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How did Russia produce a comparable COVID vaccine with inferior resources?
It seems that the Sputnik V is slightly less effective than the most effective vaccines (Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech), but has some advantages as well (in particular it can be stored at higher temperatures, and it is cheaper), such that it is not clearly inferior.
How did Russia produce a vaccine of comparable quality to its competitors? I would've thought that money and talent are the two biggest drivers of quality research, yet Russia seems to be well behind its competitors on both these metrics:

Russian R&D spending is way less than the US/Germany, as well as Belgium on a per capita basis; and
Russian universities do poorly on international rankings, implying that the best brains do not work in Russia

Only other thing I can think of is luck, but I intuitively dislike luck as an explanation since it is applicable to many things.
I'm asking this on Academia.SE because it's more a question about research process than about politics.

International rankings tell nothing about quality of research at a particular place. They are usually a pr tool aimed at attracting more students (and more $). I am sure if you look at rankings designed in China there will be Chinese universities at the top, just like the Americans are there in the ones designed in the US (commonly seen in internet).

@sleepy as I understanding there are three widely-followed rankings: Times, QS, and ARWU. All three of them are dominated by US and UK universities, even the ARWU, which is a Chinese ranking. There is a Russian list that places Moscow State University as one of the best in the world, but it was ridiculed for that reason: https://web.archive.org/web/20120427200649/http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=410253&c=1

Overall R&D spending may not be the important metric here if enough of it goes into a single project. Regarding university metrics: they probably are a better measure of success (however defined) than of talent (of which there seems to be an abundance everywhere).

"implying that the best brains do not work in Russia": this is a non sequitur. You can have the greatest brain, but if you live in country with economic and social problems, sometimes at war with neighboring countries, you may not be able to express your brain much.

Regarding the aspect "money", the COVID19 vaccines are surely a special case due to their importance. Even if the per-capita spending is lower as far as overall research funding is concerned, they might have spent extraordinary amounts of money to develop an effective vaccine.

A lot of R&D spending in this specific sector in thewestern world is performed in private companies.
R&D spending in private companies must be performed at the astronomical commercial costs, not the public servant cost. If you discount for that, the gap between Russia and Western countries gets smaller.
Then there is efficency, it is likely that one hour of work in a western company is more productive than one hour of work in a Russian institution. However, if the cost per hour is much cheaper, you can spend many more hours, getting to the same final product.

This question conflates university spending with industrial innovation in a specific field. The two need not be well correlated.  It's the same case for Indian pharmaceuticals also, which are thriving (and also have come up with a comparable vaccine), without many universities making it to the top lists.

I am voting to close because this is about the content of research.

Also, this question seems to be "Why are completely unrelated things uncorrelated for small sample size?"  And why single out Russia and not mention China or India?  I'd say Cuba is the real outlier, with 2 phase 3 trials running.  This question will not be answerable until all the vaccine projects have succeeded or failed, which will take quite a while.

This is a question about vaccine development not Academia.

And to answer the question: developing a viral vaccine is not an impossible to solve very difficult problem. The classic (non RNA based) approach is technically quite straightforward. And also does not require enormous resources. For example, (even for the somewhat novel delivery vector vaccine now known as Astra Zeneca) Oxford started working on the vaccine in Jan '20, had a vaccine by March '20 (probably earlier), and started clinical trials in April. It is the testing and guaranteeing that a vaccine works and is safe that takes up the majority of time and money!!

Just to make sure: I don't want to belittle the achievement. Making and producing a COVID-19 vaccine is huge obviously. But it mostly rests on prior fundamental research and an understanding how everything works. The actual final step is of course exciting and we all witnessed a great race in which years of clinical trials got reduced to mere months. But there's nothing even remotely weird about Russian or Chinese researchers producing a working vaccine.

@user2705196 maybe there's nothing weird about Russian researchers producing a working vaccine, but how did they make a vaccine that is about as good as the one made by people who are presumably 1) smarter and 2) better funded?

@AppliedAcademic if that is the case, then some kind of statistic showing that Russian vaccinologists are not less talented than their competitors in other countries would answer the question.

@Allure: Plenty of that history is easily accessed via a Google search, eg. https://www.google.com/amp/s/theprint.in/science/covid-vaccine-sputnik-v-isnt-an-exception-russia-has-a-history-of-radical-medical-experiments/480093/%3famp

@AppliedAcademic that link doesn't say Russian vaccinologists are as talented as their peers in other countries however. It only says Russians are more willing to participate in trials of the vaccine. Since that doesn't actually affect the efficacy of the vaccine (only the speed at which results are gathered), I don't see how that answers the question.

The answer to this question, unfortunately, cannot be other than political. There is nothing extraordinary about the research processes. It is necessary to study the history of Russia, or rather the USSR, in terms of public health and education. Then your doubts will be cleared. Something similar happens with Cuba. Almost any country can have the basic resources and money for this, the key here is: State policies.

@Allure- indeed. My objective was to indicate to you that a wealth of information is easily accessible through a regular search that may expand your perspective on this issue. As such, I don't think the question stands because it is based on an unsupported premise. I could give more examples, but I unfortunately don't see a way to do that without getting political. :)

@AppliedAcademic what search terms do you use? Using terms such as "how good are russian vaccinologists" returns nothing relevant; furthermore searching Web of Science core collection for papers with the word "vaccine" published in the last five years finds tens of thousands of papers published with US funding, 4055 acknowledging NSFC funding, 2793 with European Commission funding, etc, and only 153 acknowledging Russian funding. I am not convinced the premise is unsupported.

@AppliedAcademic Further analysis: the 153 papers acknowledging Russian funding have a h-index of 15, with an average of 5.43 citations per paper. Comparatively the 9898 papers with NIH funding have a h-index of 113 and an average of 13.12 citations per paper. I am not convinced the premise is unsupported, in fact it seems more supported than unsupported.

@Allure- I am saying that the research spending and research output in form of journal papers is not necessarily correlated with the establishment of a robust industrial operation. This is essentially what vaccine development and production is today, not predicated on advances in fundamental science, like say, the findings at CERN. I think another commenter tried to make the same point. As for search terms, your query is rather loaded and I suspect will only lead to Quora-type discussions. Just search for 'russia vaccine history'.

@AppliedAcademic are we talking about the same premise? In my case, I am referring to the statement "the best brains do not work in Russia" in the question, or "Russian vaccinologists are less talented compared to their peers in other countries".

@Allure- no, I am talking about what I stated in my first comment, namely, "This question conflates university spending with industrial innovation in a specific field. The two need not be well correlated." In other words, you can't judge how robust an industry is based on the corresponding research spending or academic output. I can see that there would be a correlation in countries with strong industry-academia links, but this is not the case everywhere.

Sorry for the necroposting. I happen to have relatively close insights about Russian vaccinologists and scientists in general. Do not be fooled by the average spending: some of the best brains still very much work in Russia. In the West, you might have 1 brilliant lab, 19 good labs and 80 a-okay labs out of 100, whereas in Russia it could be 2 brilliant and 98 worthless ones. Most ratings poorly reflect the research capabilities of Russian institutions, too, especially the most well-funded ones (those dealing with matters of "national interest" - military-related research, gas&oil...).

The key aspect people in the West sometimes (often?) fail to realize about Russia is that "common sense" often does not work. Russian scientists have obtained some prominent results, sometimes years before their Western colleagues, even after the fall of the USSR (side note - it is mostly fields that have survived since that are doing well)... Only to do nothing then. If you achieve a strong result in the West, the industry picks it up in no time. In Russia, unless the state specifically intervenes (in which case, it might get classified), it never makes it to the general public.

Since this has been necro-ed, we can now add context for how Russia managed to come up with a vaccine. They probably stole it from the West. A simple Google search will find lots of corroborating evidence for this viewpoint. Sputnik was based on the Oxford vaccine.

