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What can a publisher offer to its best reviewers?
As a publisher, every now and then I saw reviews which are so good, I thought I should thank the reviewer with something more than "thanks". What can a publisher offer that will actually be useful?
Ideas:

Cash. This is probably not happening. Cash is too liquid, too precious a resource to offer. The only conceivable way top management might be persuaded is to have a small pool of best reviewer prizes (say 5 prizes/year @ $500 each), company wide. That makes it hard to reward all good reviewers, since there're tens of thousands of reviewers a year. I also suspect that if top management were to entertain such an idea, they'd prefer to have a best paper award.
Best reviewer certificate. I don't see this as very useful though, since it's just a computer graphic. Plus they're easily hacked - I changed one of these to put my name on it instead of the reviewers', which might be enough to deceive a casual observer.
A free book from the publisher's collection. This is more doable but is not cheap (since it also requires postage), so I won't be able to do send many of these - maybe one / year.
Cheaper open access. This is doable: there's a discretionary range with open access article processing charges (to e.g. offer bulk discounts and to waive them for authors from developing countries). However many reviewers never publish in the journal they review for, and even if they do they might not want to publish open access. I am not sure how useful this is.
A personal subscription to ___ journal. Not sure how useful this either since the reviewer probably already has access to the journal via his or her institution, and if not, there are (usually) other ways to access a needed paper.
Something else?

Edit: Thanks for all the answers.

Make best reviewer awards public: this should be easily done. My only concern is that this can break reviewer anonymity for small journals. Still, a central list of all the best reviewers who have reviewed for the publisher should be doable, with the only drawback being someone will have to compare reviewers from different journals (or there'll have to be set numbers of best reviewers for each journal, which would favour small ones at the expense of larger ones).
Give reviewer feedback: unfortunately only the editorial board can do this. The publisher can suggest, but cannot force the editorial board to do it.
Appoint as editors: it's potentially doable, but needs the approval of the rest of the editorial board.
Free store credit: this is doable, maybe even better than providing free books from the perspective of the publisher. After all, the publisher would not have to pay postage charges, and it's a revenue-generating activity. Making it transferable would be a nice touch!
Free mugs/T-shirts etc: considering publishers make books and journals (instead of mugs and t-shirts), I am not sure this is a good idea.
Reception at conference: the problem with this is the cost. First one would have to rent the necessary space (expensive) followed by send staff there (also expensive). It would be pretty hard to get some kind of personalized welcome; the staff that attend will probably not be those handling the journal for example, and there might be reviewers for multiple different journals at the same reception. I can float the idea, but not hopeful.

Again, thanks for ideas.

MDPI is one publisher which provides benefits in a transparent way http://www.mdpi.com/reviewers#2

The discussion about book postages and several answers as comments have been moved to chat. Please read this FAQ before posting another comment.

PLOS gives out gadgets at events, it seems: https://twitter.com/PLOS/status/1062413973729857538

"even if they do they might not want to publish open access" - this makes little sense to me.

@ChristianHennig a discount is not a waiver, so there'd still be a fee.

There are a number of quite reputable journals that actually do give public "outstanding reviewer" awards, and their value (while not large) is non-trivial.
If the journal announces their awards publicly online, as these tend to do, then there's no worry about faking a certificate or such. It's probably not going to win anybody a job, but it's another line on the "service" or "awards" portion of a person's CV, and it will be noticed in their community.

+1 this is the best answer. People want recognition for their effort.

+1 This is, in fact, a solved problem, even if not all publishers and journals adopt this model. If reviewers and editors were after cash, they wouldn't do it in the first place. Personal subscriptions etc. are borderline useless to most people in academia, but public recognition is always valued (even if the tangible benefit to an academic's CV may be low).

@xLeitix are you saying the awards should be announced publicly? What if there's a chance of breaking anonymity (e.g. for a small journal publishing 20 papers a year, there won't be that many reviewers and it'd be possible to guess who the reviewers are)?

@Allure Yes, in all cases that I am aware awards are announced publicly. If this is not possible, I share your concern that a "private" certificate may be fairly useless. That said, even with 20 published papers, you are probably looking at 40 - 60 submitted papers times 3 reviews, so even in this case the sample isn't that small.

@Allure In my field (computer science), it's common to publish a list of reviewers ( e.g. ) and for people to list venues they have reviewed for on their CV. So I don't think anonymity is an issue.

@Allure This is an example of public announcement from a journal in my field.

Actually, I'd be happy just to get some feedback from the editor about the quality of my review. Doesn't have to be every time, but I would really appreciate getting comments when I do a particularly helpful one and what was good about it. Similarly, I think Publons now has a 'rate this review' feature that allows editors and/or authors to score or give comments (not really sure, I haven't used the feature).
One of the journals I occasionally review for provides something like a 150 USD voucher for their books. This is given for every review or for everyone who reviewed at least once or similar. Not sure of the details as I haven't reviewed for that journal recently, but I definitely remember appreciating getting a book I otherwise would not have bought.

Normally, an editor is more of a generalist and the reviewer a specialist. The reviewer probably knows more about the subject than the editor. I'm not sure that every editor can understand every review. They look for consensus among reviewers and learn to trust those in their "stable" over time. Authors can actually rate reviews, though, but they may not agree with them, so a possible land mine.

Also, if you get asked to review repeatedly then you are probably valued as a reviewer. Your reward for good work is ... more work.

@Buffy Less complete subject matter knowledge doesn't stop an editor from commenting on whether it is a good review. A review should be helping the editor decide. That means it needs to, for example, argue positions clearly.

I have done about 7 or 8 reviews and I still have literally no idea whether what I am doing is correct, helpful, too much, too little? Nobody ever taught me this stuff and the editors don't tell me. Feedback would be invaluable.

+1 for first paragraph: I remember for one really long, painful review I had to do, I got very nice personal emails thanking me (from the editor and editor-in-chief) and saying how impressed they were with the review.  It was very nice to hear that they appreciated my work, especially since we never get public credit for these things.

A variant on "free book" is "store credit with the publisher".  This gives you the flexibility to offer a smaller amount.  Or it can be something like "X% discount on purchases from the publisher."
If there is a prominent conference in your field that many of your reviewers attend, you can have a special reception at the conference, with free food and drinks.  This may also be a good way to make connections with them and get feedback.

Good journals tend to have an extensive editorial board. There are usually various categories.
For example, the editorial board for Journal of Applied Psychology at the time of posting, has

1 editor
a little over 10 associate editors
over 200 contributing editors

Admittedly, this is a massive journal with a huge reputation. Also, the exact names of these categories varies by discipline and journal (e.g., the levels might be editor in chief, editor, and associate editor).
But the point is that if a reviewer is reviewing a lot of articles and doing their reviews well, a good way to reward them is to offer them a position on the editorial board. This is important recognition for many academics that may help them with getting jobs, promotions,  grants,  prizes, and so on.
Note that this answer duplicates some discussion in this other answer. A commenter said

I think that is pretty rare, given the numbers of reviewers and editors needed.

The key response to this is that you are not inviting the reviewer to be the editor. You are inviting them to be part of the editorial board. There are no limits to how many people can be listed.

Just curious: (1) Is that just a terminology point or is there no corresponding position that represents a more minor position on an editorial board, (2) I guess that's why it's an invitation.

@roland cool. I've edited to incorporate point.

Cheaper open access. This is doable: there's a discretionary range with OA APCs (to e.g. offer bulk discounts and to waive them for authors from developing countries).

How about you upgrade this. Instead of "cheaper", make it "free", and make it a voucher than can be used by anyone. Then, if the reviewers themselves are too important to publish in your journal, this gives them some form of currency they can trade or gift as will. Something along the lines of:

Hey, can you run those samples for me in your instrument? I don't have any funding but I have 2 APC waiver vouchers you can use when you submit to the Journal of Waiver Vouchers!

However many reviewers never publish in the journal they review for, and even if they do they might not want to publish open access.

