Beginning in 2020-21, the salary raises for postdoctoral scholars will be adjusted annually based on increases recommended for faculty and staff by the University of Nebraska Board of Regents.
This will represent a change for the postdocs’ salaries, which have been based for several years on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Research Service Award (NRSA) postdoctoral recommendation and adjusted to the Omaha cost-of-living index. For 2019-2020, the minimum salary for UNMC postdocs increased by 9.5%, bringing it at or near the top of regional peers. About 120 postdocs work at UNMC.
“We recognized that the salary increases over the past two years have made it challenging for grant-funded research faculty to meet their budgets,” said Iqbal Ahmad, Ph.D., director of postdoctoral education and research. “This put pressure on them to identify alternative funding sources or make difficult decisions about keeping their current postdocs or hiring new ones.”
For the 2019-2020 year, researchers will get support from the chancellor’s office and their colleges to fund the salary increase. The chancellor’s office will cover up to half of the actual postdoc salaries in excess of the 2.4% that was funded by the state, while the remaining half will be covered by the faculty member’s college.
“The colleges/units will have to submit a request to the Budget Office to get reimbursed for these one-time post doc salary increase expenses, and they should do so in the first quarter of this fiscal year,” Dr. Ahmad said.
Moving forward, the UNMC postdoctoral scholar salary will be de-linked from the NIH NRSA recommendation rates and will be adjusted annually based on annual increase rates for faculty and staff as recommended by the Board of Regents and the State of Nebraska budget considerations.