Ranking or spending money is only secondary metrics how to evaluate and compare performance e.g. among universities or countries or continents.
But I think fundamental is society, it's history and its attitude. I had opportunity to live and experience research in "western" country institute for couple years. This experience may apply to general research as well as to hunting vaccine competition:

Oh your idea is great, let try and start
we give you some time and administrative support to enhance the idea
big pharma as well as small startups are close to university labs, so it's not hard to do quick experiments, trials, prototypes. Some networking events, conferences are common.
you're good in what you're doing, we're among the best in the world

Now back in "central & eastern" european country usually underestimated. I now experience this attitude:

Oh your idea is interesting, but somebody (from western countries) already works on this issue
administrative support? Write proposal by yourself and we will only evaluate if the 'quota' was not reached so you won't compete with "more preferred" teams.
usually big pharma or small startups are not close to university labs - if yes, that is "conflict of interest" and you "try to sell knowledge to nasty rich companies"
there are better teams in the world in the topic doing what you do.
you did unappropriate public critical comments about our dean, prime minister, president, ..., so forget for support

So as a result I can guess that in countries and societies from first group ("western") there are e.g. 20-50 teams trying different approach despite their political or other context. 2-5 succeed, the others that fail - they are not usually prosecuted but gain valuable experience. Some earn money and pay taxes, some become rich and invest again to western business and all society in general profits.
I guess that in countries and societies from second group ("eastern") only 2-5 teams try to make  vaccine, other were disqualified by any point mentioned above. If 1 succeed despite condition - it is big success! Congratulation to Sputnik V! They earn money, probably pay taxes, some become rich and invest where? Do they rather to emigrate to west, not to be imprisoned like Navalnyj or Khodorkovskij? What about the other teams that do not succeed - are they prosecuted?
So in case of western approach - the luck is just statistical success rate.


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CNRS postdoc research position in France - no mention of application procedure and one can apply just with CV and cover letter it seems (is it true?)
I'm looking at a few CNRS postdoc positions in France, and quite strangely I don't ever see any mention of application procedure. There's an 'apply' button where one can upload the CV and cover letter, but no place to ever upload recommendations. You can check this yourself by going to
https://emploi.cnrs.fr/RechercheAvancee.aspx
and do a quick search. But I'm picking some samples for you to see:

Here's another:

The only exception where they're asking for references is here (thankful to the person who pointed it out on this site:)

And after I click on 'apply', I go here: see here they're only requesting CV, cover letter and the project, that's all - no references!

Does this mean that the recommendations/referenced aren't necessary for the CNRS postdoc positions at all? It'd be really good to know!
What if one wants to supply some other documents to her/his candidature? How can (s)he upload them? Or is it just not possible?

I don't know about CNRS specifically, but recommendation letters are not a universal thing (luckily).

But under "Additional Information," they tell you where to send rec letters?

@gnometorule perhaps that should be an answer.

@gnometorule Yes they do and I was too late to notice that. But I assure you that it was not the case generally. Just go to https://emploi.cnrs.fr/RechercheAvancee.aspx and do a search and see for yourself that they're not asking for recommendations (which isn't a bad thing anyway), so I'm checking here. Modifying the question to avoid negative points now.

@Massimo Would you hire a postdoc without any recommendation letter (or other form of endorsement)?

@user151413 Yes, indeed. The selection should stand on itself. The problem of recommendation letters is that one's chance of being hired should not depend on someone else's capacity for writing recommendation letters. Indeed if a colleague of mine, someone I know personally, recommends someone, I'd happier, but it should not be fundamental.

@MassimoOrtolano My point is not the quality of the letters, but their non-existence: If the PhD supervisor doesn't think their student deserves a letter, then this feels like a red flag. Badly written letters is a different story, that's not my point. But if a candidate is not able to provide any type of letter by their supervisor, would you hire them, unless everything else was stellar and/or you knew that their supervisor had a, let's say, difficult character?

If you really want to, add the reference names and contacts at the end of your CV, and state in the cover letter that reference letter can be provided or requested at the given referees.
I am not sure how is the "standard French CV", it may expected to have a reference section at the end, however you are applying in English so it is likely you have a lot of freedom in the formatting of your CV.
Final reccomnedation: contact the department secretary, human resources or even the responsible research person for further informations on choices that may affect your chances of getting a working position, not random stranger on the internet. Whatever information we provide you here, it is likely to be outdated as soon as CNRS changes its system.

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Upon my request prior to a faculty application in France, I was invited to give a talk. Should I travel at their expense or better give it online?
So after a few postdocs in applied math (PhD in pure math), I'm currently outside academia with a part time teaching position in France. I'm in the process of applying to a lab in the South of France for a permanent faculty (Maitre des Conférences) position and I contacted the head of research and upon my request, was invited to a give a talk. Now in the form that I was asked to fill up online, there were two options: i) an online talk and ii) a talk in the presence of the team (and in this case, the form explicitly asked if I wanted that the lab took charge of the mission, which I'd assume financially: travel, lodging, food...) Initially I chose the online one, because I thought it'd be strange to visit at the lab's expense if I'd give the talk offline. However, upon I initially submitted the form with ticking/checking the online talk option, I sent a brief email to the the head of the lab stating that if she preferred, I could travel to them and give a talk, to which she replied that both options (online and offline) were okay with her. I didn't reply to that yet.
So now I'm thinking if I could change it to the offline/physical talk and travel to the South of France, because this would give me more opportunity to see what other people in the lab were doing as well, which might not be possible in just an online talk. But what's bothering me is that if I tick the box that I want the lab to take charge of the mission financially. Will it look strange if I ask for financial support (since I'm the one requesting to give a  talk purely for the fact that I'd like to apply to the lab and hence network, isn't it strange if I say I need financial support to travel there?). I'd be grateful if you could please let me know what I should do - I'd like to pay for my own visit, given my financial budget.

Back when I was on the job market I had a related situation with a school in the US (they wanted to interview me, but were unwilling to fully pay for an international trip). My postdoc advisor, very reasonably, asked me if I really wanted to work for an uni that cannot even afford the expenses to fly me over for an interview.

In short - if this is a reasonable lab they won't mind the few EUR to cover your expenses, and most likely they will also prefer to meet you in person.

It will not look strange - you are not being reimbursed for your application, you are being reimbursed for the expenses of your free talk (which happens to give you and the team an opportunity to meet IRL). This is 100% normal (at least for a night of lodging and food).

Think about the budget from their perspective. They are trying to decide whether to offer you a permanent job. That means paying you several thousand euros per month for the foreseeable future with no easy way for them to back out. Spending a few hundred euros once is a completely irrelevant amount if it helps them make a better decision.

In the US, it is not at all unusual to fly prospective graduate students across the country to interview for positions. For a department to suggest even that the students should pay for themselves seems very cheap. For a prospective professor to be asked to pay for their own travel within a small country like France sounds would shock me, but of course customs differ.

There's a reason not to travel, but it's not for everyone: travelling (especially if you fly) is bad for the environment.

If they are still considering multiple applicants. Going there in person will generally increase you chances on the job, because it shows that you are interested and willing to invest time. Please do not think, that by not physically going and saving some of the money they would like to pay for you to come over will increase your chances.

The uni has done you a disservice by even offering the option of traveling at your own expense.  It should be either an online talk, or traveling at their expense.  Only if you were already quite close (so that there was effectively no travel involved in the first place) would I consider interviewing on site without accepting their funding of the trip.

I see no reason not to travel, ahead of making a decision, to a place where you might decide to live and work for decades.
An on-site visit will reveal so much more about the collegiality of the work and life environment than just an online talk.
Why would you want to pay out-of-pocket?  Allowing your “host” to cover your expenses will also get you insight into their administrative structure.

Why quotes on "host"? I'd call them hosts unironically.

@AzorAhai-him- I'm guessing he means its not any one in the lab personally covering their expenses, but rather research funds of the lab.

I guess it's perfectly cromulent in my dialect to call a lab hosting you with reach funds a host.

@AzorAhai-him- no irony intended.  Just not sure if then host is a person, an organization, or how much hosting will actually take place.

I am French, I went through the whole application process a few years ago (in maths if that's relevant).
It is extremely common to invite (paying for expenses) applicants for an offline talk at the weekly seminar series of the department. I, along with many other applicants for Maître de Conférences positions, have been invited several times to different departments.
I would say go for it, the online option is here if you cannot travel or would prefer to stay remote for any reason. Otherwise, the offline option is the default (and the online option basically did not exist before Covid).

Thank you Victor for your answer! I'm applying for math and applied math positions only (I applied for CNU qualifications for these ones only plus my PhD is in math and postdoc + industry research relates to applied math). I honestly didn't know about this practice of inviting candidates for a talk, probably because I've been outside academia since 2018 and I'm a non-EU citizen, and thus I'm a bit academically isolated. I was wondering if it'd be possible to contact you via email/LinkedIn etc to ask a few questions about MCF applications?

Let me add that, in France, the travel expenses for the formal recruiting process itself (the audition, which sees all selected candidates have a short interview on the same day) are rarely reimbursed. You should thus take advantage of this paid opportunity to meet people in the department and investigate if the position suits you. Thanks to Covid, official interviews can take place offline.