Other than that, people don't generally refuse to publish open access. They find paying the fees (even if extremely low) an obstacle, sometimes more mental than financial. Why pay to publish in this journal when you can publish in the other journal for free? Readership isn't always important, because people assume everyone has access to paywalled articles somehow (whether legal or not). By removing the fee obstacle, you're making it easier to publish.

What about being able to vote for the articles that should get open access for free?

@Ian Nah - it's not a reward. It's more work. Not only you have to review something, now you have to vote as well?

The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) has a rewards program for reviewers in their journals. Reviews are judged on promptness and quality and reviewers earn points that they can exchange for meeting registration, SETAC dues, and other rewards. Also, all reviewers of SETAC journals are invited to a reception/social at the SETAC meetings.
As another reward, SETAC gives Outstanding Reviewer Awards and selects members of the Editorial Boards from their reviewers. SETAC journals have an Editor-in-Chief for each journal, Editors (which some journals would call Associate Editors), and an Editorial Board (which is basically a reward and recognition for past reviewing service as well as a stepping stone to becoming an Editor).
I'm am member of SETAC as well as an Editorial Board member and this approach seems to help the Society get reviewers.

I've gotten free books from a publisher, usually for longer reviews of books or proposals, rather than journal articles.
The American Journal of Epidemiology awards several 'Reviewer of the Year' awards, which are hard to fake as they're published in the journal: https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/187/4/637/4956753

Note that public recognition may undermine reviewer anonymity.  Even if you don't say what article they reviewed, in specialized fields, people may be able to guess without much difficulty.

@NateEldredge I'll admit that this is possible, but I'm also somewhat skeptical from personal experience about how easy it is to break double blinding.

Reviewers can be promoted to editors, which eventually can contribute to a successful tenure / promotion application. Also, best reviewers have a good potential of becoming great editors, which is beneficial for publisher, too.

I think that is pretty rare, given the numbers of reviewers and editors needed. Also, the skill set is a bit different.

A significant sum of money would be the best option if you are serious about rewarding and expect to encourage further good reviews. You make it sound like you are too broke to give out even a few thousand, so perhaps your operation is too small to be support this sort of reward at all. I would mention something like free conference attendance or travel aid, but probably those run into the same issue with lack of funds.
The certificate is unlikely to have much weight. Certificates don't really improve your prestige or status by much. For a junior academic they might make for some decent CV padding material, but most reasonably successful academics seem to have much more impressive accolades already (grants, recognition from professional societies, papers in prestigious journals). It would have to be an underrated researcher indeed for the "best of reviewer of 2018" certificate to make much difference. The authenticity problem you mention is a non-issue: Simply list past awardees on your journal's website and fakers will be instantly exposed. Granted, if you really admire the reviewers and think they should be recognized, I think it's not a bad idea to list them on your website anyway - not as a reward, but as a way of giving credit where due.
The free book is at best a nice gesture. I don't think books are unaffordable for the average academic, and most likely they are available for free through their library. Unless the book has some kind of exclusive branding, all it does is save the recipient a very cheap Amazon purchase. Reading books is a fairly private activity, so you wouldn't really brag about getting a free book, nor would you question people about where they got a book (the obvious answer being that they probably bought it from a bookseller like everyone else). It is also a bit strange to me that you say books are too expensive. Maybe we're talking about extremely valuable, rare volumes here, the kind fancy bookstores keep under a glass display with a padlock? Or are you really too broke to send a few books out every few months? If the latter, perhaps it's time to worry about finances, not awards.
Cheaper open access (doesn't "open access" already mean it's free?) and subscription seems almost a non-gift to me, possibly more trouble than it's worth. From what I've seen, most normal people access papers through some automated system provided by their campus network or library proxy, which shows the papers as if they're subscribed without any login being necessary. If you give people personal subscription, you now give them yet another account to forget the password to. Imagine if every journal did this: The only way to take advantage of the "reward" is to juggle a dozen journal accounts. Besides, many people do indeed have access to institutional subscription anyway. And, aren't reviewers usually people who have previously published in your journal? How/why would they publish with you if they don't even have access to you?
Since cash is out, I think your best option is to provide something cheap and/or worthless, but branded so as to derive prestige from exclusivity. Tshirts, mugs, hats and other swag with either just your journal's logo, or something like "best reviewer of 2018" on it, is a nice conversation starter and status symbol. The items themselves are dirt cheap (well, not to you, if you think books are too expensive...) and the value is basically created out of thin air by virtue of your branding.

@Roland OP says even 5x$500 is on the high end of his likely budget, so how do you expect him to gift $2500 books?

And if "cheaper open access" is supposed mean "discount on publication fee in our open access journal", wew! What a confusing way to describe it!

@Trusly books don't cost $2500, those are open access publication fees. It's not so much that 5 x $500 is on the high end of the budget that it is that a single journal cannot offer cash prizes - top management would never allow it, given that there are hundreds of journals. If there is a cash prize, it would have to be centralized, and then top management would want to start small and see returns on its investment before committing more money.

The American Physical Society (publisher of Physical Reviews, one of the principal series of physics journals) has what they call and Outstanding Reviewer Program about which they state:

The highly selective Outstanding Referee program annually recognizes
  about 150 of the roughly 67,000 currently active referees.

I’m an associate editor on one journal, and serve as a reviewer for a couple of others, all from the same publisher. In return for my services, the publisher gives me unrestricted access to all of the journals they publish.
I don’t work in academia, and don’t have a good library nearby, so this access is extremely valuable to me. It is the only reason I participate in the review process.
I suspect my situation is a bit unusual, but it does serve as a data point. Journal access is very valuable to people like me, and it costs you (the publisher) nothing. We both win.

The assumption that paying referees is unaffordable is not obvious. Particularly for a society journal which isn’t seeking to maximise its profit. Some journals (in Economics and Finance at least) do pay referees for reports. Often this is associated with providing a report within a given timeframe. See here for example. The Journal of Financial Economics pays a referees $350 (per round) (see here) and offers a discount on future submissions, and also publishes statistics on editor and referees median turnaround times. Note, that a submission costs $750 (per round) such that with three referees per paper the journal faces a substantial cost per paper.

Are you sure there are 3 referees per paper? The webpage says there were 1,384 papers processed last year and there were 545 referees. I didn't count how many papers on average each referee reviewed, but I would guess somewhere between 2-3, i.e. it is covered by the submission fee. See also https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20930/are-there-any-journals-that-pay-reviewers/. My experience in publishing strongly indicates it's not sustainable to pay reviewers more than a pittance without external funding (and besides, it'd make more sense to pay editors).

I imagine the number of referees varies from paper to paper. Two would be a minimum though I’d think, and there are definitely cases with more. That they report averages per referee suggests,in line with my experience, that they rely on some referees for multiple reports a year. The model seems sustainable enough given they have operated it for some years and is not unique to that journal but I don’t share your experience and expertise in publishing.

Editors should be able to award reputation points to good reviewers.   These points can then be used as follows.  Say a reviewer's paper is rejected and told not to resubmit.  He/she should then be able to 'cash in' some of these points and be allowed to resubmit the paper after revision.  These points can also signal an editor that an author is a key contributor to the journal.  Hence, he/she should handle the author's paper 'better' (up to you how you want to define 'better').
Overall, the aim is to reduce the 'randomness' in the review process.  The points are by no means used to bypass the review process.

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If someone completes a PhD from an interdisciplinary doctoral school, can he work as a professor in CS/CSE?
The research area is related to CS/Bioinformatics and Biology/Biochemistry. The possibility of cooperation is between the Faculty of CS&Math and the Faculty of Chemistry.
If I complete a Ph.D. from an interdisciplinary doctoral school, can I work as a professor in CS/CSE?
What is the main purpose of getting a Ph.D. from an interdisciplinary doctoral school?

What would the degree be in? Some faculty positions require a PhD in a relevant field.

@lighthousekeeper, What would the degree be in? --- In Bioinformatics-related topic.

That's a topic and not a field. So, the thesis itself does not specify a field ("PhD in bioinformatics")?

@lighthousekeeper, Ph.D. in Bioinformatics, yes. Combinedly under the Faculty of CS and the Faculty of Chemistry.

