Five years as a junior faculty member

In 2010, after one year as a junior faculty member, I wrote up that year in numbers, and in 2012, at three years as junior faculty, I wrote this. The last two years have been different, mostly due to having a small baby to look after (fewer conferences), but also due to a shift in the lab as it became established (less grant writing, more research paper writing). Now I have finished five years as junior faculty, so I can be quantitative about my entire tenure-track period:

265: the number of grants I have reviewed for various foundations
119: the number of articles I have reviewed for different journals

85: the number of grants submitted (27 project grants, 33 fellowship applications and 17 grants as collaborator)
        31: grants accepted (15 project grants, 11 fellowships and 5 grants as collaborator)
        46: grants rejected (12 project grants, 22 fellowships and 12 as collaborator)
        5: grants pending (tenure application and 4 fellowships)
€5.7 million: euros given to the lab in project grants
€4.1 million: euros spent in research

46: invited talks
19: conferences
8: lectures

97: article submissions and resubmissions
        53: articles published or in press (31 primary papers, 15 reviews, 6 book chapters)
3: number of edited volumes

22: number of lab members
      12: PhD projects ongoing
       1: Masters projects ongoing
       19: number of full-time researchers in the lab 
(34: number of ex-lab members)

0: still the number of days I've spent doing experiments

So what is an average month for me? Well, I'll typically submit one grant, with nearly a 50% acceptance rate. I'll submit 1-2 papers, and have one accepted. I spend a fair bit of time reviewing - 4 grants and 2 papers per month, not counting favours for friends. I'll go give an invited talk or attend an international conference. My lab will spend ~€70,000 each month (not counting fellowships), and one new person will start or an old person will leave.

Next week I find out whether this is enough to get tenure at the University of Leuven.

Comments

[Cedric]

Good luck!!

[Jason]

Wow, quite amazing to see it broken down that way. You would have to be up against an incredible level of competition to miss out, I think you will be practicing your language skills and enjoying the special beers in Belgium for years to come. Good luck