This is one of the most common questions that people reach out to me with. It seems many early career researchers are trying to decide if they should pursue academia as a long-term career option.
Lots of researchers aspire to obtaining a permanent academic position and achieve a lab of their own, but most also understand the difficulties faced on this journey (competition, targets, deadlines, performance metrics, funding challenges etc – to name a few).
Whether you’re interested in gaining a permanent academic post, or are beginning to doubt if a long-term academic career is right for you, this blog post offers clarity in that decision process.
WARNING – This post challenges you to make some pretty brutal self-assessment of your achievements to date. If you’re prepared to do this, please read on…
…Still with me? Good!
Please note that this advice is tailored towards those of you considering research-active positions. Permanent teaching-only roles do exist in some systems, which help universities to enhance teaching quality by providing dedicated staff to the task. Furthermore, full-time teaching positions reduce the number of staff employed on temporary contracts. So, if you really enjoy teaching, this may be an option for you.
However, many in academia are passionate about their research. Coupled to this, prestige and reward in academia are all too often obtained through research success. Therefore, many early career researchers want to weigh up their odds of nailing that illusive research-active permanent academic position.
To help you do this, you can critically appraise yourself using the flow chart below (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Assessing Academic Career Options
Help with answering the flow chart questions is outlined below:
1. Are you competitive enough to run a lab of your own?
Buckets of enthusiasm and a stellar track record (although both essential) are no longer enough to guarantee a climb to the top of the academic ladder. These days the odds of landing that coveted permanent position at a research-active academic institution are slim, so to get there you need to be able to outcompete your peers and to start doing this at an early stage.
There are 6 main areas where you need to be able to demonstrate that you can compete well above average:
- Communication: You need to be able tell the research community what you do well. Written and oral communication skills are imperative to success. Well-crafted research statements are needed in all forms of communication
- Publications: One word about publications in the academic world – imperative! Your job as an academic researcher is to produce them. A substantial list of pubs in journals that attract attention in your field are essential for career progression
- Leadership qualities: You need to understand the ‘business’ of scientific research if you’re to make it in academia. Managing grants, projects and others is something you can start as a postdoc, and provides the professional skills you’ll need as a principle investigator
- Personal funding: The ability to demonstrate that you can pass external peer review to obtain funding for your work, is an indicator of future success for hiring committees. If you can demonstrate this early on in your career, it will set your CV apart
- Network: Build your ‘brand’ as a postdoc. Find your niche and build a strong reputation within that field. Attend meetings and introduce yourself to key people in your area. These will likely be the same individuals that are making key career decisions about others in the field at some point
- Career planning: Planning out your research career will set you apart from your peers. Many postdocs and graduate students still don’t bother and therefore are not preparing themselves strategically when for applying for academic positions in the future
Eventually you need to be able to out compete your peers in all these areas to succeed in the academic job market and you’ll need to have the personal determination to want to do this in all the points listed above.
If your answer to the question ‘am I competitive enough to stay in academia?’ is ‘no’ (irrespective of if you’d like to run your own lab or not), then leave academia now.
Some of you might be at the stage where you are not yet out competing others, but you would like to get to that point in the future (or at least try) and excel in all the areas listed above. If you’re in this position, ask yourself the following question:
Does your work excite you enough to get you up early in the mornings?
If you are to pursue a long-term academic career your answer to this question should overwhelmingly be ‘yes.’ Your research should enthuse you enough to want to get into the lab and get it done (whatever the day-to-day obstacles are that will inevitably present themselves throughout your career). Without this innate drive, determination and interest in research, it will be very difficult to compete with others to the level required to make it in academia.
And why try? There are so many career options available with clear career structures and potentially far higher pay, that there is little need to battle on in this highly competitive industry unless you have the determination, willingness, and ultimate enjoyment of research to outcompete others in your field.
2. Are you in a research position that is enabling you to build a strong reputation?
These days the decision to stay in academia is not a choice that you can make alone. It will be down to others to eventually decide whether you land funding or a position that keeps your career alive (and this will continue throughout your academic life).
The lab you choose to work in as an early career researcher can make or break this decision, as it affects the decisions of others about your ability as a researcher. You need to consider two main points when searching for a post:
- Your boss’s reputation: Increasingly, these make or break decisions are as much based on your own reputation as your boss’s one too. Getting into a well-respected lab in your field with an internationally-recognised reputation for producing outstanding work is a major advantage in the competitive funding playing field
- The lab environment: Being in a supportive environment (with plenty of spend power) and having a well-managed project that enables you to get on with your research easily (i.e. a well-funded, non-toxic lab, with a data-generating project), will help you to publish high quality work
Fulfilling these two requirements will provide you with a huge advantage when it comes to building a strong research reputation.
If you are not in this position yet, but are still wanting to give a long-term academic career a go, I suggest finding an alternative position that provides these advantages. Obtaining a research role in a highly productive lab, with a strong international reputation will significantly increase your chances of obtaining personal funding in the future. Personal funding is the key to an independent research career.
3. Is your CV strong enough to be competitive for personal funding?
If you want a long-term career in academia, you need to reach a point where the answer to this question is ‘yes.’ There is still no guarantee of course that you will get the funding once you reach this point, but there’s is little point in trying if your own reputation has not reached a level where you are competitive amongst your peers.
This is because the success of the application is not solely based on the project proposed, but also your own reputation and that of the institution you’re applying from. Without a good research trajectory shown in your CV (looking like you’re going places), you’re unlikely to get into a strong institute. So, your CV needs to stand out and state that you are going to be a successful academic in the future.
So how to assess if your CV makes the grade? The easiest way is to research previous recipients of the awards that you plan to apply for. What were their achievements at a comparable time to where you’re at in your career (years post-PhD)? Publications is the main thing to look at here (quantity and quality). Is your CV comparable?
Remember, to reach this point you need to have been in a contract that’s allowed you to make a name for yourself in your field, not just one that’s allowing you to publish for the numbers game. You need publications yes, but to stand up and be counted with the elite vying for independent funding, your track record also needs to show you will be a leader in your area one day (which also harks back to the point about your boss’ reputation – see question 2 above).
So, if you’re not there yet and you want to stay in academia, it’s worth taking the time to apply for another post that offers you this opportunity.
Of note, time can be a player here too. If it’s taken you a long time to reach this point (>10 years post-PhD), certain funding options may no longer be available to you (early career and career development awards for example). This can make it trickier to obtain funding because you will be forced to submit grants where you’re competing against established professors with a long track record of delivering on their funding.
This is why it’s worthwhile making a solid career plan early on and assessing it every year to ensure you’re on track. And also having a ‘plan B’ in place, should you not to achieve that elusive independent funding. The system is so competitive now that it can fail even the most promising researchers out there and there’s no shame in walking away from it and working on your alternative non-academic career plan should you choose to do so.
So GOOD LUCK and I wish you every success in whatever you choose to do next!
In Summary
- Not sure if an academic career is for you? Use Figure 1 to help you decide
- Fulfil the following to obtain an independent academic career:
- Develop innate enthusiasm for your work
- Outcompete your peers
- Land a position that enables you to build a strong reputation
- Obtain personal funding
- Choosing to leave academia (at any point in your academic career) is not failure and there are plenty of options available for alternative careers
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