I see. That's important information that you should make clear in your job applications, especially if the vacancy description says something along these lines ("We are looking for candidates with a PhD in CS or a related field.")

@lighthousekeeper, So, you are seeing no problem?

From my experience in hiring in CS in Europe: Once you satisfy the formal requirements (which you seem to do), hiring committees create their shortlist mostly based on the strength of your CV and your suitability for the concrete position. So the question here is if there are enough positions where your expertise is a good-enough fit, and possibly if they count your relevant publications in Non-CS-fields. If so, then there's no problem.

Which country are we discussing here? in some countries there are formal divisons of areas, and even interdisciplinary PhDs are given from one Faculty.

Yes, it is possible (in the US, at least). You need to get hired, so you need to meet the needs of a faculty position, both in teaching and research, but having an interdisciplinary degree doesn't rule that out.
Some places will be more receptive to the idea than others. Some universities value cross discipline collaboration and have, say, undergraduate programs that value cross discipline study. Applications of CS to other fields is fairly popular, though not universal.
Some large faculties have a few members who have quite diverse interests.
But, a person would likely have fewer opportunities with any degree that isn't, somehow, mainstream.
And, you also need to be able to earn tenure if you want a career. And once you do, you have the opportunity to expand diverse interests in the institution.

The interesting part about Computer Science as a field is that it has many applications to other fields.  From my experience, I have seen people with doctorates in many fields become CS faculty, and vice-versa.  At my undergraduate CS department, there are quite a few faculty who changed fields this way:

They did their undergraduate in a different (but usually related) field such as mathematics, statistics, or linguistics (for NLP/AI) before switching to CS for their MS and/or PhD (most common)
OR they did their entire education in a different (but also usually related) field, then joined a different department at their next university (not as common, but it still happens; heard of one professor in the Applied Mathematics dept at my university who did his PhD in CS, then initially was an Assistant prof at another university in CS, joined the Applied Mathematics department at my university)

Getting an interdisciplinary degree can definitely open doors in this regard, but of course this will obviously depend on your specific research interests.  If you're thinking of switching fields, you'll obviously want your interdisciplinary interests to kind of be related to what you are currently studying, as well as what you plan on doing in the future.
Keep in mind that this doesn't necessarily just apply to Computer Science, or necessarily even academia.  My multivariable calculus professor was able to go into computational science (slightly related to CS, but not exactly the same as CS) after finishing a Chemistry PhD (they had also studied mathematics during their undergraduate).  In industry, while the instinct of most undergraduates is to get a job at Google with their BS in CS, there are also people at such companies with PhD's in Chemistry, Physics, or other fields that also get jobs at such companies.

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How does someone produce journal papers while working on a PhD thesis?
A Ph.D. researcher has a research topic to work on for 3-5 years. He is supposed to produce a dissertation by completing research on his Ph.D. research topic. However, he also produces individual journal publications while working on his original Ph.D. research.
How does he conceptualize those individual research paper topics, and how do those individual research topics relate to the original Ph.D. title/topic?
Also, how does he find time to produce input data and output results for individual papers? Don't those require additional time?

I don't understand the question. Why could someone not write an article at the same time as writing a thesis?

I'm also confused by your usage of "title." Usually a title of a paper is just about the last thing I write. Is this a field-specific meaning, or translation?

In my field, you perform some experiments, get some results, publish a paper, and keep moving forward. A given paper is some step on the path towards more fully understanding something. And, of course, one's topic or direction can change over time...

@JonCuster, your comment is on target. Please, elaborate - A given paper is some step on the path towards more fully understanding something - and post an answer.

Can you name a field?

@AzorAhai-him-, molecular modeling & simulation.

In fields where this is the norm, though there are others where it is not, the publications along the way are normally closely tied to the dissertation research. Or, they might represent the essence of that research.
In the extreme case, the dissertation is little (or nothing) more that "stapling" together of those publications. Sometimes a summarization is required, but not always.
The publications might be partial results, or "side" results. These papers need to be sufficiently "novel" to stand on their own, but one normally learns a lot of things while doing a dissertation and many of them can be worthy of independent publication.
In some fields work is done in large scientific labs with a lot of collaboration. A student working in such a lab might get quite a few joint publications along the way. This might cover some fields other than the ones described above.
My field was mathematics, where this practice is uncommon, but my dissertation included a number of results (lemmas, say) that supported the main result and the results as a whole supported a complete theory. Had it been the custom in math, I could easily have published a number of those partial results.
One judge of whether a result is worthy of publication is whether it gives insight to others working in the field. The researcher him (or her) self gains those insights along the way and they can be worthy of sharing through publication.
But it isn't (usually) that the publications are independent of the dissertation research. That can happen on occasion, but usually they are tightly interconnected.
Note that the purpose of doing a doctorate and, within it, a dissertation is to teach the student to do research at a professional level. Publication is the ultimate "proof" of that. It also lets the research community as a whole, via the publication blind review process, to take on the job of vetting the research prior to awarding a degree, rather than leaving it to a few faculty members.

In my field, most thesis projects are of the "stapler thesis" variety.
Someone prepares journal papers while doing research, because this is how you share knowledge with the field; doing research without sharing it is more or less useless.
The hope is that once you've done research over the expected duration of a PhD, you "staple" together these papers, add an intro and concluding chapter, and call it a thesis. It may be acceptable for some of those stapled papers to not be quite complete yet in the form they appear in the thesis, and might take more effort to turn into published papers.
In general, though, there's no distinction between "paper work" and "thesis work" in this approach; the thesis is just a broader collection of papers, stitched together with some unifying ideas.


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What happens when someone wants to do a PhD after a failure?
I know someone who received a scholarship to do a Ph.D. in Applied Physics & Electronics in Australia. The length of the program was 3 years. She took 4 years, and couldn't finish the Ph.D. I don't know why. Because she never answered.
In the meantime, she moved to Canada as an immigrant and has been working as a software developer. However, because of Covid, she is now unemployed.
Now, my question is, suppose she wants to do a Ph.D. in Canada, what hurdles she could face?

This is a question about a hypothetical situation for a person that we don't know. Maybe this person has PTSD and would never apply for a PhD. In general she would face the same process as every applicant: she would have to demonstrate that she's a good candidate, with the additional difficulty to explain why she didn't finish the previous PhD.

I would be concerned that her skills in physics and electronics were rusty if years have passed since her last involvement in physics/electronics.  Software development won't keep you fresh for that material if it's a physics/electronics PhD they want.

The hurdle is to get accepted to another program. If you can be accepted then nothing else will stand in the way, though you may have to convince a new advisor that the reasons for the earlier failure to finish are reasonable.
A three year limitation on a degree isn't actually very compatible with the realities of serious research. It can't be scheduled. Some problems seem to be amenable to solution but turn out not to be. Some researchers spend many many years on a problem and don't come to a solution. I think Einstein spent about ten years to gain insight into special relativity.
And, you don't know why it didn't get done in four years. It might have been the problem itself. It might have been health, or having a child. It might have been an advisor who insisted on solving an impossible problem. It could have been any of a hundred other things. She "didn't" finish he program. That may not say anything about her skill. Your use of "couldn't" is pejorative. It may not apply.
I was once in a similar situation, moved to a better place, got a better advisor and finished with the respect of the faculty. It certainly isn't impossible. I had a sort of sponsor who helped me make the move. He was a mentor, but was in a different subfield, so not my advisor. But he saw promise and was happy to say so.

That third paragraph is key.


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How hard is it to find a job in the academia with a Muslim name in the UK?
I found the following article on the Internet:

Candidates with Muslim-sounding names are three times more likely to be passed over for jobs

What is the situation in the case of acadamia?

Go on over to your preferred university and look through a faculty list. Focus on STEM departments. See how many have non-English names (particularly the assistant professors). Come back with data.

I think this is probably impossible to answer with any reasonable evidence.  Anecdotally, my university (UK) has many academic and senior administrative staff with Muslim-sounding names including half (2/4) of our faculty Associate Deans and our University Pro-Vice-Chancellor for academic affairs.  There are certainly a range of biases that come into play in the hiring process, it's difficult to say if this is a significant one or not.