Another point is that there is a limited window of opportunity with the invitation. Once the candidates for a position are known/declared, the deadline being around early April, the department cannot invite some for a regular seminar, usually, for fear of others protesting in court at an unfair treatment.

@ScienceMan Yes of course, I'd be glad to give you some pointers, although I don't know how since I'd rather not share my private info in this public forum...

@Victor Totally understandable and thanks anyway! They're asking for a document called 'presentation analytique', which I understand to be a detailed CV with the description of research and teaching activities. So I combined my detailed CV (with work experience, publications, references, teaching experience...) with a statement of research interests, where I gave brief details of each project I finished or am working on. I however didn't include a long description of a project that's more detailed. I was wondering if that'll be okay? Having no connection to the French academia, I'm bit unsure.

@ScienceMan Disclaimer: I did not get a Maître de Conférences position, but a Junior Researcher one at Inria, so take what I say with a grain of salt; Xi'an may confirm or infirm what I say. From my point of view, what you propose should be enough. From what I understood It is important to try and make your research understandable since some members of the committee may not be from your specific domain (but keeping some meat for the experts is also good). There's no real limit on the "CV analytique", I think mine was around 30 pages, so one page on the detailed project could be doable.

In my experience, though not in France, if you are invited to give an on-site talk the expenses will be covered completely. There is an advantage in that, in that you get to meet people more personally than is possible online.
And, likewise, it is better for the institution to have a chance to meet you in person and to see how you interact with the current people. That is worth some expense to most places. In addition to a formal talk, be prepared for informal meetings over, say, coffee.
Other than COVID, I would personally favor the face to face meeting, with at least a day on campus to meet and talk to people.
But, you can ask if you aren't certain about the coverage of costs. And no, it isn't strange.

It's not just about the talk.
An on-site visit will give them a chance to consider "do I want to work with this guy, for years" or "do I want to have a beer with this guy?". Nobody want to work with a jerk even if they are world class researcher.
You also have the same chance to judge them.

Paying the expenses (either through reimbursement or through arranging the services for them) of people who come visit them during the hiring process is the cost of doing buisness if they want to recruit the best talent from a relatively small global pool. You shouldn't feel bad about it.
A whole lot of time and money (both yours and theirs) will be wasted if you take the job and it doesn't work out. It's in their interests to suss out as much about you and whether you will be a good fit, and it is in your interests to suss out as much as possible about whether the place is somewhere you will want to work.
The pandemic has forced us into doing stuff online, that we would previously have done in person. On-paper it certainly seems more efficient to do stuff remotely than to spend many hours travelling.
In practice though, tools like zoom are a poor substitute for real human interaction, it gives you no opertunity to check out the broader aspects of the role and location and gives them no opertunity to see what you are like in a more informal situation.
IMO if you are serious about the role you should go in person.

The other answers already explained all the benefits of going in person, so I won't repeat them.
I want to emphasize the budget aspect: let them pay. The interview process is a two-way thing: the lab/uni is not "doing you a favour" by interviewing you, they're also trying to fill a position with a person who is a good fit. Academic positions are highly specialised, the suitable candidates are highly qualified, and institutions shouldn't expect to get access to the best possible candidate pool if they don't invest into the hiring process.
Additionally, a lot of applications to entry-level academic positions come from postdocs. Postdoc positions rarely have glamorous pay. And academic positions are quite hard to obtain -- meaning it's likely that a person will interview for more than one. Covering their own interview expenses would likely limit most young researchers to look for local positions only.
Covering the candidate's expenses is good interview practice -- it makes these positions more easily accessible to a more diverse pool of candidates and shows the institution's dedication to fit the best fit for the role.

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Why do " 'inclusive' access" textbooks normally self-destruct after a year or so?
Background information (you can skip this)
There's a technology called automatic textbook billing, or "inclusive" access (IA). It is also known by many other names.
With IA, students are generally billed automatically for e-textbooks, unless they opt out.
Disadvantages of IA
There are many issues with IA, including cost, format, expiry, and other issues.
Instead of using IA, faculty can adopt free online Open Educational Resource (OER) textbooks. OERs are cheaper. Also, unlike IA, OERs may improve academic outcomes. (Source.) Sadly, many faculty don't know much about OERs. (PDF source.)
Advantages of IA
IA increases publishers' revenues. This lets them produce slides, videos, test banks, and more. It also lets them produce textbooks which are far more polished than free online Open Educational Resource (OER) textbooks.
My question
IA textbooks normally self-destruct after a year or so. (Source.) This can cause problems for students. (Example.)
Perhaps it might be in textbook publishers' best interest to offer students extended access to their IA textbooks, longer than one year. Publishers could offer this either for no additional cost, or for an additional fee.
Long-term access might make students and instructors happier, at little or no cost to the publisher. And it might invalidate at least one common criticism of IA.
Traditional e-textbook retailers often do offer customers a choice between rental or perpetual purchase. (Example.) The perpetual purchase option may cost more, but at least it's possible.
But I'm not aware of any IA providers which offer long-term access as part of their IA programs. Why not?
Related

Why don't " 'inclusive' access" textbook publishers find a way to prevent resale, without requiring automatic textbook self-destruction after a year?
Is it ethical for a lecturer to require students to purchase an online learning kit where kit is used for course assessments?

Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on [meta], or in [chat]. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.

But I'm not aware of any IA providers which offer long-term access as part of their IA programs. Why not?

Apparently because they have found this not to be in their best interest. Companies are not in it to make customers happy: they are in it to make money. Happiness of customers is only a consideration towards an end. So, one might speculate that textbook companies have done market research showing that offering long-term access:

Would not bring in substantial additional profit.
Might undermine the market for students who, for some reason, currently purchase short-term access multiple times.
Would not prevent students from switching to competitors.

And especially Textbook publishers do not have to make their customers happy, because they don't choose the book, so there's no market incentive

@Hobbamok Professors do chose the book, and many of them are sensitive to market-like incentives, such as "value for the student." If two books were otherwise identical, but one self-destructed and the other didn't, I daresay that every professor I know would chose the second one. However, the things that make professors happy are not necessarily the things that make students happy, so they overcome that by offering things like LMS integration, stats/reports on students' reading, etc.

@David they are influenced by it, yes, but  not to the extend that the students are

Rent seeking.  Replacing durable goods with artificially consumable goods is very common because it is profitable.  Every industry that can is switching to a software-as-a-service model because they think that is where the money is.
Planned obsolescence is a long-standing practice in the textbook business.  Publishers used to renumber homework problems to make old books obsolete.  Deactivating digital books is a new version of the same thing.

Does this example rejects your hypothesis?

How long will students be able to keep their e-textbooks in this model?
Students receive perpetual or long-term access under this
agreement. All publishers have agreed that e-textbooks acquired in
this model will be available to students after their course ends. A
student who transfers from one Ohio institution to another will keep
access to textbooks acquired at their first institution, and for
publisher platforms with a digital bookshelf, access will be granted
via a student’s username and password. Students can also download
e-textbooks to their digital devices and store them locally

Which publishers are currently participating?
As of today, OhioLINK has agreements with McGraw-Hill Education, Pearson, Cengage
and SAGE Publishing

I think it is fair eternal online hosting is not included in a discounted price.
On the other hand, you should expect that your students can save a permanent copy (PDF) of the textbook along with any notes.
No reason not to negotiate that, and obviously it was possible for Ohiolink.

Nice find! You've invalidated the last paragraph of my original post, which starts "But I'm not aware". Dear all: What should I do now, if anything?

One caveat:  I doubt that OhioLink IA actually lets students save a PDF of the current edition of an entire book.  I assume they just offer very-long-term hosting.


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After a few years away from school, inactive students may need to reapply for admission. Why?
At many schools in America, undergraduate students can freely take a semester or two off.  But some students might want to take a longer break:  perhaps two or three years.
At many schools, after multiple years of time off, a student must reapply for admission.  This may cost ~$100, and may require five or more pages of paperwork.  (Transcripts might not be needed, if the school still has them on file.)  Readmission is not guaranteed.  Why do many schools require this reapplication for admission?
I think the reapplication might be a waste of resources, for both the student and the school.
Also, the student may be busy with work, family responsibilities, and/or mental-health issues.  The reapplication requirement may discourage the student's return.  It may increase the unfortunate chance that the student will never graduate.  This, in turn, might also decrease the school's graduation rate statistics.

