Global mobility of the recent STEM postdoctoral workforce registered in ORCID

Abstract Postdoctoral researchers contribute to scientific, technological, and societal innovations under the supervision of academic faculty and domain experts. Their international movements facilitate the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and thus are important for research and development. To understand postdoctoral mobility at a global scale, this paper analyzes self-reported career trajectories of postdoctoral researchers by leveraging Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID), focusing on five STEM fields: Biological Sciences, Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, Chemical Sciences, Engineering, and Physical Sciences. The United States and European countries are major destinations for the first postdoctoral position across the selected fields, and three Asian countries—China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea—also attract postdoctoral researchers in Chemical Sciences and Engineering. Gender differences are observed for some specific cases mainly due to the tendency that female postdoctoral researchers are more likely to stay in a single country or less likely to move to the United States for the second postdoctoral position compared to male postdoctoral researchers. The results would be leveraged to design science and technology policies for postdoctoral researchers in consideration of additional factors, such as culture and language.