Could you be specific about the kind of job?  Most jobs are hard to get, but there's a big difference between computer science PhD student and humanities professor.  While discrimination is real, it does vary by discipline and the nature of the competition can be much more important than the discrimination.

@AnonymousPhysicist, Chemical, and Computer Sc tenured faculty, and postdoc.

@JonCuster: I think that data would be of very limited assistance unless it were backed up with data on the names of applicants, and other details.  Knowing the number of Muslim names in the faculty doesn't even give you baseline proportions compared to applicants without the latter data.

@Ben - I agree that it is not data, but would quickly show if, in fact, there is a major problem. And, frankly, what is a "Muslim sounding" name in this day and age anyway?

@Ben Simply knowing the proportions do not show causal relation neither.

I would like to offer a (partial, biased) UK perspective that in general when study results are reported in the UK media one should be sceptical how many of the numbers and logical connectives have been understood by the journalist (or,sadly, those within UK universities writing the press releases). I also want to push back against the elision in the article that the OP links to between "Muslim-sounding names" and "Muslim names", given that no one thinks "G. Willow Wilson" is a "Muslim-sounding name"

@Greg: Sure, but it's a hell of a lot better than not knowing them.

@JonCuster "would quickly show if, in fact, there is a major problem" How so?

I estimate that not only it is not harmful on average to have a Muslim name in the UK academic job market (on average), but that it is a clear advantage.
"Diversity hires" are becoming more important to many departments, and regulatory requirements are put on faculties to adhere to these requirements. To my understanding, these regulatory requirements (at the university level or above) sometimes come with diversity targets, i.e., percentage of "diversity" candidates that are to be interviewed and possibly recruited (this is my understanding of the term "diversity targets"---i.e., that the target is a number. Some people in the comments claim there are no rigid numbers). Diversity candidates are clearly tagged in (some) recruitment cycles by different categories: BAME (black, Asian, Middle-Eastern), female, etc. Recruitment cycles are then audited for upholding diversity targets of this sort (again, it is my understanding that if a department does not uphold a certain minimal target (i.e., percentage. Just for example, only 5% are foreigners, or 5% are female) of "diversity" interviews, they will have to justify this in the audit and they may not be able to; therefore, departments are pressured in this way to fulfil a minimal number of "diversity interviews").
If you have a clearly "foreign name" (Middle Eastern) in the UK it thus definitely counts as a diversity-point in favour of your candidacy.
If you are also a female Muslim, my estimation is that you have a very good chance of being at least interviewed, assuming some minimal credential requirements are fulfilled.
Important comment: although diversity points can help in general, my estimation is that the major advantage a candidate has is not their ethnic/religious identity, but how well they are connected to people with influence inside the department, be it collaborator, colleague, or someone who comes from the same "clique" of colleagues.

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The way to obtain such numbers is by submitting application documents to job posting that are identical other than the name of the applicant. If the documents are sent to enough prospective employers and a statiscally significant difference is found, this can indeed be attributed to the name quite well.
This methodology does not work for faculty positions, as the nature of job applications is different. You can't just create a duplicate publication record of this kind. In many cases, successful applicants will be known to someone at the target university from conference talks, publications or collaborations.
One could compare numbers such as "fraction of students in discipline X with Muslim-sounding name" to "fraction of faculty in discipline X with Muslim-sounding name", but there are many differences between the makeup of the student population and faculty members, and firm conclusions will remain elusive that way.
So what can we say? There are plenty of academics in the UK with Muslim-sounding names, so such a name is not an unsurmountable disadvantage. Getting a job in academia is hard no matter what your name is. On the other hand, academia does not stand apart from the rest of society. It would be highly surprising if it is completely free from the anti-Muslim-sounding-name-bias found elsewhere.

"This methodology does not work for faculty positions" Pretty good studies have been done for gender discrimination in faculty hiring.  You just give your fake hiring committee consisting of faculty some CVs which are quite similar except for gender.  Then you find discrimination.

@AnonymousPhysicist That sounds like a lab experiment, not one in the wild. I definitely consider the results from this strong evidence for discrimination, but I'd hesitate to trust that specific numbers ("three times more likely") translate to real appointment procedures.

@AnonymousPhysicist Unlike in industry, faculty hiring basically assumes that an applicant has a public track record in the form of publications, a website, speaking engagements, etc, all of which will be evaluated and checked (at least in some informal way) during hiring. Submitting a fake CV is not likely going to lead to any interviews at all, Muslim name or not.

@Wolfgang Bangerth In theory, the way to deal with a 1% rate of applicants being invited for an interview is to submit a thousand fake CV with say 10% with Muslim sounding names.  This will fail for other reasons, like causing a failed search.  Hard to make this an ethical study.

@TerryLoring, that would require a lot of effort! :)

@paul garrett: The effort, and especially repeatability of the study, could be made much less by creating the appropriate analog of things like snarXiv (snarXiv paper generator) and SCIgen (SCIgen paper generator) and the Postmodernism Generator (PG paper generator).

@DaveLRenfro ... true. And/but, then, as suggested by TerryLoring, generating this much extra work for hiring/postdoc committees at universities nation-wide in the U.S. could be viewed as reeeeeeally inappropriate.

@paul garrett: I have to admit I didn't think of this -- and thus we have an example for the phrase "unintended consequences" (or its stronger version, "collateral damage") -- but for what it's worth, if I had thought of it I still would have posted those links! (But probably with a nod towards the extra work of hiring committees having to look through all those documents, and yes, I'm thinking of this current (U.S.) issue).

@DaveLRenfro, it would actually be a "DoS" (=denial of service) attack on the hiring committees, the more I think of it! Adding 1,000 applications to my uni's math dept's faculty hiring would probably triple the total. Nationwide... yikes!?!

@WolfgangBangerth "Submitting a fake CV is not likely going to lead to any interviews at all,"  I do not believe you would google all the hundreds of CVs before deciding who to phone interview.  Anyway, in a sensible study you just ask the participants:  Based on these CVs, who would you interview?

@WolfgangBangerth The vast majority of faculty have never had their own website.

@AnonymousPhysicist: No, I don't need to google all hundreds of applicants. Search committees sort out those that don't rise to the top 20 or so right away. Once you're done to 20, you start to discuss the ones that are left, look at their publications in more detail, discuss them in committee. You will find fake profiles at this stage, and they get sorted out as well. As for websites: "The vast majority of faculty have never had their own website." I think you need to do an empirical study at a randomly selected department at an R1 university. You will find yourself wrong.

@WolfgangBangerth The vast majority of faculty do not work at R1s.  It would be reasonable to think it is a majority at R1s, at least in STEM.  "Search committees sort out those that don't rise to the top 20 or so right away."  Yes, and that's where the discrimination is likely to occur.

@AnonymousPhysicist Right -- that's exactly where the discrimination will occur. I'm just saying that you won't be able to measure it because none of the other fake CVs with Christian/Western names will get a call-back either.

And I am saying it's easily measured in a controlled experiment; not in the wild.  Controlled experiments are the sensible way to do things.

I'll make two observations about academia, though they aren't specific to UK.
First, as a group (and with exceptions), academics are generally less prejudiced than the overall population. My own view is that diversity is a strength and that if I want to learn something new, it is good to talk to people not just like myself.
Second, in a large university in a country with a diverse population, as I think is true of UK, there is value in having role models for students that they can directly relate to. This is, in a way, the flip side of the first observation. But it implies that a diverse faculty is helpful when it matches a diverse student body.
I conclude from the above that having a "foreign sounding" name, whether Muslim, or Nigerian, or Chinese is one of the lesser impediments to an academic career than having, say, a poor publication record or few people willing to recommend you highly. Yes, you will find discrimination, but I'd guess that it is more likely to be manifest outside the university than inside. We have a lot to learn, even in the twenty-first century.
I'll also note that it is good for "majority culture" students to see and learn from competent professionals from other cultures. That might even help us reach the twenty-second century.