In theory, the application fee covers the cost to the university of processing that application, in terms of staff time and other expenses.  So by requiring a fee, there isn't any net waste of time or money to the admissions office; there may even be a profit.

that Q is very open-ended. Is there a real practical problem you are trying to solve?

"Why do many schools require this reapplication for admission?"
Because the student has already demonstrated they are unreliable so their suitability needs to be reassessed with that information in hand.

@aaaaasaysreinstateMonica:  I've added a postscript to the question, to explain.

Related but not directly - a danger of slowing taking classes again is that some schools require all your credits to be accomplished within a limited time window. (I don't know U Alberta's current rules but when I attended it was seven years) If they're planning on carrying past work forward make sure it doesn't "expire" before they graduate!

"Reapplying", at least in my school, is an administrative process that doesn't involve the admissions office or process.  It just means that they're doing due diligence I gence about whether whatever took you out of school has been resolved.

To encourage students not to drop out in the first place by adding a barrier to that path. You're right, schools are ranked in part on having a path to successful graduation, but the university likely sees it as more important to retain the students they have than to facilitate returning, because they know the chances of people returning once they quit are quite low.

The size of the student body has some practical limitations on it. If a student drops out and then decides to come back, they need a "slot" again. It may seem like a burden on the student to make them reapply, but it would be similarly unfair to another student who applied and would have been accepted except for this returning student who took their spot and has since shown themselves to be a bit less reliable as a student on account of having dropped out once. Reapplying gives the university a new chance to evaluate whether they think the student is likely to complete their studies over another student they'd enroll instead.

Because there are administrative costs to this student's actions, and application fees are a way for the university to pay their administrative costs and discourage a student from opting to return, registering for classes, and then dropping out before tuition is due. Requiring an application fee forces the student to buy-in a bit and show that their interest in continuing is at least worth a fee that is quite small in relation to the overall time commitment of an undergraduate program.

To encourage students not to drop out in the first place by adding a barrier to that path. - Is this really part of administrators' logic behind this rule?  I would guess that most students wouldn't even think about/be aware of this before being on leave for several semesters already.  (Your reasons 2 and 3 sound much more compelling to me.)

@Kimball I think Nate Eldredge's answer provides an additional bit of detail; they want to have as many students graduate within 6 years as possible, fewer is even better. I'd expect an institution to be proactive in giving notice to withdrawing students and those who have been gone a year that they must re-enroll now or else pay fees and reapply. I don't know how effective that pressure is but it's more than nothing and might be the encouragement some students need to finish now rather than putting it off.

The large public university in my area has an opt-in program that encourages students to graduate in 4 years, which was the customary duration of an undergraduate degree -- yes, even in engineering -- when I was a student 40 years ago.

It's possible that over the next few years you'll see many colleges, especially non-selective colleges, reduce barriers to returning. Colleges are competing for a declining number of prospective students (the size of each high school graduation cohort is shrinking each year and a lower percentage of HS grads are going to college) and are looking for ways to increase enrollment.

@shoover I don't understand what you mean. Graduation in 4 years is the expected timeline, so what are they opting into, exactly?

@AzorAhai-him- Over the years, so many students have not graduated in 4 years but have stretched that time to 5 years, 6 years, or never. That's why, as Bryan Krause alludes in his comment and as Nate Eldredge says in his answer, the 6-year graduation rate is measured.

@shoover I don't understand your reply. I asked about your statement "The large public university in my area has an opt-in program that encourages students to graduate in 4 years." But this is the default expectation, so what are they opting into, exactly?

@AzorAhai-him- I don't know where you're from, but the university I'm speaking of, which serves a large population of students who are non-wealthy, non-white, and/or the first in their family to attend college, has seen its 4-year graduation rate rise from about 18% to about 45% over the past 12 years, and its 6-year rate rise from 48% to about 65% for the same cohorts. Over the same period, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center has measured and reported on the six-year completion rates for four-year schools... 1/3

...and the three-year completion rates for two-year schools. Recent reports have added the eight-year completion rates for four-year schools. The numbers in these reports show that the university I'm speaking of has a six-year graduation rate slightly below average for public four-year institutions. One of the sites that ranks colleges says, "Unless stated otherwise, 'graduation rate' refers to the percentage of college entrants who graduate from the first institute they attended within six years." 2/3

Even US News uses the six-year graduation rate. While the goal may be to graduate in 4 years, that's not the expectation by any means, nor is it across the board, which is why graduation rates are usually presented at the 6-year level. So what these students are opting into is a pledge to graduate from a four-year school in four years, which is no longer the norm, if it ever was. 3/3

@shoover. Thanks for the added details. From my perspective, 4 years remains very much the cultural and academic norm but this isn’t the space to go much further

This, in turn, might also decrease the school's graduation rate statistics.

Not really.  Graduation rate statistics are usually based on four-year, five-year, and six-year graduation rates; see for instance in the Common Data Set, items B4-B21.  Thus a student who graduates but takes more than six years to do so is equivalent, for statistical purposes, to one who never graduates at all.
As such, graduation rate statistics don't actually provide an incentive to readmit students who have taken significant time off, since they won't be able to graduate within six years of their initial enrollment and so cannot be a "credit" in those statistics.  On the contrary, this means universities have an incentive to discourage students from taking off for more than a year or two, and requiring such students to apply for readmission has this effect.

Interesting! What about part-time students, who take, say, eight or ten years to graduate? Do they simply push graduation rates down? Perhaps statisticians should collect data on both six-year and 20-year graduation rates.

@unforgettableidSupportsMonica: As explained in the CDS document, only full-time, degree-seeking students are to be counted in those statistics, so part-time students don't affect the rate at all.

(That is, students who started as full-time.  A student who starts as full time and then voluntarily switches to part time, taking more than six years to graduate, will pull the rate down.  A student who started as part time will not be counted at all.)


text:
Giving instructions on how to use ChatGPT in academic homework
I am currently noticing that students are submitting essays where they have used ChatGPT to produce the text of their essay assignments. On some occasions, they have used it to correct the writing of the text. However, on other occasions, they have used it to answer the essay question directly. My idea is not to prohibit it but to teach them to work with it as a tool.
Do you have resources on this regard? For example, I recently found a teacher on Twitter who included in his instructions how students should use ChatGPT. In this regard, some of the caveats were aimed at citing if they have used ChatGPT in their essays and what kind of instructions they have used. Warning them that using it and not citing it can be considered plagiarism. Unfortunately, I didn't save the tweet.

Depends what level of use are you allowing the students. For example, would it be allowed to have another student provide the same service as Chat-GPT (correcting or providing paragraphs) if their name is listed in the acknowledgements?

@dubious If that student is helping to proofread the text there would be no problem. In this sense, the ideas and how they relate to the content of the subject matter are more important than the writing of the text itself.

At my university the program administrators are currently working on a combined guideline and policy document. I do not think I am allowed to share yet, but I suspect similar efforts will be ongoing in many places of higher education.

Some classes are about learning a subject matter, such as art history. In these classes, it's most important that students learn the material and can think about it critically, so I can see using Chat-GPT as a tool. But in other classes, especially writing classes, the subject is really about practicing a skill, one that will truly benefit students if they can handle it on command once they're out of school. In these situations, using Chat-GPT means not getting the practice, which means not getting the main benefit of taking the course..

Warning: ChatGPT makes up stuff. One journalist found out that according to ChatGPT, he was dead. Including a link to his obituary. Link didn't work Someone else found that he was guilty of sexual harassment. In a place where he had never been, a university that he never visited. Someone asked for a list of ten books related to some subject, got three real books, three books with the wrong author, and four books with made up but reasonably sounding title and author.

@gnasher729, ... so maybe Tucker Carlson was an early, failed version of AI stuff? :)

Related: How to give exercises when students can use ChatGPT

@Kevin that's the point. Honestly, in my classes, the concept and learning how to link different ideas are more important than the writing skill itself.

There's a discussion around LLM/ChatGPT for programming courses. There are valuable nuggets from there you can adapt for essays.
You are on the right track, or rather, I'm in agreement with your approach of teach them to work with it as a tool.
In drafting a policy for conversational AI/LLM, I see engaging them more of learning scaffolding.
Students must disclose their use and how they are used. Students must take ownership and must show their creativity.
What we can and should do is getting the students on the path of purposive engagement as assistive tools, leveraging them for their critical appraisal and thinking.
Inbtw, there're tools that detect text/essays written by conversational AI. Openai, the ChatGPT 'creator', has one: AI Text Classifier

As for the last sentence, note the statement from the linked website: "As of July 20, 2023, the AI classifier is no longer available due to its low rate of accuracy. We are working to incorporate feedback and are currently researching more effective provenance techniques for text, and have made a commitment to develop and deploy mechanisms that enable users to understand if audio or visual content is AI-generated."

