People don&#x27;t even understand how critical this problem is. I was previously working at a very good European medical lab. The environment was so weird most postdocs simply spent 95% of their time playing the ladder-climbing game. Some got incredible promotions, like getting all the way from postdoc -&gt; assistant prof. -&gt; asociate prof. in 3 years after ending their PhD with no decent publications at all.<p>It&#x27;s not even publishing crap. It&#x27;s that these places develop into odd little societies that end up resembling Orwell&#x27;s Animal Farm.<p>Obviously, this very good lab is collapsing. I have moved to Oxbridge now and things are much better. Sad to see so many cancer research Euros wasted.