mobility as well as to identify the
  reasons for departure and return.
• Provides data on intentions to move out of the
  country within the next year including the
  destination planned.
• Enquires about linkages with country of origin.

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Career-related experience and scientific
productivity

• Data on scientific output and experience, as well
  as teaching.
• Section for researchers, including reasons for
  taking up research careers.
• Enquires about international cooperation
  activities.

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Personal characteristics

• Marital status
• Number of dependents
• Place of birth, date of birth, citizenship status
  (in order to better deal with dual nationality as
  well) and residential status.
• Contact information

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Way forward

• CDH surveys are being carried out in the EU, AU,
  US.
• The CDH kit has been published as a joint
  publication with OECD Eurostat.
• An international database is being constructed.
• Involve more developing countries!
• Presentation of resultsInternational Conference
  on CDH, Brussels, 1 December 2008

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Thank you!

• http//www.uis.unesco.org
• UNESCO Institute for Statistics C.P. 6128
  Succursale Centre-ville, Montreal, Quebec,
  H3C 3J7, Canada.
• TP (1 514) 343-6880 Fax [phone]