I'm a lowly PhD student who's not yet formally taught a class, but here's my initial reaction: Chat GPT can be used for coding/data cleaning purposes (when necessary), and it can also be fine for spell checking. However, where I sort of would draw the line is them formally using it to write the paper. The paper should be the student's work, not Chat GPTs work.
I don't know how to check if chat GPT's been used, but that's my view on it. As someone who writes code for statistics purposes, GPT can be quite useful for a variety of problems (not that I've used it). But, it should not (nor should we expect it to) replace the human analysts, and that philosophy matters in the classroom too. In other words, it can be used as an awesome supplement to one's work-- never as a substitute. So, I think your idea is just fine, so long as you can check to see if it was used and how. The main thing to be concerned about, I think, is how to know if someone actually did use it, but did not disclose it. I'm sure people who have worked with it would have a better idea than I would.

Oh dear, do not use ChatGPT for data cleaning or anything where you are relying on the output. This is terrifying.

I should've worded it better: I wasn't ADVISING someone to do that. I was just saying that it shouldn't be banned. Like if I were grading an exam and someone said they used GPT for cleaning, I'd be like "Okay I guess, go ahead, but it messed something up (as is likely) that's on YOU, not the robot.

If not banned, it should at least be disclosed so that everyone else can dismiss the work appropriately. I saw someone touting ChatGPT's efficacy in data cleaning at "85% accurate!" They thought this was a good thing. 85%. This is a toy, not a tool.

@BryanKrause, maybe not "dismiss", but "distrust"...

@paulgarrett Yes, that's a better word.

When asked why plagiarism is bad, this is one reason to be honest about authorship and not to plagiarise I always include this one: to which degree can I trust this text?


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Ethical GPA rounding
I am applying for a master's program in the US and am not sure how I should present my GPA ethically when discussing it. I have an undergrad total GPA of 3.394 and when asked to put in my undergrad GPA it only gives room for 2 digits and nothing more. EX: 3.0. Can I round up my GPA since it's so close to 3.4, or would this be unethical and I should round down to 3.3?
To make this as general as possible: How should one round their GPA when only 2 digits are accepted, and they're less than .05 away from the next digit?

Standard rounding rules would say anything larger than 3.35 should be rounded to 3.4, so 3.394 definitely should.

Just to play devil's advocate, I'm guessing that the form doesn't actually say to be "rounding" it, we're just inferring that. Arguably they may expect it to be truncated instead. (Not that it would be my top guess.)

My undergraduate GPA was X.Y5, I wish I had known rounding to X.Z (Z=Y+1) was proper.

You round up at 1/2 boundaries and down below it.  Just don't round successively, so that 3.498 -> 3.5 -> hey 4.0!  Nor

There are widely accepted standard rounding rules: any number greater than or equal to 3.35 should be rounded up to 3.4.  There is no reason to expect that an application would want non-conventional rules for rounding GPAs.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
How much of a master's program would a Ph.D. admissions committee consider?
I will be starting a master's degree in applied mathematics in the U.S. this fall and am considering entering a Ph.D. program after this. The master's program lasts two years; I'd want to begin the Ph.D. program immediately after, in the fall of 2019. In order to do that, I'd need to apply to programs before the end of 2018. Would Ph.D. program admissions committees take into account courses that I'd be planning to take in the spring 2019 semester? Those courses would probably be the second halves of two-course sequences I'd begin taking in the fall 2018 semester. Would they even take into account courses from that semester? I'm planning on writing a thesis; would it be advisable to finish it well before the application deadline at the end of 2018, even though I'd probably be able to write a better thesis after taking more courses?

Please split your questions. It would get your better and more focused answers.

This is the wrong question. Figure out what you want to do research about,  find a researcher who could mentor /advise you, then try applying on that basis. Don't "do a PhD"  in general.

@einpoklum, I understand that I need to do what you suggest, but I currently don't have any ideas for potential research questions. I expect to get some ideas after beginning the program and talking to the professors.

@VKV: Then, seriously, I mean it - don't start a PhD immediately. I have enough experience, both from my own surroundings and from being a graduate student union officer, of how vaguely-motivated PhDs turn into a super-problematic experience: Feelings of failure, guilt, anxiety, depression... I don't know you, or your personal background. But do reconsider what you actually want, desire, in life right now.

@einpoklum, perhaps I need to add some more detail to my post - I am chiefly interested in applied statistics and machine learning and am considering getting a Ph.D. in statistics. I'll begin taking graduate-level statistics courses in the first semester of the master's program and will talk to the statisticians who'll be teaching those courses about doing research.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
How does the US plan to avoid research falling into Chinese hands work?
U.S. doubles down on protecting university research from China
Apparently the US is taking action to "prevent sensitive technology from being stolen by the Chinese military". The article doesn't go into many details of what that action is, but it does say:

The NSCAI [National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence] recommendations would require more disclosure on research funding and partnerships at universities. It also proposes creating a database of individuals and entities to flag risks in advance.

How does this plan work? In principle everyone is a security risk, since everyone can defect or seek to immigrate to China. Even if we neglect defections/immigration, unless US universities stop admitting Chinese students or exclude Chinese postdocs/visiting researchers entirely, they could always take their knowledge back with them. Checking the source of resource funding and partnerships doesn't seem effective either - one could always change funding sources or partnerships after the PhD/postdoc etc is over.

Evidence suggests that the US Attorneys are incompetents who do not know how to recognize espionage.  https://www.wsj.com/articles/feds-drop-charges-against-temple-university-professor-accused-of-giving-tech-secrets-to-china-1442008260

It doesn't basically, US graduate students and professors have such a high percentage of immigrants there's no way to effectively stop it.  There are specific projects which foreign students/professors are not allowed to work on but broadly speaking I don't think this is very effective since pretty much all the work translates pretty easily excluding very specific topics.

It seems to aimed at preventing collaborations, not preventing defections.
Looking at the links given by the OP and the other answers, it seems like the primary goal of this is to prevent researchers in the US from collaborating with individuals or institutions associated with the Chinese military (which also happens to run their spy agencies), in order to prevent them from taking defense-related US-funded research and sending it to China.
Obviously,  its possible for researchers to defect to China, and its possible that the CCP might start leaning on civilian Chinese nationals who are working abroad, but the current initiative doesn't seem to be focusing on either.

Most American researchers do not plan to avoid research "falling" into Chinese hands.  We send our research to China, and everywhere else, for free.
The real problem is that China has internet censorship to keep our research out of China.

Someone raised a Low Quality Post flag on this answer. I plan to give it "Looks OK". However, I need clarification for the last sentence. I am not sure what you mean by "keep our research out of China". Did you mean research about politics?

@scaaahu My understanding is that China blocks a lot of non-political things, possibly incidentally.  So no.


text:
Are Ukrainian researchers currently able to review manuscripts?
Per title. There's a war going on in Ukraine, which presumably makes it hard to do research, especially if one is suffering from constant blackouts. If Ukrainian researchers are currently not able to review, it's possible they will assume that it is something I ought to know, and be offended as a result. On the other hand, if I assume that Ukrainian researchers are currently not able to review, then I am making the decision for them, which is also not be ideal. Are Ukrainian researchers currently able to do peer review?
Bonus question: what if the paper in question is written by Russian authors?

As the situation is not uniform across the country, wouldn't it be best to let each scientist decide for themselves if they can or cannot do it - after all one can always decline a review invitation? Also some might find it a good way to think about something else for a change.

It depends. If a researcher is at a front-line, then surely not. Otherwise, why not? I (acting as an editor) asked some for quick opinions (rather than full reports) and got such.

