EXPOSED: The 4 Critical Success Factors in Academia 95% of Professors Have.

In this video, we look at the 4 traits 95% of tenured academics have. Work on this in your first 5 years and you'll significantly increase your chances of securing a permanent tenured position.

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▼ ▽ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Introduction
0:28 - The Four Essential Factors
1:43 - University Choice Matters
2:17 - Top 25 Universities Worldwide
3:10 - Publishing in High-Impact Journals
4:31 - Aiming for Q1 Journals
5:29 - Q1 Journals and Citation Ranking
6:23 - Networking in Academia
6:44 - Publishing with prominent researchers
7:51- Wrapping up

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[diodio]

Firstly, be born in the right country.

[standardtrickyness]

So basically everything that people keep telling themselves doesn't matter really matters.

[Spectacurl]

This is like the academia equivalent of:
“How to become rich in 5 simple steps?
1. Be born by a billionaire… “

[yogurtwarrior]

2nd year PhD here and I’m having my first publication in an international journal which is not in Q1 or Q2 journal. I did it just for the sake of publication, but this video definitely motivated me to aim higher

[WestOfEarth]

When I watch your videos like these about the tribulations required to secure a position in acedamia, I can't help but surmise this culling system is the absolute worst way to place the best and brightest researchers in research positions. I also wonder if this is the cause of what many feel is stagnation in fields like physics and others. It's clear that this process filters for a certain personality type, and it's not clear to me that this personality type is actually the best for research.

[liverpoolirish]

Here in the Netherlands, whether you'll get a lectureship is typically is decided within two years of Ph.D. defence. Universities have mostly outsourced this decision to a few particular grants, which have cutoffs of 2-3 years post Ph.D., and are an actual lottery. This heavily favours "Ph.D. technicians" who just worked as an extension of their PI in a large group and gathered lots of publications due to not having to actually manage their own research.

[agggggg]

For me, these factors are correlated. Anyone doing a PhD at one of these universities (which I have) will automatically work with people who know which scientific questions to ask in order to publish in a top five, but at least Q1. So I have two Q1s and a Q2 as a first author and several other Q1s and a top five as a co-author. Then it goes on to the network. It's normal for all the heads of the institute to chair a session at the conference and to be on the most important committees.
I only realised how important the university is during my PhD. I only studied at this university and later did my doctorate because I came from a modest financial background and was able to study there and live with my parents. However, I never intended to pursue a career in science and now work in the private sector, where I have a job close to science. I sometimes go to the same conferences and everyone wonders how a stranger knows all the top shots.

[bradbellomo]

Overall good, but this should consider the field you are in. Journals are more important than Conferences for some fields, and it is the other way around for other fields. I'd also look at the top schools for your field, not top schools overall. I wonder how much the Internet changes school importance - I read thousands of journal articles that are not from my University, and usually communicate with other researchers by email, regardless if they are at the same University or the opposite side of the world. There is selection bias here as well - people from MIT are successful, but people who got into MIT may have been just as successful if they went somewhere else.

[worship_the_ocean]

The most important caveat here is that those 100 successful researchers from the study built their careers in what academia has been for decades and what those key factors represent.
With the current shift to more diversity in science these factors will be very different for people who are now entering or will be entering academia in the next 10 years.
What this summary demonstrates is elitism, nepotism and the horrendous reign of journals.
As a 4 year PhD student I am telling you, all the dark sides are still present but there is noticeably more awareness and effort put into changing things.

[minhazulislam]

Great video. Your content works like inspiration for me along my PhD journey.

[littlebrit]

This is already known and nothing new. Better explain how those other 50% of academics who don't publish go on with their academic careers. How they can succeed without anything serious published?

[sunway]

Sorry Andy, I think you miss the most important thing: getting successful research grants. You might say without the 4 factors you describe, how could you get a research grant. That I would not disagree totally. But these 4 factors could be just necessary conditions, not sufficient conditions. Whereas getting research grant is a sufficient condition. I have seen people who are not doing so well in the 4 factors getting a research grant and then just use that to generate more successful grants. Vice versa, I have seen people who do quite well in the 4 factors, even with Nature papers and books published by top publishers, but without much success or interest in pursuing big grants, being stucked in their career progression. Except in a small number of academic fields like pure maths, what I describe here is very common. You need to get grants, the bigger the better.

[affiliatesssw]

Thank you Andy, what a relevant content....and this video is exceptional !!!

[scottmiller]

I agree with a lot of what you said, but it depends on the specialty, such as AI/ML (Artifcial Intelligence/Machine Learning)
1) MIT has been coasting on its rep for a long time. It's good (decades ago an MS from MIT was treated like a PhD from anywhere else, not so much now), but not number 1 good for AI/ML
2) The Q1 listings for AI/ML are painfully wrong if you want to get noticed. In AI/ML, publishing in Nature was prestigious (but they are in an editorial death spiral currently, so that won't last), but you really want to get your paper on ArXiv and published in a good conference (NeurIPS, ICLR, or ICML). IEEE is prestigious as a journal, but you'll suffer in citations - if it's on ArXiv (the preprint server), it will get cited a lot if it's important. Nowadays, most researchers practically ignore the IEEE stable of journals because they know the citations will be low - IEEE is very stingy about allowing papers to appear anywhere else, such as ArXiv, where everyone serves up their AI/ML papers. As a result, IEEE has turned into a walled garden, with IEEE members citing each, and the top researchers caring less and less. PNAS, Entropy, etc., are all credible journals for lots of exposure that will be seen by other top researchers, and which understand the value of preprints.

[dovahkin]

Nice video, Andy. However, the popular ranking websites (QS, ARWU, THE, etc.) rank different universities in different manners for every country. In some, the regional universities get some preference; in others, they may not. So, I do not think there is any one particular index that can aid in this whole ranking process. Also, in central and western European countries, there are some magnificent groups working in non-university research institutes ( Helmholtz, Leibniz, Max-Planck, and Fraunhofer, as examples) whose cumulative research output is never ranked on major websites; however, even the top 10 unis in the world on all possible metrics will bite the dust simply if they are included, provided those research clusters often employ PhD students affiliated to a local university, which may not be so popular themselves. So yes, agree with all the other points, but the first one.

[WestOfEarth]

What's the difference between 'highly ranked journal' and 'Q1 journals' ?

[diodio]

Horizon Europe (one of the biggest science funders in Europe) is expecting researchers to publish their results on their Open Research Platform.

Hopefully others will follow soon.

It is the content that should matter and not artificially constructed impact factors from billionaire publishing houses.

[valevan]

hey Andy, I have been watching your videos quite a while and it's really great. Do you perhaps from time to time open some consultation to people who wants to be PhD students? I've been struggling with a certain related problem lately and I don't know if I can make the right choice. Thanks!

[Anonymous-xepx]

Hello sir. Thank you for all of your content. So, I have just started my phd journey and the research area is completely new to me and it even requires some programming to do. Can you make a video that can provide some insight on how to understand new methodology and background that can act as a solid foundation to start my phd journey? Not just reading literature but in addition to that. Also, maybe a stepwise plan for few months to get around the level where one can at least work independently in most part of the research.

[BarriosGroupie]

Interesting that there's a black/blue/red pill social dynamic within even academia: you either have what it takes for success, or you don't.