Postdoctoral Mobility and Returnees' Career in Italian Academia

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 duration between PhD completion and first appointment as Assistant Professor (time-to-entry), and (ii) the duration between Assistant Professor appointment and promotion to Associate Professor (time-to-promotion). We identify international postdoctoral stays through bibliometric indicators by tracing foreign affiliations in researchers’ publication records and examine how their association with career progression is moderated by institutional inbreeding, homecountry linkages, and the persistence of international research networks. To explore these relationships, we apply a Cox proportional hazards model combined with entropy balancing. We validate the results of our analysis using curriculum vitae information for a subsample of researchers. Our findings show 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 different from their alma mater. We also observe that maintaining a strong home-country publishing network is associated with quicker entry, while high persistence in postdocperiod co-author networks is linked to faster promotion.