Careers of young Polish chemists

Typical young Polish scientist is an alumnus of doctoral studies at the same university and department where he/she completed his/her Master degree. The career is continued by receiving a habilitation at the same university and department. Then a holder of habilitation is promoted to a tenured position at the same university and department. Detailed analysis of scientific careers of 154 recent Ph.D. recipients and of 16 habilitation candidates in chemistry from University of Warsaw is presented. More than 96 % of the Ph.D. theses were results of doctoral studies. A typical doctor is Polish citizen (>98 %), alumnus/alumna of the University of Warsaw (>85 %), holder of Master degree in chemistry (88 %) who joined the Ph.D. program at the same university directly after having completed his/her Master degree, and completed the Ph.D. program 5.5 years after completion of Master degree. A fraction of recent female Ph.D. recipients in chemistry (61 %) is very high as compared with the corresponding fractions in other countries (e.g., USA), but it is still substantially lower than the fraction of female Master degree recipients. In recent habilitation candidates, the female ratio is 50 %, thus relative male dominance is observed at higher levels. At least one-third of the recent Ph.D. recipients were employed by the same university, where they received their Ph.D., while the fraction of the recent Ph.D. recipients employed by other universities in Poland was below 5 %. High degree of academic inbreeding is due to the legal system in Poland, which (nominally) is designed to prevent academic inbreeding, but the regulations can be easily circumvented. Over 10 % of the recent Ph.D. recipients found post-doctoral positions abroad, chiefly in EU countries and in the USA.