(1272) A SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW OF CAREER PATHS OF POST-DOCTORAL STAFF IN SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY IN A SOCIAL CONTEXT

摘要

The project "Career decisions and progressions of young scientists: An interdisciplinary longitudinalstudy on the interaction between contextual requirements and personal characteristics", funded by theGerman Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) explores the conditions andrelationships between science and economy, which determine the careers of post-doc youngscientists.More and more experts are needed for specialized knowledge. The high innovation and competitivepressure as a result of globalization, compels the qualification of young researchers, in our focus postdocs, for activities within the academic area as well as areas of employment outside this range, e.g. inthe economy. - Therefore, systems, science and the economy need to be considered (comparativesystems analysis) (Enders & Bornmann, 2001).Higher education systems have a central training function and should ensure a high quality ofeducation of its own scientific staff therefore ensuring the continuation of high quality education. PostDocs, who stay in the academic sector, contribute significantly to the training and research services ofthe university system. Therefore and because of the generation change by teaching staff within theuniversity it is important to employ and produce excellently qualified junior scientific staff and keepthem in the scientific system. For the purpose of an efficient knowledge economy, it has to receive anadded value of knowledge and to communicate knowledge, just as our increasingly knowledge-basedsociety needs (Enders 2005:42).The sociological project would like to analyse the organizations of science and the economic systemon the transfer of knowledge through the example of post docs.