The future of astronomy PhDs in France

TL;DR

This paper surveys French astronomy PhDs to assess career prospects and training, revealing low encouragement for new students due to job scarcity and proposing reforms or reduced thesis numbers.

Contribution

It presents empirical data from a 2012 poll on French astronomy PhDs, highlighting challenges and suggesting reforms in training or thesis numbers.

Findings

Majority would not encourage new students to pursue astronomy

High pressure on astronomy positions discourages PhD students

Need for training reform or thesis number reduction

Abstract

This contribution presents a poll undertaken at the beginning of 2012, and addressed to every doctor in astronomy who obtained his/her degree in France. Its goal is to motivate the French astronomical community to think and discuss about what should be the training of PhDs, and what should be its objective. Further discussions and reactions can be posted e.g. on http://docastro.blogspot.fr/. A worrying results from the poll is that the majority of the participants would not encourage a young student to start a thesis in astronomy. The main reasons for this fact may be the high pressure on astronomy positions and the little interest a doctorate has for other careers in France. I suggest we either have to modify our formations or reduce the number of thesis starting each year in astronomy.