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Can someone do an academic PhD after finishing a BBA or an MBA?
Can someone be accepted into an academic Ph.D. program after finishing a BBA and/or an MBA and with no other degree?
If so, why? As far as I know, BBA and MBA are professional degrees.
If not, how can they do an academic Ph.D.?

Do you imply that BBA and MBA are not academic degrees?

@Nobody, I knew they are professional degrees.

Is there a DBA in those countries as there is in US?

For clarification: Do you mean only with a BBA/MBA and no other degree, or one of those degrees on top of another degree?

@Snijderfrey, Yes. You are correct. No other degree.

@Buffy, DBA is not an academic degree, I guess.

It could be or not. There is a certain "theory" that backs business structures and actions. An MBA is mostly about practice, but a DBA might be theoretical (i.e. academic).

Please clarify whether you are asking about changing fields, from business to, say, CS or math or whatever? Germany, at least, can be quite strict about prerequisites. I don't know about UK.

You will not be accepted to even start an MBA without a BA/BS (or equivalent foreign degree). So I think the premise of your question doesn't hold for the MBA part at least. Also, to your comment above: a DBA is just another word for a Ph.D. - at least if you get it from an R1. If your source is the wikipedia page, the first paragraph has several incorrect statements (e.g., that you need a DBA to teach at a business school, or that the research must be in "business administration." Absolutely not to both.).

This is Academia SE. What we mean by DBA here is Doctor of Business Administration, not Database Administration. Of course it is an academic degree.

I actually had a friend who did a BBA degree, then he did his Master in ... Astrophysics. He got his PhD in Astrophysics 3-4 years ago at a reputable institution. It was totally possible for him clearly not because professors did not care about his BBA degree, but because they cared about what he did during the undergraduate period (research activities and extracurricular activities related to Astrophysics)
BBA could be a minus, but what you do during your time at college matters more. MBA is probably a big minus. However, if you get both a BBA and MBA by coursework and you do nothing else, the odd of getting admitted to a good PhD program is 0.
Furthermore, in some countries, it is not possible to switch field if the master program(s) you are going to apply is too different from what you did in bachelor program.

Was this in UK or Germany?

It was France @Buffy. Not too far but not exactly these 2 countries.

I'll guess the rules are different though.


text:
How easy or difficult is it to switch from academia to industry in the case of a PhD in Bioinformatics?
Yesterday, I was talking to a guy who has a Ph.D. in organic chemistry, got sacked from academia because of Covid related fund cuts, and he is not being able to find jobs in the industry because, what I realized, his proficiency is poor or nonexistent with computers.
Now, consider another candidate whose research field is related to genes and proteins, working with supercomputers and simulations, and has a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics.
What prospects will the second person have if he wants to switch from academia to industry?
How easy or difficult will it be for the second person to switch from academia to industry?
What factors help the switch?

You'll have to give us more information than BioXXX.  If you want real advice you'll have to be very specific.  Generally being able to use a computer is a good thing in any job.

This is still pretty vague.  If you're having trouble with a job search.  Post the actual problems you are having.

I don't understand why people are downvoting it. It is an important question.

For what it's worth: I've done it and for me it was quite easy. I've now been in industry for 5-6 years and am in a position to hire people, and I can tell you there is great demand for bioinformatics skills in industry these days, especially if you know NGS. But that isn't even essential: my PhD work was in gene prediction and comparative genomics, followed by a postdoc in system biology (PPI networks), and I landed a job analyzing NGS data with no prior NGS experience.

I speak as someone a PhD in theoretical chemistry, who has landed a trainee position in industry with a promise of making it permanent after two years.
Doing a PhD in a narrow research field feels a lot like digging yourself a hole, where the hole gets deeper for every year. And a deep hole is hard to get out from... unless you have tools to make a ladder. Luckily you have most likely gained these tools from your PhD work. My ladder has been a desire for working with data, and becoming quite proficient in a a few programming languages. I code the best in Python, but I have some experience with c++ as well. What is your ladder?
I am by no means an expert in bioinformatics, but I think there are some similarities to my "old" field. The bioinformaticians I know do a lot of programming, often in Python, to develop analysis pipelines and web interfaces to new bioinformatics tools. Perhaps you have done this as well. Perhaps you have collected a lot of data from existing tools, and you have had to clean this data, explore it, learn to know it, and visualize it. These skills are relevant to the industry.
Also keep in mind that the industry does not value the same things as academia. While an academic application probably would focus on your research and all of your highly cited publications, the industry does not really care about these things per se. My experience is that they far more value what concrete skills you bring to the table, because your skills will be what brings value to the company. So think about your transferable skills, and try to imagine in what types of positions your currently transferable skills become essential skills.
I would say that a lot of PhDs do not realize just how attractive to the industry they are. Compare yourself to a recently graduated MSc or BSc. Studying is not the same as pursuing a PhD. Doing a PhD means to persevere in a high-stress environment working toward long-term goals, often with quite little short-term encouragement. You learn a lot about yourself as a person: What drives you? What do you value in life? In other words you have gained life experience, which means that you have become wiser. Most MSc/BSc graduates have not obtained this (at least this is my experience, both from talking to students and from remembering how I was myself at that time). This sets you out from the crowd of BSc/MSc graduates, if you are able to convey this in a good way in your cover letter.
Working in academia is curiosity driven and comes with a lot of freedom. I have come to accept that perhaps no industry job will offer me these things to the same extent. But, there are more important things in life. A secure job with reliable income makes it easier to provide for a family, and makes it easier to plan ahead. Bringing value to a company I respect is a lot more meaningful to me than doing basic research that may or may not bear fruits in 20 years.
So don't think of industry as a "Plan B", but rather as a "Plan A2". If you have successfully obtained a PhD in bioinformatics, then I am 100% sure you will be able to land an interesting job in the industry. Perhaps not working as a bioinformatician (although there are plenty of pharma-companies that would value such skills, I assume), but at least working with the skills you have obtained during your PhD applied to other fields.

Being a student of Masters in Bioinformatics in my final research phase with my stream being 'Translational Bioinformatics' dealing with Microarray and NGS, RNA-Seq related things, now working on Machine Learning related project and as a Associate Researcher in an Healthcare Industry, I can say that the the second person with PhD in Bioinformatics can easily secure job in Industry. There are many healthcare industries hiring Bioinformaticians. My 2 senior graduate fellows with Masters in Bioinformatics are working in a Healthcare company and working on a project that demands expertise of Genes, Proteins, supercomputers, Linux, Unix, R language, etc. So, don't worry. If a Masters graduate can do it, A PhD can also do it. :)


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Differences between subfields of biology related to mathematics?
My undergraduate studies were in the area of applied mathematics and statistics and I am interested in doing postgraduate studies in the area of mathematical biology. But when I looked into different courses offered by universities, there are so many other areas that look similar to mathematical biology. It would be a great help if someone can clarify the difference between mathematical biology, systems biology, bioinformatics, and synthetic biology.

Which are more extensively related to biology?
Which are more suited for a background in applied mathematics and statistics?
Does systems biology require engineering knowledge and could it be pursued with applied-mathematics knowledge.
What are the differences between systems biology and synthetic biology?

As a point of note often times several of those terms are used as synonyms, or interchangeably.
Mathematical biology is a kind of non-specific overarching domain, it could contain anything from population level dynamics to single protein dynamics.
Systems biology is field specific, but it refers to studying a whole systems as opposed to say a single gene in a a disease.
Bioinformatics is typically used in reference to the analysis of genetics data (proteomics, transcriptomics...)
Synthetic biology (at least in my understanding) is creating a new molecule (protein, DNA sequence...) out of "building blocks" - similar to building a widget out of stand alone electronic modules.
To answer your question about pursuing these fields, in my opinion bioinformatics lends itself best to a statistics background, it's highly dimensional, huge data sets... and can benefit a lot from a statistics background.
I'd hesitate to answer your question about systems biology because it can vary from large coupled ODE's to no math at all depending on what "sub-field" you're looking at.

