Research Policy 2026
Postdoctoral mobility and returnees' careers in Italian academia
Abstract
This paper investigates the relationship between international postdoctoral stays and academic career advancement among researchers returning to the Italian university system. Using a unique dataset of Italian PhD holders observed over a 30-year period, we analyze how international postdoctoral stays are associated with two key career outcomes: (i) the time between PhD completion and first appointment as Assistant Professor ( time-to-entry ), and (ii) the time between Assistant Professor appointment and promotion to Associate Professor ( time-to-promotion ). We identify international postdoctoral stays by tracing foreign affiliations in researchers' publication records and examine how their association with career progression is moderated by institutional inbreeding, home-country linkages, and the persistence of international research networks. To explore these relationships, we apply a Cox proportional hazards model combined with entropy balancing. Our findings were validated by using curriculum vitae information for a subsample of researchers. We found that international postdoctoral stays are associated with slower entry into the academic system but are positively related to shorter time-to-promotion. Notably, this association is strongest for researchers promoted at universities other than their alma mater . We also observe that maintaining a strong home-country publishing network is associated with quicker entry as Assistant Professor, while sustained collaboration in postdoc-period co-author networks is linked to faster promotion to Associate Professor. • Postdocs returnees to the Italian academic system take longer time to get an Assistant Professorship position. • Controlling for productivity, postdocs returnees get promoted faster. • Postdoctoral stays longer than 18 months at prestigious foreign host institutions are associated with faster promotion in “non-inbreeding” universities. • The Italian academic labor market has increasingly rewarded quality and mobility among recent PhD cohorts.
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.respol.2026.105456
- Sources
- openalex