I would find it hard to review any russian paper. In Kharkiv, my university was attacked. In fact, 95.7% of the total number of higher education institutions in Kharkiv region were targeted

I wouldn't bother them with any trivial stuff for which you can easily find a reviewer elsewhere at this point, but if something really requires high level of expertise and you know a really good specialist in Ukraine, I see nothing unethical about asking (but asking is not a synonym of insisting!) if you manage to establish a contact, which, as Massimo noted, may now be a bit more difficult than usual.
In general, my opinion is that even in the peace time, people in difficult situations are uplifted if someone trusts them with good interesting work and get irritated if someone asks them to review patented junk the editors were too lazy/busy to reject themselves. So just be more selective than before the war.
As to "bonus question", play it by ear. There is no obvious answer for that. When my Ukrainian friends talk about "Russians", I sometimes make a point of reminding them that I am one of those (nevermind that I'm on the side of Ukraine in this war and that I have an American citizenship for over 15 years by now). That, nevertheless, creates no offense on either side, and we discuss freely many things way more "sensitive" than pure math. When the Ukrainian Rada recently made a move to prohibit citations of Russian authors in Ukrainian papers, many of them signed a letter of protest and called such move "idiotic". There are a lot of subtleties here beyond the "us" versus "them" division by the nationality alone.
Again, exercise caution and common sense but, IMHO, the only worldwide guild that should finally file for bankruptcy and be disbanded as the result of the recent events is that of politicians. Mathematicians should try to stay together as a guild (though many individual relations may be rather strained now). I don't know how to facilitate that and it is obviously impossible to do it by force or through logical persuasion alone, but some gentle nudges here and there may go at least some way.
Just my two cents...

Yes, no, maybe.
The situation is extremely varied, and from a few contacts I know of at least two situations:

Some researchers are currently hosted in various European institutions as refugees. They might not be reachable at their former emails.
Some researchers are still working in Ukraine, but their institutions may be severely damaged.

Indeed there is also the possibility that a significant number of researchers might be fighting or have been killed.
I see no reason to universally assume that a Ukrainian researcher cannot review a paper, and I'd certainly send the invitation. Expect, though, that they might not be able to reply.


text:
What does "result of a qualification" mean in the UK?
I am applying for a postdoctoral position in the UK and where I need to put my qualification, it is asked about the result. For example, when I fill in the details of my B.Sc. degree, what am I expected to put as result? I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. I have never seen it in my country or in any other application I filled out before. I mean, obviously it cannot be asking whether I got the degree or not, because that should be obvious by the fact that I am filling it in.

British students are awarded an undergraduate degree with a grade, either first class honours (1st), upper second class honours (2.1), lower second class honours (2.2), third class honours (3rd) or pass without honours. This is what the form is asking for.
Almost all post graduate degrees have a minimum entrance requirement.  Often either a 2.1 or 2.2 or equivalent depending on the program and university.
While the 1st-3rd system is not internationally common, most university systems give some sort of grade (GPA out of 4 in the US for example, I've also seen GPA out of 20 from some middle Eastern counties). Universities have access to databases that term then what the grade system is in each county and how to convey it into a grade in the British system.
Note this applies to undergraduate and taught postgraduate degrees. PhDs are pass/fail and here is just write "pass".

Right, my country has something analogous to the GPA that is a number from 0 to 1. What they want is that number then?

The OP appears to be at the postdoctoral rather than PG stage, so possibly the references to "admissions tutors" might be a little misleading.

@YemonChoi you are right,  I missed that.  I've edited it to remove references to admissions tutors and added something about PhDs.

@user1620696 yes,  I'd just put that.  To be honest,  I don't really expect that anyone will pay much attention to your undergrad grade for a postdoctoral position,  but it's the same form used for all jobs.


text:
Having conflict with certified translator about my transcript of records translation
I am a graduate in Computer Hardware Engineering who is trying to apply to a German university (for MSc). I think that the translator had some mistakes in translating my ToR, but he says that "I'm very experienced and my translation is faultless".
Which German translations are correct for these three academic subjects?
I think that my suggestions are more precise, but the translator insists on first ones and says that "your suggestions maybe correct, but don't exist as subjects in German universities":
En: Computer Systems Architecture (Fa: معماری سیستم‌های کامپیوتری):

Translator: Computerarchitektur
Me: Computersysteme Architektur

En: VLSI Systems Design (Fa: طراحی سیستم‌های وی‌ال‌اس‌آی):

Translator: VLSI-Prozessentwurf
Me: Design von VLSI-Systemen

En: Programming Languages Design and Implementation (Fa: طراحی و پیاده‌سازی زبان‌های برنامه‌سازی):

Translator: Design u. Integrierung der Programmiersprachen
Me: Design und Implementierung von Programmiersprachen

Does the translator know about the content of these courses or are they only depending on the titles for translation?

I am hesitant to say that Farsi-German translations are on-topic here, even if they are names of courses. Perhaps you'd get a better answer on the German StackExchange about whether they are well-formed in German?

@Buffy No, he is a general translator. The problem is that, just an unsuitable word can change the content of these courses, and it's the only official office in my city.

Now that the question is closed, I would edit to "I'm not sure my translator is doing a good job with my transcript, what should I do?" and remove the specific examples and I'd vote to reopn


text:
What are advantages and disadvantages of "chapter abstracts"
What are advantages and disadvantages (totally not implying that there is a rule) of "chapter abstracts", i.e., short summaries of the content of the following chapter, which are placed directly below the chapter heading and not as part of a subchapter.
The side against them often claims that it is not allowed to place text outside of the rigid chapter-subchapter strucure (see, e.g., https://www.christianlehmann.eu/ling/epistemology/techniques/redaction/index.html?https://www.christianlehmann.eu/ling/epistemology/techniques/redaction/aufbau_wiss_arbeit.php due to a lack of a better source, a website from a Professor emeritus for General and Comparative Linguistics from University of Erfurt, Germany).
The other side often perceives a universal need for everything to be introduced, sometimes going as far as claiming that no heading and subheading should be placed directly next to each other (see, e.g., https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/crea-lit/headings-and-subheadings), which would mean that even for a third-level heading consisting of fourth-level subheadings one would need to write a "chapter abstract".
While I am still looking for the perfect word for "chapter abstract", I would like to hear advantages and disadvantages of "chapter abstracts" (preferably based on credible/authorative sources, to eliminate the suspicion of soliticing "opinions").
A disadvantage that I see is the following: A chapter's and its subchapters' headings should speak for themselves and show a clear "guiding thread". Chapter abstracts seem to absolve the student of any necessity for finding headings that mean something and ordering them so that a guiding thread is obvious, since they will just add a short "clarification" of what follows at the beginning of a chapter.

Why do you think a general or universal rule is needed? Shouldn't it be dependent on the work itself?

I don't think a universal rule is needed or exists, particularly one in favour of "chapter abstracts", which is why I am asking for "arguments for and against" in the title! And yes, it is dependent on the work itself, which is why I specified "bachelor's and master's thesis", which are somewhat comparable (with regards to the question of chapter abstracts) among all disciplines.

I agree with Buffy that this depends on the work itself, and by this I mean on an individual level. I see no reason why, say, two Master's theses in mathematics should follow the same "rule" here.In fact, I see no need for a rule at all. It might even be different for two chapters within the same thesis in some cases.

By the way, I'm not sure what you mean by an "authorative source". If the "Hogwarts style guide to mumbo jumbo writing" says that one should always do A and B, what does this tell us except that some people, presumably in Hogwarts, wrote a style guide and came to some agreement that they should suggest A and B in this guide (it does not even mean that all the authors of the guide necessarily share this specific point of view regarding A and B).

I have never heard anyone argue that anyone cannot put text before the first subsection.  Do you have a source for this?

@TerryLoring, Sometimes we just have not dealt with a topic in sufficient detail. Therefore, please see my edit; you'll find a source including a well-substantiated justification for the given opinion, which is unfortunately lacking in this comment section thus far.

@AnonymousM Fair point, this question asks for opinions. However, I think it is a fact that there are two sides with very differing opinions on this matter. This is exactly the reason I was asking this question, to get an overview of the arguments of the different sides, including of course justification for claims and preferably with "authorative sources".

@JochenGlueck, Well, it is ok if you see no reason for this or anything else; everyone is entitled to their opinion. It would be, however, advantageous to your argument if you laid out how you came to this conclusion by giving some justification. Ideally, you would substantiate your claim with an "authorative source".

I have to accept the pecking order here, but sometimes it seems that if people don't know a good answer, they are very quick to assume that the question is the problem. For anyone interested in answering or an answer to the question, it was asked here before and an opinion was given: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/63162/is-it-okay-to-begin-a-chapter-without-an-introduction-section?rq=1

@SebastianE: "It would be, however, advantageous to your argument if you laid out how you came to this conclusion by giving some justification" Sorry, but you got it backwards here: Your question seems to suggest that there should be some rule about whether to use chapter abstracts. But if you want to restrict people's choices (or suggest that they restrict their choices themselves) by suggesting some general rule, then the burden to argue for the need of such a rule is on you. There is no such argument in your question, though. [...]

