Luís Filipe Costa Póvoas (Porto, 1996) had always imagined that he would end up having an academic career. He liked science and for years he saw himself one day directing his own laboratory or being a university professor. His doctorate, however, has changed his plans. Not because he has stopped loving research, but because he now has other priorities: "Having a flat, having a family, a stable life." And he is not sure that all this is compatible with a scientific career.

The Catalan government has taken an important step to improve the working conditions of PhD researchers in Catalonia: from now on, those employed by the Generalitat (Catalan government) will have four-year contracts instead of the three-year contracts that have been in place for the past twenty years. The measure, announced by the Department of Research and Universities in a press release, fulfills one of the key objectives of Salvador Illa's government's term. The contractual change involves an investment of €21.1 million to hire a total of 243 predoctoral researchers through the Joan Oró grants. Although this expenditure is only for this year's call for applications, the department emphasizes that, from now on, the government's grant programs for young researchers (Joan Oró-FI and FI-SDUR) will always include a fourth year of employment. However, it should be noted that this change will not affect doctoral students in industry. The measure, approved this Monday, had been long demanded by Catalan doctoral students, as many of them saw how the work to write a doctoral thesis could take up to four years, but in Catalonia, grants only covered the cost of the first three.