Going abroad: Yes or no?

One topic which reemerges in many discussions online and offline is that many scientists, especially in (particle) physics, have to move around several times as postdocs. For me, this was after the PhD in Germany first going to Brazil, then back to Germany, then to Slovakia, Austria, Germany, and finally back to Austria.

The discussion evolves usually around whether this is good or bad, and whether the price tag in terms of private life associated with so many moves is worth what one gains from it. There are three aspects, I would like to address, especially from personal experience. One is the cost to one's social net. The other is the personal and professional gain. And the last is suffering because of a lack of predictability. Because you usually do not know, where it will go to in one or two years.

Let me start with the most obvious price tag: Social contacts. And especially partnership. The last one is the most individual point. Here, it is really up to you and your family members, how all of you think about it. But this needs to be addressed well before you start with such moves. How many are acceptable? How long may it take? Which countries are acceptable? And so on. That has to be agreed upon by everyone involved, and that is really different for every one.

More general is the question of the general social net. Despite modern communication methods, a social net will tear if someone moves away. Without direct contact, it is for most people hard to hold contact. Even with video communication, its is not easy to transfer everything. And not everyone is able to keep a connection in written form. Especially if it is not clear when, or even if, one will meet again in person. In addition, even when moving somewhere and building a new social net, this will tear again with the next move. And so can easily leave behind several fragmented nets. It depends, of course, on how much you rely on our own social net, and what kind of people are in there. But too me, this was always the highest cost. Because building a new net takes time, and the old one is missed.

If the cost is so high, how could I even consider moving to be a good thing? Before I did it, I would actually would have no good thing to think about other than our current scientific society is requiring it. And I will come back to this later. Already during the first place, my opinion changed. I expected that just by working with other on a day-by-day basis, not so much would change in my own work. But the constant exposure to very different approaches to science, emphasizing very different aspects and questions, has fundamentally changed the way I think about my own research, and about how I should perform research. At the same time, the need to live in a very different society than the one I came from also taught me a lot about people, and about how to deal with life. In hindsight, I am very sure that I would have been both a lesser person and a lesser scientist if not for these other places I lived and worked at. Again, this is my very own experience, though I heard similar stories by most people. Especially those people who went to a place, which was welcoming to them, if not always simple to deal with.

So, I have now both a strong argument against moving and in favor of moving. And really, I could not decide for me, which is now the stronger point. I am pretty sure that everyone has an opinion about this, but this is probably very individual. Still, in my personal experience most people who have moved to different places are better scientist, and also often show better abilities in dealing with the not hardcore-technical part of science.

While their maybe no optimal choice for everyone on the previous issue, there is certainly one part, in which we can make the whole story better for everyone: Predictability. Right now, you usually move to a place, and while there, you somehow need to get a new position somewhere else for the time afterwards. Usually on a two-year or three-year basis. Until you hit jackpot, and get a permanent position. Which, depending on the country, can take a decade or so. Especially not knowing where things go next, and how long, is in my experience something which makes everything, especially with social nets, much, much harder. On top of this, especially older scientists, insist that some places are as a place important, and you have to go there to be a good scientist. This latter point is very annoying, because it usually boils down to where money is, and where the best people in marketing are, and this creates a self-sustaining cycle. But this is an aspect of late-stage capitalistic science I will write about sometimes else.

Thus, in my opinion, the best compromise between the drawbacks of moving and the advantages of moving could be achieved by making this predictable. Say, you have six years to move around, including say three moves, and there is an assessment every two years, and if all of them are sufficiently positive, then you have a permanent position at the place where you came from. This should make it possible to plan your life. Also, knowing that the stress on the social net is only temporary, this may more often than not preventing it from tearing.

Sure, this will still not be a workable solution for everyone. There are too many individual issues, which cannot be taken into account with a one-fits-all solution. Thus, it is still necessary to help individual researchers to work around their individual situations.

Still, in the end, this means arguably that I think moving around, at least for a while, is important. It is just right now not supported in a good way. However, it will likely be impossible to quantify my personal experience generally. There are far too many soft factors involved. And, of course, I also encountered the occasional exception.

The take-home message for me from these considerations is that I will put effort into making going abroad more sustainable, but will not argue against it. Also, I will counsel everyone about all the aspects one has to think about, and the deliberate obstructions one currently faces, as well as the impact it has beyond work. Thus, everyone can at least make an informed decision, though unfortunately not yet a free one. I hope that I can contribute in changing this.