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SIGMOD 2013
NEW RESEARCHER
SYMPOSIUM
Martin Theobald
University of Antwerp, Belgium
D ISCLAIMER
The views and opinions in this presentation
are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the actual policies of any
of the entities mentioned therein
O UTLINE
Some Class Photos
Research in Europe vs. U.S.
Do’s & Dont’s
MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE
ANNO 2003
MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE
ANNO 2005
S TA N F O R D I N F O L A B
ANNO 2007
MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE
ANNO 2009
UNIVERSITY OF ANTWERP
ANNO 2013
R ESEARCH IN E UROPE
Research mostly in public universities/institutes
and only in a few big companies. (IBM, SAP, Yahoo!,…)
European funding (EU STREP/FET, ERC)
• Very generous and prestigious, but hard to get.
Few companies (Google) competitive to EU funding.
Gap between south/north & west/center/east.
• Center/north doing much better than south.
R ESEARCH IN THE U.S.
Most research takes place in private/state
universities and in company labs.
(IBM, MSR, Oracle, Google, Yahoo!, …)
Much stronger startup culture than in Europe.
Funding from both public agencies (NSF, NASA,
DARPA) and industry, business angels, etc.
R ESEARCH IN G ERMANY
Germany provides excellent funding options
for temporary research positions.
• “Excellence Initiatives” at various universities.
• Research institutes & societies: Max Planck,
Fraunhofer, Helmholtz, Leibniz, …
• 1.5B EUR annual budget of the Max Planck Society
(~170 institutes) vs. 4.4B USD at Stanford University.
• 6-year rule for public employers applies as well.
R ESEARCH IN G ERMANY
Permanent academic positions
( professorships) are very rare.
• 1-2 university openings per year in Databases &
Information-Systems or Applied Informatics.
(10-20 competitors with at least equally strong C.V.’s)
• Very few new professorships are being created.
• Academic job market might improve in 10 years.
S OME S TATS
Source: Wikipedia, Population Reference Bureau 2009
Germany has one of the lowest birth rates in the world.
By 2030, more than 50% of the German population will be above 50.
Only 28% of young people study (compared to 39% in OECD).
T ENURE IN G ERMANY
Germany is one of the few European
countries that (still) has no tenure-track system.
• People do post-docs and habilitations (PD), which
means a temporary position (and title for teaching).
• Few Junior professorships (W1), which are usually not
tenured and have no option to “upgrade”.
• You will have to move more often after your Ph.D.
than before. 6 years to obtain tenure is usually tight.
R ESEARCH IN B ELGIUM
Source: Wikipedia
Europe is much more
heterogeneous than
the U.S.
33 countries, 270
administrative regions,
23 languages.
I’m currently learning
Dutch
R ESEARCH IN B ELGIUM
6 Flemish universities for higher education
(at ~6.5 Million inhabitants)
•
•
•
•
•
Antwerp
Brussels (2x)
Gent
Hasselt
Leuven
Funding primarily at university-level and by the
Flemish research foundation (FWO).
T ENURE IN B ELGIUM
4 levels of university professorships,
all of which are principally tenured.
•
•
•
•
Docent
Hoofddocent
Hoogleraar
Gewoon Hoogleraar
New 6-year tenure-track system.
Hiring based on your level of experience.
You can upgrade (i.e., apply for promotion) at your
home university.
D O ’ S : P H .D. S TUDENTS
Focus on your (given) research topic but also
grasp beyond your own nose.
Convince your supervisor to let you work on
real-world problems, which may also be of
interest for your potential future employers.
• Big Data, MapReduce, Web stuff, …
D O ’ S : P OST-D OCS
If you are aiming for an academic position:
• Focus on research, but also try to get involved in teaching
and supervision (Ba/Ma, Ph.D.) as early as possible.
• Establish your own research topic and try to gradually
“decouple” from your advisor.
If you are aiming for industry:
• Hey, why are you doing a post-doc? You could probably
earn much more money somewhere else.
D O ’ S : T ENURE -T RACK P EOPLE
Minimize the amount of teaching you need to do
yourself.
Find a trade-off between depth and usability of your
research. (No point in doing research on a topic that is already
handled by Google at 100,000 times the scale.)
Watch out for funding options and write proposals
(Europe), or try to convince industry partners (U.S.)
whenever possible.
L AST B UT N OT L EAST
The earlier you know what you want, the better.
Don’t focus on a too broad or too narrow
research topic, but establish your own profile.
Interact with other researchers/industry as much
as possible.
Stay flexible and always have a backup in mind.