I don't have any experience in any of these fields, so take my answer with a grain of salt. I do, however, come from a mathematics background like yourself.
From a cursory reading of each topic's Wikipedia page:

Mathematical biology is also known as theoretical biology, dependent upon where you choose to focus your coursework. It stresses the modeling of anything from small- to intermediate-scale biological systems and interactions. It also employs a vast array of mathematical disciplines in its applications.
Systems biology is very similar to mathematical biology, in that it focuses on interactions within biological systems. It emphasizes the modeling aspects of large-scale and complex systems. Emphasis is placed on computational mathematics.
Synthetic biology is heavily reliant upon knowledge of engineering and biology, not so much mathematics. It employs various engineering disciplines in the fabrication of biological components. Synthetic biology draws upon knowledge from systems biology, but is much more pragmatic than systems biology. I would say synthetic biology is just another phrase for "biotechnology", with various biological disciplines contributing to it.
Bioinformatics seems like something you'd be most interested in. Much like how data science is the application of mathematical tools and software to study data, bioinformatics is data science with strictly biological data. It deals with finding meaningful ways to interpret biological data.

To reiterate, I am not an expert in these fields and have drawn all of my knowledge on these subjects from Wikipedia.
Regardless, hope this helps.

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text:
International differences between "adjunct professor" and "visiting professor"?
I am interested in the differences between levels of professorships in the countries:

USA
UK
China
Germany

I read the Wikipedia Article about Professorship in United States but as far as I can tell - in the end - both take up the position of a professor:

for a (short) time - but tend to stay for quite a while, even if that is not the idea (both possibly receiving bad contracts)
which is non-tenure track,
are not involved in administrative tasks,
might come from a different university, but don't have to.

In an international context: What is the difference between an "adjunct professor" and a "visiting professor"?
Additionally: Which one is more prestigious?

Depends on the country, but it'd be clearer if you specified the actual terms and countries.

@virmaior: I would like to know how it is handled internationally. If it is handled differently in different countries - I would like to know how it is handled in which country.

I have voted to close this as unclear because it cannot be answered without more information about the country than "not the US"

Probably "visiting" has a given term of service, whereas "adjunct" normally continues indefinitely.  But neither is tenured, so can be fired at any time.

@jakebeal: If you must know: Coming from Germany, going to China.

@Make42 So you are asking how the term is used in China, then?

@jakebeal: As I already said twice (no disrespect): I would like to know how the terms are used in an international context (situations where people from all over the world come together, as it is very often the case in academic situations - how would the majority understand it?). But if you provide information on how it is used in China, this might lead towards an understanding about the international aspect.

@Make42 Please see this meta post on the high degree of variability across international academia.  Asking "How are these terms used internationally?" is not much more specific than "What languages are spoken internationally?"  The problem is that "international" is not a place.

@jakebeal: see edit

In the United States, "Adjunct Professor" is essentially an academic temp worker.  They are typically paid very poorly, have no job security, and often live near or below the poverty line.  They are often not well respected, particularly as many faculty perceive them as either a threat (administrators often use adjuncts to avoid making tenure-track appointments) or as a source of cheap labor.
A "Visiting Professor" on the other hand, typically means somebody who has a position elsewhere and is temporarily associated with the faculty, e.g., while on sabbatical or as a courtesy appointment for a person from industry who is teaching a course.  A visiting professor might or might not draw any salary from the university, depending on the particulars of their appointment.  Their status and degree of respect generally depend on their main position.
Note, however, that this vocabulary is not legally protected, and so some US institutions may change these titles around, particularly if they are seeking to camouflage the nature of an poorly paid post.

(Speaking for math) FYI, I've had several jobs as a "visiting professor" and I have had quite a few more interviews for these positions, and all of these had roughly beginning tenure track pay and teaching duties, although the teaching tended to be lower level courses. At more prestigious universities these tend to be filled by faculty on sabbaticals with research interests similar to someone there. However, at less prestigious colleges and universities, most of the applicants are those not in a tenure track position and most of the openings are due to unexpected and/or late faculty shortages.

(continued) Almost all of the visiting positions I've applied to (all in the U.S.) were situations where the department felt it was too late to conduct an extensive search for an appropriate "best" candidate (e.g. someone left, died, or retired unexpectedly in April or May), so they would conduct a shorter search for someone to come for one year, and the proper tenure track replacement search would begin in the Fall.

In Japan, "adjunct" and "visiting" might serve as translations for hijyoukin and tokunin or shouhei (https://iss-intl.osaka-u.ac.jp/supportoffice/eng/housing/navi/status/) respectively. Adjunct means part-time in this case. "visiting" meaning "specially-appointed" (i.e., not tenure track).

In India: Adjunct faculty refers to professionals from industry who engage part-time for a few hours/modules/courses in a College/University.  Visiting faculty belong to another Institution/Industry who on sabbatical/leave engage for a few days/weeks/months in another institution.  Guest faculty is appointed on ad-hoc/temporary basis until a regular faculty is appointed

As far as I know most these terms are not used in the UK. I know of no adjunct professor.
A visiting professor is just an honorary title, usually with little or no stipend or remuneration. They may get paid expenses when they visit. They may sometime teach a guest course; that's about it. It is not a job.
There is no tenure track in the UK. No one has tenure. We are all dismissable.

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text:
Are UK faculty salaries in computer science low compared to salaries in United States?
I'm looking at faculty ads for computer science in the UK and noticed that the average salary range seems to be significantly lower compared to the US. Typically, a starting Lecturer ( = Assistent Professor) can expect an annual salary in the range of only 35k - 42k GPD which is in the range of 55k - 66k USD.
On the other hand, if I look at the academic job market in the US, then this would be considered an average PostDoc salary at best, whereas the lower limit for computer science assistant professors seems to be around 80k. Considering that faculty gets this amount for 9 months in the US rather than 12 as in the UK and taking into account the higher income tax rates of the UK, this gap becomes significantly big.
Does the UK system include certain perks that the US system does not have that I'm missing here?
Are there other ways that UK faculty can make up for this quite significant gap?

You may have overestimated assistant professor pay in the US.  http://chronicle.com/article/2013-14-AAUP-Faculty-Salary/145679?cid=megamenu#id=table

It may be unique to CS. In science fields 60k$ salary for a PostDoc or 80k$ for an Assistant Prof is pretty high.

@AnonymousPhysicist: the link that you posted shows average salaries for assistant professors almost all of which are quite a bit above 80k. In fact, if you look at the average total compensation column, all of them are above 100k...

@Greg: Well, for other fields the UK salaries seem to scale to accordingly lower values, so it seems to me that the ratio is more or less the same (independent of the field).

@Greg, check the way the data is sorted and filtered.  You are only looking at top paying institutions.

@AnonymousPhysicist: Computer science pays much better than many other fields (presumably due to competition from industry), so looking at an average across all fields will not be a good guide.  A salary survey cited by your namesake in mathematics found the median salary for assistant professors of computer science at US research universities is $90,000.

In some places unions require all disciplines to be paid the same amount.

I would guess it is related to the fact that software jobs usually pay much lower in the UK than in the US. Therefore, if you leave academia in the UK, the jobs in industry don't pay very well. In the US, industry pays more. The market sets the rates (except as noted above by @AnonymousPhysicist).

@NateEldredge: Does the 90k include the summer salary?

Well, if you use similar "research method", the CS assistant professor salaries in the US, they are mostly bellow 70k:
http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=assistant+professor+computer+science&l=
You guys are comparing apples with oranges: advertised salary and actual average income can be very different. Negotiation process can be very different. Also, it makes no sense to compare two countries when practically all professional salaries in the UK are lower (salarywise , academia still can be pretty competitive).

@curiousacademic:   No, the report says those are nine-month salaries. Summer salary would be in addition to that. By the way, the 2013 edition of that survey gives the median salary as just over $94,000.

I bet UK academics ask the very same question every month!

Does the UK system include certain perks that the US system does not have that I'm missing here? Not having to pay for health insurance?

@BenWebster: Roughly 9-12% of your yearly salary in the UK is deducted for national insurance, which I believe exceeds by far the amount that US assistant professors would spend for their individual health insurance.

