Modeling the Swiss Academic Career Pathway

Abstract—Presented here is a first attempt to model the Swiss academic pathway. By using a system of time-discrete recursive equations, we illustrate the mechanism leading to a decline of the career prospects of postdocs in Switzerland. We also study the impact of an increase in the number of assistant professors with tenure-track (APTTs), and we present an overview of possible measures to help alleviate the bleak career prospects for early-stage researchers in Switzerland. All the code and the data are freely available on GitHub with the hopes that those who are interested will pick up and further expand this project.