{"doi":"10.1111/cns.14359","title":"Part I: Before you apply for that faculty position …","abstract":"The objective of this two-part CNSNT editorial is to provide real-world, frank advice for scientists joining an academic or research institution. Based on our experience on hiring committees and mentorship of the next generation of scientists, we offer help for colleagues seeking positions at R1 (very high research activity) and R2 (high research activity) institutions in the United States, as defined by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, and the equivalent in other countries. Most of the information applies to scientists researching the health sciences, but a lot of the advice applies to any faculty position. We will help you gain insights into the demands of the new position and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your application—before you apply. We will also try to help you prepare you for the interview, land the job offer, and negotiate the contract. Before you spend the time applying, determine where the faculty members publish and how much extramural funding they bring to the institution (more on this below). Papers, citations, and externally funded grants are benchmarks against which your applications for retention, tenure, and/or promotion will be judged—now and in the future (Figure 1). You can request the faculty handbook (if not available online) and search all the criteria to achieve retention/tenure/promotion at that specific institution. Be aware that thresholds to achieve retention/tenure/promotion can vary dramatically across institutions. National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding data in the United States reveal that the top decile (10%) of organizations receiving research project grant funding acquired ~70% of the funds available, whereas the bottom 50% of organizations acquired <5% of total funds (Figure 2).1 Similarly, the top-funded centile (1%) of scientists acquired $4.8M as the median in 2020, whereas the remaining 99% of investigators acquired a median of $0.4M.1 Therefore, try to identify the goalposts for retention/tenure/promotion—even if no formal thresholds for papers and grants are listed in the faculty handbook. In addition to this two-part series, there are other resources to help faculty members flourish (e.g., see 2-5). Use our advice and these resources to build a plan to address as many of the institutional criteria for success as possible. Next, ask yourself if these goals are realistic and achievable, given all your other responsibilities (e.g., family, childcare, sick parents). From the institution's webpages and search engines, you can figure out which faculty members perform research in the area closest to yours and could serve as potential collaborators. You can also calculate from the faculty webpages what fraction of senior faculty members are tenured and/or full professors. Many faculty members post accomplishments on faculty webpages, laboratory websites, or social media. During your search, evaluate if the webpages are designed clearly and contain relevant information on scholarship and teaching. Look especially closely at webpages of newly hired faculty members. Even if there are no faculty members in your specific area of expertise at the institution, ask yourself if your type of research can be published in the same quartile (e.g., top 25%) of journals. The quartile rankings of journals can be viewed on websites such as Scopus (https://www.scopus.com/sources). PubMed can also be leveraged to identify publications by authors affiliated with a specific institution or department (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). The reputation of a venerable journal (e.g., an official Society journal) is more meaningful than impact factors, but a candidate's track record is often judged through the lens of impact factors and quartile rankings—rather than the quality of the work itself. Unfortunately, you cannot assume the hiring committees will “read your papers.” Use public data to calculate approximately how much various faculty members are awarded per ye","journal":"CNS Neuroscience & Therapeutics","year":2023,"id":409594,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9694,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1189560,"name":"Devika Soundara‐Manickam","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1189147,"name":"Xiaoming Hu","orcid":"0000-0002-8318-3222","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":616351,"name":"Jun Chen","orcid":"0000-0002-8077-3403","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1100625,"name":"Khalid M. Kamal","orcid":"0000-0003-4269-3370","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":253439,"name":"Wilson S. Meng","orcid":"0000-0003-2575-2260","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":576084,"name":"Rehana K. Leak","orcid":"0000-0003-2817-7417","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":5,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:21:27.199694Z","pmid":"37452473","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}