@Peter That's for pensions and unemployment insurance.  You pay a similar amount in the US (9.1%) for pensions and Medicare plus some taxes paid directly by your employer.  You also might be surprised at how much some assistant professors pay for healthcare.  Mine is about 5% of my gross income.

FYI, for computer science specifically, there are very good statistics on faculty salaries in the US. See the 2015 Taulbee Survey: http://cra.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2015-Taulbee-Survey.pdf page 36. Across 190 institutions, the median 9-month salary for an assistant professor of CS is $99,115. Multiply by 4/3 for 12 month salary.

@BenWebster: The 9-12% deductions in the UK that I mentioned do not include pension contributions. That's another 6-8% percent on top of that unless you opt out. To sum up, I believe the salary deductions are roughly the same in the UK and US, thus the UK system doesn't offer any perks (as asked by the poster) in this aspect.

You are trying to compare a US salary to a UK salary using the current exchange rate. I do not think this is particularly relevant. Even if you are willing to ignore differences between the UK and US in terms of work/life balance, teaching load, and job security, you probably want to compare the quality of life that a salary buys you and not what would happen if you converted it to USD. The starting salary for a CS lecturer/assistant professor, when converted to USD, is much lower for a UK academic than a US academic, but there are differences between the value of a US and UK salary.
While you say the UK tax rate is higher, that is a huge over simplification. Two random online tax calculators I used gave a US income tax of 24% on an 80,000 USD salary and a UK income tax of 25% on a 42,000 GBP salary. This ignores US state (and possibly city) income tax. The UK VAT of 20% is much higher than typical US sales taxes, but not everything is subject to VAT/sales tax. Even if you can accurately calculate an average total tax liability, you still need to account for purchasing power.
I have work in both the US and UK in comparable cites (not NYC/London) and tend to think that the value of my UK salary is a little lower than value of my US salary. It is worth noting that UK salaries are much more consistent across fields. This means that I make the same as a CS lecturer in the UK, but that in the US I would probably be making 10% less than a CS assistant professor. My guess is that for CS there is a substantial, maybe 15%, hit in quality of life that an academic salary buys.
In the US your starting salary is often your salary until you get tenure/promotion while in the UK you get a larger salary every year. There is a performance based pay raise, that essentially everyone gets, which is generally about 2.5%. This means the gap between the US and UK values gets smaller every year and after 6 years, when one is preparing to be promoted, the gap is pretty small. Further, UK salaries also have a cost of living adjustment. For the past few years this has been about 0.5-2% and less than the inflation, but it wouldn't surprise me if the union negotiates a big salary bump, maybe 10%, in the next few years. This would really close the gap.
It is also worth noting that a US assistant professor is not directly equivalent to a UK lecturer. I think a US assistant professor is often a few years ahead in terms of productivity and experience.

My experience is limited, but I think it's actually pretty common in the US as well for faculty to receive a small raise each year across the board, though it it not always as large as 2.5%.  (This year at my institution it was 1%.)  It may happen in some years that the institution can't afford to do this due to budget shortfalls, etc, but this is usually seen as an abberation (if a common one) rather than normal.

@StrongBad : looking at the developments since this post, it seems that the increases negotiated by the union are well below the projected inflation rate (2.5%). Do you still feel that the gap is not as significant as the original poster indicated?

@Peter I say in my answer that the annual cost of living adjustment is less than inflation. I still have hope that the UCU can negotiate a substantial pay raise, but they are currently fighting attacks on faculty pensions, job security, and job responsibilities. The OP is suggesting something like a salaries in the UK are 40% less than salaries in the US. I still do not think that is a reasonable assessment.

@StrongBad, I see, thank you for the clarification!

Let me give you some first hand insights from someone who did her PostDoc and a PhD in the US respectively Europe and then got hired as a computer science Lecturer three years ago in the London area.
Short Answer: The academic salaries in the UK are in no way competitive to salaries in the US even when considering only the 9 months US salaries. In some disciplines (e.g. computer science) a US PostDoc salary enables a better lifestyle than a UK Lecturer salary.
The Long Version
Salary scales are evil. In my opinion, the main reason for the low UK salaries is the "salary scale" system, which is the same for all public universities. Yep, that's right: It won't matter if you have snatched an offer from Imperial/Oxford/Cambridge or, for example, from a much lesser ranked institutions such as the London Metropolitan University, you will roughly earn between 38k-45k GBP a year as a starting Lecturer.
It also does not matter if you are based in a less popular area where you can rent a two bedroom house for as little as 600 GBP a month or in central London where you will have troubles finding a room in a shared flat for the same price.
(I am not exaggerating, feel free to check the data. To be fair, the London universities offer a "London allowance" in addition to the base salary which adds 2k-3k per year amounting to maybe around 100 GBP extra per month after deductions - note that these allowances were fixed back in the 90s and are rarely increased ever since.)
Why am I saying that salary scales are evil? The problem is that some of the more reputable institutions would be able (and maybe even willing) to offer their staff higher compensation. But having salary scales essentially requires the scale adjustments to match the amount that is affordable for even the least endowed institution.
In my case, taking up the Lecturer (Uk) job after doing a PostDoc (US) means that I'm struggling to even afford the lifestyle that I had as a PostDoc. Compared to a US assistant professor it feels that I am earning 50% less. Again, this is not an exaggeration and a simply calculation by checking the UK academic salary data and factoring in the cost of living. [My university is frequently ranked among the top ones for computer science in the UK thus for others this might be even worse.]
The projection of "closing the gap between UK and US salaries" due to the union's salary negotiations as outlined in the accepted answer by @StrongBad is wishful thinking: Last year's increase was 1% and this year the so called improved offer amounts to 1.1%. Strike actions by the union had no effect whatsoever.
Recommendation:
Stay clear of the UK academic market especially when looking for an entry level position. The situation is slightly better for higher ranked positions such as Reader or (Full) Professor.

Bear in mind that the cost of living in London is extremely high. Stratospherically high. Advising somebody to avoid the UK academic market because London is too expensive for anyone but the super-rich to live in comfortably is a bit like advising them to avoid the US academic market because Manhattan is too expensive.

Also, your answer is factually incorrect. Academic salaries in London are higher than the rest of the country. There is also a good deal of latitude where on the pay scale somebody starts, which means that the universities do have a fair amount of flexibility in this regard.

@DavidRicherby I acknowledge the point about London weighting, but it seems to me (although I don't live there) that it is insufficient to offset the factors in your first comment. (Just leaving this comment for benefit of future readers)

I notice, on 2nd reading, that Mira1983 did already mention London weighting in her answer

@DavidRicherby: I agree with you that the post focuses too much on London. That said, the UK does have a high concentration of many prestigious institutions in (or in the vicinity of) London such as Oxford and Cambridge and the cost of living there seems to be almost as high as in central London: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/priced-out-housing-cost-headaches-for-universities-and-staff
Also, while institutions do have some flexibility regarding the placement on the pay scale, as soon as you hit the top of the Lecturer range, you will no longer progress until you get promoted

@ Richerby and Mira: Just an added note - while I agree with you and have given my answer below, rents in Uk vary dramatically (with little logic). For example: rents in Warwick and Cardiff are 1/3rd that of Southampton. So the same salary may be comfortable in Warwick, but meager in SOU. London costs about double of Sou, but it is a great city and half the population lives in shares. Salaries in London are 5000 pounds more than SOU which does not cover this variation.

@ Mira: A lecturer in Southampton gets 31k per year as a starting lecturer, much lesser than what you have mentioned for London. In ordinary universities in London, it is 35k. I have lecturer friends in both cities and worked in both.

+1, this is the best answer. If you care about money you would never, ever work in the EU academia. If you care about other factors, then sure, go ahead.

