In a
survey recently conducted by The Scientist magazine, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) ranked 15th among U.S. institutions as the best places to work for postdocs. This is a move up two slots from NRL's 17th place ranking last year.
In the fall of 2012, email invitations were sent to readers of The Scientist and registered users on The Scientist web site who were identified as non-tenured life scientists working in academia or other non-commercial research institutions. There were more than 2,000 useable and qualified responses received. The rankings consist of 53 U.S. institutions and 8 non-U.S. institutions that received 5 or more responses in the survey.
Postdocs were asked to assess their working environment based on criteria such as quality of training and mentoring, value of postdoc experience, career development opportunities, pay and benefits, and funding. Listed as two of NRL's biggest strengths were family and personal life and quality of communication. The 15th place ranking positions NRL among other renowned organizations like Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Duke University, Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.