Nearly 2,800 people started their post-doctorate studies in Switzerland, taking advantage of a mobility grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) offered in 2015.
However, data from the Federal Statistics Office revealed that six years later, 44 per cent of these candidates are no longer offering their expertise in Switzerland, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
The number of post-docs leaving the country is the highest among those studying in exact and natural sciences (56 per cent) and technical sciences (48 per cent). Depending on the country group, between 46 per cent and 62 per cent of post-docs with foreign nationality have left Switzerland in comparison to seven per cent of post-docs with Swiss nationality.
Although many students that leave higher education don’t return, 40 per cent of those that left were employed outside higher education institutions in a sector with a high or medium research and development intensity; 51 per cent of those being in the field of natural sciences and 47 per cent in technical sciences.
According to the Federal Statistical Office (FSO), almost 86 per cent or 2,150, of the 2,800 that started post-doctoral research did so at a Swiss university, another five per cent at a research institution within the country, while ten per cent went abroad with an SNSF mobility grant.
Regarding the fields of study, 57 per cent of post-doctoral students were in exact and natural sciences or technical sciences, while another 15 per cent were conducting research in the field of humanities and social sciences.
More than half of the post-doc researchers had completed their studies at a foreign university, with the rates being even higher for post-doc candidates in the field of natural science (65 per cent) and technical sciences (61 per cent), while 41 per cent of candidates in humanities and social sciences finalised their studies abroad.
On the other hand, 27 per cent of the post-docs, which represent 700 people, were employed at a Swiss higher education institution or had an SNSF mobility grant, with 14 per cent out of the total still working as post-docs, 11 per cent working another job at a Swiss university and about two per cent having a professorship at a national institution.
FSO also reveals that out of these 700 people, a third (32 per cent) worked less than 80 per cent full-time, and 27 per cent had a permanent contract compared to seven per cent of all 2015 post-doctoral entrants.