[...] (The first link contains a brief argument against chapter abstracts, but clearly looks at the topic from a very field-dependent perspective; the second link claims that one should use chapter abstracts, but does not give any justification; your last paragraph discusses a point which you consider a disavdantage of chapter abstracts, but does not explain why this should result in a general rule against chapter abstracts rather than in a case-by-case decision).

By the way, if you asked for a list of advantages and disadvantages of chapter abstracts (which could then be used to inform individual decisions on a case-by-case basis) rather than for opinions for or against the "necessity" of chapter abstracts, then I think this question would be both on topic and very interesting.

@JochenGlueck (1.) My question does not suggest there should be a rule, so your whole "you got it backwards here" argument is kinda pointless. (2.) It's not a field-dependent perspective to suggest that it doesn't make sense since you can't reference it, that's an absolutely general/universal "disadvantage". (3.) Yes, my second link doesn't give any justification for the "rule"; I don't make the argument there is a rule, I make the argument that two sides exist. (4.) I repeat myself a third time, I didn't derive a rule since I don't think there is one, I just gave "disadvantages" that I see.

@JochenGlueck There is not really a difference between asking about "arguments for and against" and "benefits and advantages of" something. Anyways, I have now removed any potential for anyone to claim that "you are implying a rule here, buddy".

@SebastianE: Thanks for your response! I think what made me perceive the question as to categorial was the wording "The side against them" and "In students paper's, I am against it", along with two references which do indeed suggest a general rule (though in opposite directions). But, after your edits and comments, I understand that you are indeed rather looking for advantages and disadvantages. I upvoted your question and voted to reopen it since, as I said before, I think this is a very interesting and useful question.

Regarding point (2), here is why a find the argument field dependend: the argument might make sense for disciplines which typically refer to specific parts of long texts, such as linguistics (but I am not a linguist; so I wrote "might make sense" rather than "makes sense", as I do not feel entitled to a strong opinion here). For mathematical documents, though, the suggestion doesn't make much sense since it is extremelly common in mathematics to enumerate mathematicals definitions, results, remarks, and so on, and then refer explicitly to this number. [...]

[...] I can think of only very rare situations where a mathematician would like to explicitly refer to the content of a chapter abstract, but cannot do so due to the abstract not having its own section number.

Style issues depend on the specific audience. You will need to check with the place you want to publish your document. They will have preferences. Their preferences  may be different from those of other groups, and possibly will change over time.
Check if there is a style guide and if so, try to follow it. There may not be a formal style guide. Look at the documents of similar type that have recently been published in the same place and find out how they have been formatted.

Thanks for the answer, but I am asking for "advantages and disadvantages" about chapter abstracts (in bachelor's and master's thesis from the supervisor side).


text:
Doing a habilitation in Mathematics in Europe for a non EU citizen?
I'm a non-EU citizen, currently doing a postdoc in mathematics in Europe, and I'm thinking of doing a habilitation. Since my google search didn't yield much, I'd appreciate if you could please answer my following questions regarding habilitation:
1) If I understand correctly, habilitation is the highest academic degree you can receive and people do it for getting a permanent academic position in Europe.
How many years or how much/many publication does it normally take to obtain a habilitation degree?
2) Since you could be admitted as a PhD candidate, but not as a 'habilitation candidate' (but instead, say, as a postdoc) can you publish in your postdoc and write the paper(s) as a book and submit it for the defense of habilitation?
3) Suppose you do a one year postdoc in university A, and a second in university B, can you apply to university B for habilitation? How about university A?
4) If you do your PhD and postdoc in unrelated areas, or say even if you switch from pure to applied math, would that be a problem for getting the degree?
5) (Kind of vague question, somewhat opinion-based too) How much does the chance of getting a European tenure increase if you do a successful habilitation?

Which country are you interested in?

If the answers depend on the country, then I'm interested in France, Germany, all of Scandinevia plus Finland, Netherlands. Germany and Finland are my best choices, but thought I'd list all. Sorry if that made answering more difficult!

The Netherlands doesn't have anything comparable to Habilitation, and therefore I don't think it's really relevant for getting a permanent position there (but I'm no expert on that).

In Finland we don't have habilitation. However, you can get the title of Docent if you want. The requirements for a Docent are roughly 2 x as many publications as what is expected for a PhD degree. The process is fairly lightweight: some paperwork + a short demonstration lecture.

I'm starting this by answering some questions for Germany:

1)  people do it for getting a permanent academic position in Europe.

Note that even being a professor does not imply a permanent position:

junior professorships run 6 years, and according to Wikipedia only 8% of the junior professorships can be considered proper tenure track (applying for a permanent position at the same university without a public job advertisement), for another 4-10% of the junior professorships it is possible to apply for a permanent position at the same university, the remaining majority will not be considered for a permanent position.
"Hausberufungen" ("in house appointments" = offering the professorship to someone from the same university) are somewhere between extremely uncommon (having a fishy taste) and forbidden.
Also regular professors can have a probation period before getting a permanent position.

How many years or how much/many publication does it normally take to obtain a habilitation degree?

A junior professorship is 6 years and is supposed to be an equivalent alternative to the habilitation, I think that gives a first rough estimate. Besides, I'd recommend that you look into habilitations in your field: they are published in the respecive university libraries and nowadays usually available electronically.

2) Since you could be admitted as a PhD candidate, but not as a 'habilitation candidate' (but instead, say, as a postdoc) can you publish in your postdoc and write the paper(s) as a book and submit it for the defense of habilitation?

Cumulative habilitations are very common. Again, look at some in your field.

3) Suppose you do a one year postdoc in university A, and a second in university B, can you apply to university B for habilitation? How about university A?

No idea. But the habilitation is supposed to show that you can teach the whole field and one distinguishing criterion (from dissertation) is that also the presented research must cover some breadth.

4) If you do your PhD and postdoc in unrelated areas, or say even if you switch from pure to applied math, would that be a problem for getting the degree?

Not sure, but as a habilitation in maths means that you are allowed to teach all kinds of maths I guess that would not be a problem. I know physicists and engineers who habilitated in chemistry (though doing the scientific work in a chemical institute).

5) How much does the chance of getting a European tenure increase if you do a successful habilitation?

Well, in practice in order to become a professor you either need a habilitation or become junior professor (for 6 years) and then successfully apply for a professorship.

number of habilitations / year is about 1600. Approximately 650 professors are pensioned / year, so  approximately 1/3 of the people who habilitate actually become professor
Update for maths & natural sciences: ca. 160 profs pensioned / ca. 260 habilitations per year => would correspond roughly to a 60 % chance.
roughly 3% (total: 1439) of all professors (43 862) are junior professors, that is aproximately 240 new per year.
Maths & natural sciences: 305 of 7500 = 4%, corresponding to ca. 50 / year.
Wikipedia says that somewher between 1/3 and 2/3 of the junior professors work at their habilitation despite being junior professors.

Here's what the Statistische Bundesamt says about these subjects.

That's pretty comprehensive. However, I should add that (for persons coming from the outside) it is indeed possible to apply successfully for professorships without habilitation, given equivalent qualifications. However, those people likely already were (assistant) professors elsewhere before.

I'll answer for France, but some answers may be field-dependent (I am in mathematics).

1) If I understand correctly, habilitation is the highest academic
  degree you can receive and people do it for getting a permanent
  academic position in Europe. How many years or how much/many
  publication does it normally take to obtain a habilitation degree?

It is the highest academic degree, but in France permanent positions are available earlier: "maître de conférence" (a kind of associate professor) and "chargé de recherche" (same but without any teaching duty) are tenured positions that only needs a PhD. Also  In mathematics, I'd say that nowadays people are usually hired within 2 to 4 years after their defense.
Habilitation is need for Professors positions, which are more or less equivalent to full professor positions.
It takes usually from 6 to 12 years to complete a Habilitation (this is probably field dependent, and mathematics are certainly on the junior side).

2) Since you could be admitted as a PhD candidate, but not as a
  'habilitation candidate' (but instead, say, as a postdoc) can you
  publish in your postdoc and write the paper(s) as a book and submit it
  for the defense of habilitation?

Yes, this is common. In fact, usually one even only write a survey of their results and quote the articles. May be strongly field dependent, I do not know.

3) Suppose you do a one year postdoc in university A, and a second in
  university B, can you apply to university B for habilitation? How
  about university A?

I would say that you would apply to university B. Most people apply when "maître de conférence" or "chargé de recherche" rather than postdocs, but it is not impossible to apply as a postdoc, there are famous examples.

4) If you do your PhD and postdoc in unrelated areas, or say even if
  you switch from pure to applied math, would that be a problem for
  getting the degree?

