Our Early Career Researcher Blog
Building a successful research career is complex and demanding. This is exacerbated by the fact that the necessary career skills are often not taught during the PhD journey. This blog aims to give you ideas and strategies to help with your postdoc journey.
If you are interested in more support, check out our free report ‘7 Keys for Postdocs: the Essentials for Taking Control of Your Future’. The resource includes a guided self-assessment and a short complimentary email-based training course.
There is an awful lot to finding a job.Creating the right networks and connections; getting the attention of potential employers; and presenting yourself in the best possible light with your ... Continue Reading
Collaboration is the big buzzword in research at the moment and in theory the benefits are clear: your name on more papers, you learn from other groups and you expand ... Continue Reading
Becoming an independent researcher is the essential step on your path to an academic research career, but how do you get there from a postdoc position? How do you develop ... Continue Reading
Do you have sleepless nights worrying about experiments not working and your contract finishing soon? Do you feel that tightening in the stomach because you have an unresolved conflict at ... Continue Reading
Isolation and lack of information is one of the biggest challenges for many postdocs. A research career is tremendously complex with many different possible paths to take. On top of ... Continue Reading
‘The disposable Academic. Why a PhD is often a waste of time’ (the Economist, 18th June 2012)‘US pushes for scientists, but the jobs aren’t there’ (Washington Post, 7th July 2012) ... Continue Reading
It’s that time of the year again – Christmas and New Year where work usually slows or stops for a little while so you can take stock of what happened ... Continue Reading
I had a bad start to the week last week. Bad in the sense that I was falling way short of what I wanted to achieve in the first three ... Continue Reading
Whether you are looking for a job, a new collaboration, mentors or anything else to do with people, you have first to meet the right contacts and make a connection ... Continue Reading
If you are early in your career you might not feel much like a leader yet. But the chances are you already supervise students and other team members within your ... Continue Reading
Mentors are essential to your career development. They’re the ones who can give you the key piece of information your are looking for, organise opportunities for you, help you trouble-shoot, ... Continue Reading
Many postdocs I talk to feel the knowledge they have acquired has made them ill-equipped for anything other than basic research or teaching, often limited to their specific area of ... Continue Reading
Congratulations! Imagine:- you have been asked to review a paper and, having considered the issues raised in Part I of this blog, you have decided that you can, and do ... Continue Reading
Which would you prefer: thinking of everything you do according to the motto ‘judge-or-be-judged’, or instead, ‘grow-and-help-grow’? These may sound like extremes but according to Carol Dweck, a Stanford professor ... Continue Reading
Have you been asked to review a manuscript but are unsure of how this works? Reviewing manuscripts is a great way to hone your critical skills, improve your confidence when ... Continue Reading