1. Diversity of PhD Careers

Current Situation
PhD students are frequently trained exclusively for an academic career, despite the number of PhDs drastically exceeding the number of possible tenured positions. Alternative careers are often not considered or made visible, and sometimes even discouraged.
Consequences
Goal Situation
Suggested Actions and Benefits
         → Students have a realistic perspective on their career.        
        → Provides opportunities for networking and possible collaborations.
        → Promotes skill transfer between academia and industry.  
        → Allows PhD students to experience the workplace outside of academia, which is helpful for them even if they stay in academia, as they can better mentor future students, and better collaborate trans-disciplinarily and with society at large.
        → These skills are beneficial to any lab on the long term for efficiency. Industry is more accepting of employing PhD graduates. Boost in reputation for the university as an career-encouraging employer who attracts a motivated, creative workforce.
        → Increased diversity, resulting in better science. These steps are necessary to increase diversity among top scientists.

2. Redefining Skills and Prerequisites for Permanent Positions

Current Situation
Consequences
Goal Situation
Suggested Actions and Benefits
        → Novel ideas from different fields lead to more innovative research.
        → Increase of research quality and novelty due to the reduction of internal bias.
        → Avoid “inbreeding” schemes within departments.
        → Attract the most suitable candidates, resulting in a decrease in the workload for hiring committees.
        → Providing a variety of baselines increases the diversity within the set of qualified candidates.  

3. Mid-level University Career Positions

Current Situation
The majority of science is performed by PhD students and postdocs that leave academia. The majority of teaching and organisation is performed by people on non-permanent contracts.
Consequences
Goal Situation
Many more mid-level scientific researchers such as senior scientists exist at universities. These are positions for trained scientists to perform scientific research, but who are not professors. Similar to industry, these positions are not tenured, but also not fixed-term. Tenured staff are responsible for the general direction of their research with a main focus on grant acquisition, networking, human resources and/or teaching. Mid-level researchers focus mainly on conducting research projects, mentoring, and/or teaching.
Suggested Actions and Benefits
        → Increase in quality and stability of science in general, by having a higher percentage of research being performed by and more closely guided by more experienced scientists, instead of a constant turnover of temporary postdocs.
        → Retention of in-house knowledge and experience that flows back into new projects.  More long-term scientists are available to engage in long-term, high quality research.
        → Decreases the conflict of interest between PhD students and postdocs who both require publications for advancement but are in a mentor-mentee situation.
        → Increase in teaching and outreach quality, by allowing a subset of these positions to be all or partly teaching- or outreach-focused, for those scientists who have the passion and skill for teaching and outreach.
        → Reduction of the postdoc bubble.
        → Increase of interdisciplinarity and scientific understanding within the university.  A lab or department can invest in an individual who can take interdisciplinary risks more than the current system allows of professors.
        → Retention of in-house knowledge and sufficient time for training new candidates.
        → Increase in overall scientific flexibility and quality due to faster communication paths and flatter hierarchies.