It’s extremely hard for a small research team to compete against huge labs. It’s a question of network effects; the huge labs have the critical mass of funding, collaborators, momentum, and publication pull to attract the best talent, whether the brightest PhD students or the best post-docs. The rest are left with the “scraps”. Seems cold to say so, but…
Associate Professor (tenure track) at the University of Vaasa, and Adjunct Professor at the Turku School of Economics. Based in Finland.