Comparing salaries internationally based on currency conversion is never meaningful because it ignores differences in cost of living, tax rates and so on. I have always found it more productive to compare salaries based on ratio to average full time earnings when I am considering moving countries. That is, I assume the local economy is such that someone who is working full time can afford decent housing and lifestyle. This is not always true (London!) but is reasonable because a city would usually collapse if people couldn't live there with a job.
Using the tried and true method of a quick google search, I couldn't find individual earnings, but US average household income was 41 355 USD and UK was 27 029 USD in the same unstated year OECD report. Based on your estimate of UK salary at 60k USD, that is about 2.2 times average household income, which is actually higher than the 1.9 ratio for your figure for US.

+1. This seems to be the only answer which explicitly points out the need to compare salaries in academia with salaries in the country itself (and not just against tax rates, etc) -- although tbf I think one of the comments to the main question also mentions this point

It also depends largely on your discipline. Computer science is likely to make far more (especially starting out) than say history or languages, here in the U.S anyway. The STEM disciplines are doing very well right now but my experience (and among other junior faculty colleagues across the country) is that $80K is well above average starting salary. If you are making $80 starting out, be very happy about it- you are one of the lucky few.

Hi, and welcome to Academia.SE!  Unfortunately, I'm not sure how your answer pertains to the question, which is about UK salaries, not US salaries.

Salaries (of any job - not just academic) are usually due to a number of reasons -
1) The demand for that job
2) the number of applicants
3) The value that the employer puts to that job / person
4) How much the employer can afford (sometimes but not always related to 3 above)
5) What the employer can get away with
In case of UK, I think (5) plays a more prominent role than the other 4 reasons. The annual salary for lecturers tends to start at £ 31,000 with very low increments. After taxes, and contributions to insurance etc, this yields around £ 1800 per month, which admittedly is a pretty miserly sum when one considers that at least half of this is spent on rent.
1) Demand for a lecturers job - is fairly moderate / low. There tend to be a few jobs advertised - but most of them are the result of disgruntled lecturers leaving. Very few jobs are being created due to additional departments or growing numbers of students. Unlike countries like China and India where going to college is the norm for people of all classes (and hence people save for college since the child is a toddler), it is not so in UK. Education is not a priority for the average UK citizen. This simply lowers the number of students further.
2) Number of applicants -
Actually, due to the above stated reason, there are a rather limited number of British citizens available for faculty positions. However, this tends to be compensated by educated people from EU, and sometimes from Asia. While British teachers consider it their right to be paid fair wages, and demand them, this is not always so for their EU and Asian counterparts. The result supports reason (5).
3) The value that the employer puts to that job / person
Is quiet high. Education is a big business in the UK and lecturers are among the most important cogs in this apparatus. However, one always needs to assert this importance to prove it in the UK (not just in academic, but in many other professions too except perhaps for banking, financial services, real estate and politics).
Student feedback is taken regularly and published openly (however, only around 20-30% students actually respond to these official surveys thus limiting the visibility of good lecturers  in the larger scope of education)
4) How much the employer can afford -
Unlike many other sectors where employers genuinely cannot afford to pay more, universities are not so. They earn rather well, and the fees paid by EU/UK as well as overseas students tend to be to the tune of £ 8,000-£ 11,000 annually in an ordinary university. At UCL and Cass, it is even higher and to the tune of £ 15,000-18,000.
These tuition fees cannot be directly compared to tuition fees in USA and other countries as actual classroom lecture hours in the UK in most universities are lower than their counterparts in USA - as low as 12-16 hours per week for a Masters level course, and just 20 hours for under graduates per student per week.
Also, Universities tend to pay far lower rates for rents, gas and electricity than their business house counterparts.
5) What the employer can get away with-
Sadly (for lecturers - and hence students, as good lecturers tend to leave) and happily (for deans, and upper level management), universities in UK have been able to get away with low salaries. The fact that the lowest median wage in the UK is even lower makes it that much easier for universities to escape scot free. The fact that the number of British students attending classes in UK is so low, means that this is not an issue to the British voter currently. You will recollect that none of the campaigns last year said that they would try to improve the education system for British people.
And hence, UK faculty salaries are so low.

You're not answering the question  "Why are UK faculty salaries so low?".

You are right. Thanks for pointing that out - I have modified my answer.

£1800/month is not a "pretty miserly sum", your points 1) and 2) are not true, and also your points 4) and 5) don't take into account the fact that the fees used to be 3-4 times lower just a few years back. So, in its current form, your post is more of a rant than a proper explanation.

£1800: I appreciate your comment, but would like to know the rationale for your disagreement. A faculty member in UK would usually spend 44-55% salary on rent, and the rest on food and utilities, leavign little for his/her savings / children's education / expenses. Hence it woudl be miserly compared to other countries where salaries may be low, but rents are not so exceptionally high.

Unless you live in Cambridge, Central London, or any of the other expensive places, rent shouldn't be that high. Bills and food are not really expensive. So, the combined income of two adults should be enough for a family life. But all of this is off-topic, so...

I agree - they shouldn't, but they are. Rents in Southampton are £ 900 for a 1 bed house in SO15 and SO14. In London, one room in a shared accommodation (house) where you live with 3-7 other folk costs  £ 600. My belief is that a combined income of 2 people should be a choice, and not a necessity.

Point (3) is incorrect and unclear: first, I don't understand what this point is meant to say. Second, it is not universally true that student feedback is made public.

My understanding is that points (1), (2), and (4) are wrong - there are a lot of applicants, and a few counterexamples aside, universities are not rich. Tuition fee income looks high but is barely balancing the books (it substitutes for government funding being reduced)

@ Andrew - I hope you are right on that (some of my good friends have stayed back in UK universities to teach). I too find it difficult to reconcile what I saw to what I was told (excessive amts spent on bells and whistles that were not needed / used... like expensive sofas  normal robust ones would have done fine, expense on food+arrangements in seminars /group discussions attended by less than 5 people, and funding to the tune of 100k pounds granted but not used). I am still trying to rationalise it all, and inputs from someone on the spending committees of universities would be useful here.


text:
How Do I Shift Field of Study?
I am medical student at Alexandria University, Egypt and I have a question important to my life. I have no passion in what I have learned. I love medicine but not by that way we have to study it. How can I deal with that? I love programming but I am not professional in it. I am thinking about career shift as I feel my life has been stolen from me, unfortunately I am 23 years old and I don't know what I can do!

Please try to improve your question title. As. The current title could be used for a wide variety of questions on this site.

What is your question, exactly? You have studied med school, but don't enjoy it and you're looking to switch fields?

Questions like this are usually best discussed with people who know you well.  It's hard for total strangers to give you useful career advice.

@J.Roibal yes!  With existential mental problems

@NateEldredge you are completely right but sometimes stranger can give you better objective answer

I made a few edits to your question and I will now answer it.

If you have the means to support yourself, don't let age dissuade you. I started my undergrad at 25; the oldest 1st year Ph.D. student we later had was 42. Just make sure that the new field really appeals to you - along the lines of @J.Roibal's answer, grab an introductory text book from that field, learn and apply a programming language, etc. An alternative is to finish your degree, then do a Masters or so in a field combining the two - bioinformatics, neuroscience, or such.

Hello User41022 and Welcome to Stack Exchange. First off I would like to start my answer by saying that many people have experienced what you are going through at your age, including myself. 23 is an age where you have enough life experience that you know what you like and what you don't like. I am 29 years old, so I have a bit of perspective and experience on what you are going through. Here is my advice to you:
If you have spent a number of years in a field and decided that it is not "for you", either because you are not passionate about it or you are not good at it, and you have a passion in another field, I would STRONGLY recommend that you follow your passion into the other field. Now, that advice does not mean immediately tell your supervisor "I quit!" and then jump into the next field, it means, slowly begin to transition (by spending time learning) the new field so that you have the opportunity to follow your passion. If you are in medical school, you are clearly an intelligent person who has skills and connections. Your task is to now use the skills, experience and network you have developed over the past few years to transition to the field you are interested in.
You mentioned that you are interested in computer programming. I recommend taking a few online courses in Python (or another computer programming language) and begin applying these computer programming concepts to your current field in medical research. You simply do not want to throw away years of education and experience for a brand new industry, nor do you want to burn bridges with your network. By slowly transitioning from where you are to where you want to be, you will be much better off now and in the future.