Postdoc Bridge Funding Initiative (PBFI)
– Robert L. Read, PhD, Public Invention, April 2025
In early 2025, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF)’s normal funding processes were disrupted. Every year, there are about 62 thousand postdoc positions in the United States. It is possible that a significant number of these postdoc positions have been put on hold temporarily, delayed indefinitely, canceled or are frozen without clear expectations. There are likely a few thousand would-be postdocs who are graduating right now and do not have the positions that they were expecting. Many PhD students may have lost funding as well.
Because postdocs have received the highest degrees possible, they cannot remain at their current positions. Unlike professors, they do not have steady employment. These researchers are at a fragile point in their careers. Every year, some people who complete doctoral degrees choose not to pursue a research career, but many do wish to become professors or academic postdoctoral researchers. Universities have a tried, tested, and understood system of postdoctoral employment. However, this system is largely dependent on external funding and assumes full employment at defined full-time salaries with benefits, even if those salaries are lower than professorial levels. There is now a temporary gap in the number of such positions.
If universities are unwilling to draw down their endowments to bridge this gap, then fewer postdoc positions will exist than normal. Many new researchers will have no paid research opportunities at all. Some of them may sustain themselves with related or unrelated employment and return to research when more jobs are available. However, a fraction of these may simply drift away from research and never return, to the detriment of the people at large and our national security.
We propose a Postdoc Bridge Funding Initiative (PBFI) to be administered by Public Invention in partnership with universities and other nonprofits. Our goal is to match donors with researchers and research projects to the mutual benefit of both donors and researchers. It applies only to recently graduating researchers who provably had, or plausibly would have had, postdoctoral employment if not for the funding disruption of 2025.
Donors gain the opportunity to have a uniquely disproportionate impact at a very low cost. Funding motivated researchers with low overhead and relatively low salaries will produce a huge return on investment (in terms of research impact) for each dollar they provide in bridge funding. Donors will also have an outsized say in research direction and a share in research results.
Postdocs gain two things: a stipend or fellowship, and a partially supervised research position that allows them to carry on research related to their interests.
Ultimately, the public at large will benefit from research which would otherwise not occur.
Association with a Sponsoring University
In the PBFI model, postdocs would associate with a sponsoring university and work in collaboration with, and under the supervision of, a university professor. However, the postdoc would not be funded by the university—if the university could fund them, they would have no need for the PBFI. For example, if a donor has the money for a full-time, postdoc salary and the overhead charged by the university, which is typically about 50%, then the donor can fund the university directly. However, if they cannot fully fund the postdoc and overhead, the PBFI would fund their positions, handle the bookkeeping details, report income to the IRS, etc. These positions would not have to be full-time, and would likely not have the benefits common for university employment. A university professor might have input into the postdoc’s performance evaluation, but ultimately their continued employment would be determined by the PBFI based on input from the university and donor.
This relationship would benefit the university because the professor would, under most circumstances, become an author of the research that they supervise. Papers would list the postdoc as associated with the university, benefiting the university. The postdoc would benefit from their PBFI salary and the valuable supervision of an expert in the research field. Additionally, as a volunteer with the university, the postdoc would have access to article publishing charge waivers, an official email address, the library, behind-the-paywall journals, and other official services typically offered to students. Most of these advantages could be used via remote access, without the postdoc having to be located with the university, having an office or a parking space, etc. At the end of a year, the postdoc would be well-positioned to join the university and the supervising professor’s research efforts, having contributed to research performed there. On the other hand, they could seek employment elsewhere with the recommendation of a supervising professor, a year of research experience and the honest ability to say, “I had a postdoc sponsored by University X.”
Association with a Humanitarian Engineering Project
If a university is not willing to sponsor a postdoc but donors have given money for their partial employment, Public Invention can supervise the postdoc as a partner non-profit. Although Public Invention is only qualified to fully supervise a postdoctoral researcher in a few specialities, it can:
- Distinguish between unreliable and solid research.
- Provide some guidance to the postdoc, even if Public Invention is not specialized in their field of study.
- If a donor has earmarked funds for a particular project, it can ensure that the paid research professionally, and primarily, advances that project.