Probably not an issue. You'll need to find referees and a jury that complements well if you want to present everything, but usually you do not include your PhD work. I chose not to present my earlier post-PhD work to get a more consistent Habilitation.

5) (Kind of vague question, somewhat opinion-based too) How much does
  the chance of getting a European tenure increase if you do a
  successful habilitation?

In France, it would help to get a professor position; if you work abroad I do not think it is mandatory, but good referees report and the composition of the jury can help an application. It would actually hurt an application to a Maître de conférence position, as you would be seen as too senior for the job.
Beware that Professor position are rather rare these years, and that Maître de conférence position do not have an internationally competitive salary (but outside the region of Paris, one lives quite well on it).

As for France, you should rather google for the whole name ("habilitation à diriger des recherches") and look e.g. here for starters:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habilitation_universitaire
(note that the contents is quite different from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habilitation ).


text:
In France, is it possible to research at a postdoctoral level as a freelancer, not being on a regular contract?
Perhaps this question is slightly out of scope for this page, but I still ask here.
Can you work for a university/academic institution as a researcher or as a teacher, with the status of a freelancer? In case this helps, I'm based in France and have applied for a freelance status (called auto-entrepreneur/micro entrepreneur in the French administrative terms), and even though I'm searching for regular temporary/permanent position in France, this hasn't seen any success yet, so I want to use that freelance status to do research at a high level (at least postdoctoral) as I strongly feel I'm genuinely passionate by fundamental research, so I've to find a way to do so, even if I may or may not be good enough to secure a formal position.
Just in case this helps: my subject(s) will be ideally the intersection between differential geometry and statistics/statistical machine learning, manifold learning, but open to other topics, e.g. applied differential geometry, or just statistical learning etc.
From my having spent long time in academia, I've never seen this happening, because normally the academic contracts are either regular CDD or CDI's. But I wonder if the above possibilities still exist in France or abroad?
EDIT: Some people asked me about my motivation for the same. It is my continued interest to do research and publish, but also to earn some money on the side by consulting or freelance jobs etc. IN fact once you're a freelance, you can hire other freelance to do your freelance projects not related to academia/research, so essentially some income without working, where I work on academic research projects myself. This is the reason I want my postdoc related contract to be a freelance once, where I can be employed as a consultant for a project.

"Freelancer" and employee are kind of opposites. How do you expect to be paid.

@Buffy Thanks for your comment. By 'freelance', I meant I'd charge for the number of hours I worked in a project, and not by a regular monthly amount of x€/month. So I'm imagining something like securing a project in say machine learning, with a faculty member who's a certain grant to hire researchers, but in place of hiring regular researchers, he can hire someone who'll bill him/the lab/department a certain amount that's a function of hours (s)he worked for that project. I don't see why that's not possible?

@Buffy So to rephrase, I'll issue them a bill at the end of each month, and it'll specify how many hours I've worked for them. Then they'll pay me that, at least this is how I'm thinking  of it.

Seems unlikely anywhere, anytime. I think you need a different plan.

@Buffy Thanks - but is there really no way to do academic research not being a part of formal academia, i.e. not holding an academic post? And I'm, not considering industrial R&D - did that before but the management is very different than academia and it wasn't a success for me. But I'm passionate by academic research, did it for long time and want to do it for the rest of my life. Isn't there really any way? If you prefer me to ask a different question, I can so you can answer if you know the answer.

@Buffy I'm only considering this options as a last resort if I don't end up securing a regular academic position; I'm in France and my visa/permit plays a role on the time constraint.

Anyone can do research as an "Independent researcher" and get it published. Especially in math. Harder in high energy physics if you need access to CERN. But academic affiliation isn't needed generally. And a freelancer isn't going to likely have that affiliation anyway if they are just your client.

@Buffy I agree with you on that - but I'm talking about getting pad in return for that research and that seems to be the problem. Yes, my subject being relatively theretical, I won't need machines like they do in physics

"So I'm imagining something like securing a project in say machine learning, with a faculty member who's a certain grant to hire researchers, but in place of hiring regular researchers, he can hire someone who'll bill him/the lab/department a certain amount that's a function of hours (s)he worked for that project." If the faculty member has a grant to hire researchers, why don't you apply to be one of the researchers they hire? Also I imagine you would already run into trouble with the grant agency disallowing the freelance aspect. Have you tried applying for grants yourself (national and eu)?

@Rammus Thanks for your comment!
I did apply for several such researcher's position, with non success yet. If they hire me, I'll be certainly on board. I don't known such faculty members. I've written to many, called many's offices, with zero response :(
Speaking about applying for grants, how can I do so? I'm out of a job at this moment, and have applied for a freelance position. I thought that the grants are written by professors or faculty members? Could you please elaborate a bit more?

@ScienceMan Postdocs can apply for grants also, e.g., Marie Curie. You probably need the support of a university or maybe even a faculty member when you submit but if you have a decent proposal then it shouldn't be too difficult to get the university/faculty member on board.

@Rammus Ah I see, yes I'm aware of these grants where you jointly submit a research proposal with a faculty member. Even if I was a postdoc thanks to one such proposal/grant at INRIA, France, my recent emails to faculty members saw no response. I've emailed several times and even called their offices, but heard no reply :(

@Rammus If you happen to know someone in France who can use my background in mathematics, statistical learning and geometry, I'd be grateful if you could help me cnnect with that person.

I find this question very relevant. In the end post-docs are treated somewhat like freelancers that work on a project for a certain amount of time. It should be possible to hire freelancers but unfortunately funding agencies have limitations that only allow certain contracts to pay people involved in the project. Post-docs in Europe should have a union.

Definitively, it's possible in Spain, at least in some cases - I've done it twice.
In two projects I participated, the rules allowed for contracting external services. At least one of them was privately funded, so basically the funding entity (and the letter of the contracts) was mostly concerned with getting useful results. For several reasons, it was more convenient to hire a researcher as a contractor than as an employee.
I did that at a predoctoral level, but I've seen a similar case with a doctor.
In case anybody wonders, at least in one case the convenience reasons were more about my convenience than about those of the sponsor, the PI or the university.

The OP ended asking "in France or abroad". I tried a partial answer to the "abroad" part.

Hi thanks a lot - it's a partial relief and I'm glad to know that the possibility exists in Spain, I'm sure there should be something similar in France as well. What area did your do your postdoc in question in?

Not postdoc but sort of predoc - although I think it didn't matter a lot. I did it in biology and ecology, but I think it depends more on specific project conditions than on area.

While the answer to "is it possible" may be "yes", I think the likelihood of finding such an arrangement is vanishingly small. Don't arrange your career so as to depend on such unusual opportunities.

For most funding agencies, the organisation that applied for the funding is expected to conduct the funded work.  Outsourcing the work to a different organization, such as Freelance Science Man, without the permission of the funding agency might be grant fraud.
To get freelance research work that is funded by a funding agency, you would have to either:

Convince the university to convince the funding agency to approve the freelance contract.  This is unlikely to work; if allowed, it's probably too much paperwork.
Apply to the funding agency for funds directly, possibly with a university partner.  This does not strictly answer your question, and you probably will not want to do it because of the complex paperwork and risk involved.

Overall, I do not understand why you would want to freelance and postdoc at the same time, but if you really must do this, I suggest you get an ordinary postdoc job and hire a lawyer to figure out how to make your freelance business legal.

Note that freelance contractors and hourly employees are not the same thing under some legal systems.

If your expertise was in higher education management consulting, you might have better luck because the funding could come from teaching, and not a research funding agency.

Hello and thank you for your answer - upvoted! Now to your question: "Overall, I do not understand why you would want to freelance and postdoc at the same time", the short answer is that I need money (considering my age, previous work history and other factors irrelevant here) and a plan that'd allow me to be a freelance on top of that postdoc. And I'm already a declared freelance here in France with paperwork to prove it, and so I simply don't want to let that source of income go once I receive a postdoc offer.

If your main goal is to get money, being a postdoc is not the most efficient way to do it.

I did never say that it was my main goal, perhaps I conveyed myself incorrectly. My backstory is that: I switched to industry after a few postdocs, and that didn't turn out to be a success, nor they were places I belonged to. This made me realize two things: i) I belong to academia (80% of the professors/CNRS researchers I talked to said my CV was outstanding for a postdoc position, and only later I understood that my true place is academic research), and ii) during my years of failure in industry, I lost money, I've to make up for that. Freelance work and subcontracting may help with this.