Myths and facts about getting an academic faculty position in neuroscience

We at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke routinely receive questions and statements from trainees and faculty that suggest widespread beliefs about the necessity of a National Institutes of Health K99/R00 award, other prior funding, and/or specific types of publications for obtaining one’s first tenure-track position in neuroscience. To address these beliefs, we examined the funding and publication history of a cohort of investigators who began their first academic faculty position between 2009 and 2019, and we interviewed several senior academic leaders with extensive experience in hiring new faculty. Our data show that <11% of newly hired faculty had a K99/R00 award and that neither prior funding nor papers in prestigious journals were necessary to obtain a tenure-track faculty position. Interviews with academic leaders almost uniformly referred to critically important factors that were considered to be more important in the hiring process than funding or publishing in high-profile journals.