Postdoc Best Practices

Developing new talent to carry out high impact research is of paramount importance to the Computer Science & Engineering research enterprise.  An appointment as a postdoctoral researcher is an increasingly common starting point for a research career.  The National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer & Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate and the CCC recognize the critical importance in having an excellent postdoc training experience to help junior researchers advance their careers.

With NSF’s backing, the CCC is announcing a program to develop, implement and institutionalize the implementation of best practices for supporting postdocs. This program will award grants to institutions or consortia of institutions to implement best practices for strengthening the postdoc experience in computer science and computing-related fields.  These supporting programs will enable PhD graduates to transition effectively to research roles in a variety of sectors.

Previously, NSF and CCC created the Computing Innovation Fellows program to fund postdocs for the duration of the economic crisis in order to assure that graduating PhDs could remain in the computing research enterprise at a time when many fewer research positions were available.  This new grant program is another effort to advance postdocs and their contributions to the research enterprise.

Information on the awarded programs can be found here.

This project is a joint effort of CRA, CCC, and NSF.

The PostdocBP Steering Committee provides financial, administrative, and technical oversight for the Postdoc Best Practices Program.  The Steering Committee was appointed by the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council.  Working with the Selection Committee, the Steering Committee is responsible for making all final award decisions. The steering committee includes: Anita Jones (Chair), Susan Graham, Ran Libeskind-Hadas, J Strother Moore, Bob Sproull, and Ann Drobnis.