Although other non-profits with different missions might partner in the PBFI, Public Invention will only manage fully open-source research projects meant for the public good. However, this model has certain advantages for both the donor and the postdoc:
- It assures that the research is fully usable by the donor and anyone who comes after them. The postdoc is guaranteed to be able to use the research in the future, and the university is guaranteed to be able to use it, even if the postdoc never obtains full employment at that university.
- It allows the postdoc to utilize and mentor a team of less-skilled, part-time volunteer researchers, who can stand in for the graduate students they would mentor at a university.
- It allows a project to have seamless continuity across years and changing staff, much as a university tenured professor allows for a long-duration research specialization.
- Because the project falls within Public Invention’s mission, donors can give tax-deductible donations without jeopardizing Public Invention’s 501c3 public charity status.
- Public Invention’s mission likely aligns with most public foundations’ charitable giving policies, if they fund research initiatives at all.
- Public Invention can manage part-time researchers and assure their pay is proportional to their work product, ensuring that donated funds are not wasted.
Limitations
If a donor is willing to pay the overhead charged by universities for a full-time postdoc, let them do so.
If not, they may still get enormous benefit from a donation to PBFI, which will take a 10% administrative fee. For example, $100,000 would fund three postdocs for part-time positions, assuming each got one-half of a minimal $60,000 thousand full-time salary.
Funding Strategy
To fund the PBFI, we need a major foundation to recognize the need for the initiative and make a substantial grant which is not ear-marked to individual postdocs.
However, we may find donors that do not want to see particular research efforts interrupted. Such donors would have a strong incentive to make a cost-effective, ear-marked donation to keep a specific postdoc employed for a one-year bridge.
Finally, general crowd-funding might provide minimal funding, especially if tied to the faces and specific research interests of individual postdocs.
Implementation Strategy
The Postdoc Bridge Funding Initiative requires matching and administration, which we consider separately here. It would seem that a 10% administrative fee would be sufficient for these necessary services.
Matching
We propose to use a matching clerk to:
- Qualify postdocs as recent graduates who have lost funding to the current US federal funding impediments, at perhaps 3 hours per postdoc.
- Recruit donors and understand their individual high impact-for-dollar research interests—that is, discover what they would be willing to fund.
- Match donors to postdocs.
The Public Invention staff has three part-time contractors who could do this work effectively and are currently working at approximately USD $20/hour. This is strong evidence that this work could at least be begun effectively by current staff.
If more than 100 postdocs are identified, it might be too much for one clerk to handle. Possibly a website could be created to ease this task. Use of ChatGPT and Large Language Models (LLMs) in general would make key-word matching relatively easy.
Administration
If postdocs are actually (partly or fully) funded, the award must be managed in two ways:
- Technical and quality supervision must be provided. Public Invention can provide technical supervision for a limited number of postdocs without additional charge because Robert L. Read works for Public Invention without compensation. Other partnering non-profits might be able to recruit adequate supervision at reasonable fees.
- Bookkeeping and payment administration must be provided. Public Invention already has bookkeeping and contract payment, and can teach partnering non-profits how to perform these functions.
- We expect every university to have slightly different rules, regulations and policies related to less-than-full employment. An administrator will be required to work with universities to learn and conform to their policies.
Building an Implementing Coalition
It seems that Public Invention could handle a relatively small number of postdocs—perhaps 50. However, we suspect the number of temporarily disemployed postdocs is higher. In order to solve this nationwide problem, we need a coalition.
Universities might be ideal partners because they have a pool of professorial talent that can act as true subject matter experts. There is no reason a university could not step up to provide this entire function, although they might have to charge a higher overhead fee than 10%. However, offering a short-term, non-research service to the broader community is outside the typical university model.
Other non-profits or for-profit firms may provide subject matter experts in fields related to their respective missions, and we welcome that wider discussion.
A coalition of several engineering non-pro, for-profit firms, and universities may be expected to be trustworthiness to attract significant donations to the cause of providing bridge funding for postdocs, mitigating an impending research disaster.
Workshop Planned for May the Fourth
This proposal is an early-stage response to a crisis. Public Invention is attempting to lead, but cannot do this alone. We need the advice of experienced thought leaders, the cooperation of university researchers and leaders, and, above, donors, grant-makers, and fund raising experts.
We are holding a virtual workshop at 2:00 pm US CDT (Central) on May the 4th, 2025. Please contact Robert L. Read via email: <read.robert@pubinv.org> if you would like to attend, participate, or have any other comments of suggestions about this initiative.