The creation of post-doctoral jobs is one way to support young researchers, but Slovak legislation doesn't recognise the term 'post-doc' for now, said Slovak Technical University (STU) rector Robert Redhammer, quoted by the TASR press agency. He added that, despite this, his institution has created several post-doctoral jobs because it wants to keep young talented scientists at the university and to rejuvenate scientific teams. "You can't keep young people in a cage. They go where there are better working conditions, where they can achieve things and earn better money. Countries should focus instead on a smaller number of workplaces with better financing in order to achieve global breakthroughs. Our university has created post-doctoral jobs in fields in which we have top experts and high-quality equipment that we have gained, partly thanks to university science park projects. They study new materials, create applications and algorithms, develop electronics for modern diagnostics and design the solar cities of the future," added Redhammer.
Although post-doc positions are very common globally, Slovak legislation doesn't recognise them. The Slovak PhD Students Association (ADS) has been fighting for them to be included in law and thus financially supported. "Places for post-docs are opening at some enlightened universities in Slovakia. They use money for this purpose which could have been channelled into the university's research activities or equipment. At the same time these are important posts at which students become real scientists," said ASD chair Veronika Trstianska, adding that the time spent on PhD studies is too short for significant scientific output, especially when students have other obligations to attend to.
Mojmír Procházka Foto: TASR
