This is a Pathfinder Expert Voices post, by Dr Yinka Somorin, Research Culture Specialist (Career Destinations) at the University of Glasgow. Yinka leads the Pathfinder initiative.
Pathfinder at the University of Glasgow
Career Development for researchers is important to the University of Glasgow. So much so that these themes are embodied in the Research Strategy 2020-2025 and the Institutional Strategic Priorities for Research Culture 2020-2025. Furthermore, as a signatory to the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, the university has committed to improving the employment and support for researchers, and providing professional and career development opportunities for them to develop wide ranging skills to help them succeed in their chosen career paths, whatever the destination.
Pathfinder, our flagship researcher careers project at the University of Glasgow, was developed as a way to coordinate all career development initiatives, improve career awareness, options, planning, and transition to new roles. This emphasis on supporting researchers’ careers even informed my own decision to join the university, and I have been lucky enough to get the job of coordinating Pathfinder through its first year.
The Pathfinder Expert Voices blog series
To celebrate the launch of Pathfinder we commissioned some of the UK’s leading Researcher Careers experts, to offer analyses, research and scholarly perspectives on the challenges and opportunities for researchers and why it is important to focus on career development for researchers. In short, we asked them to highlight the evidence that supports our choice to prioritise research careers work. We heard from academics, careers advisers, career consultants, coaches, mentoring experts, policy experts and independent researchers.
Through the Expert Voices Blog series, we wanted to provide insights to several audiences. Firstly, to researchers (doctoral researchers and research staff), secondly to the managers of researchers (supervisors, and principal investigators), and thirdly to Researcher Development professionals, and everyone who supports researchers.
We wanted this blog series to empower researchers to make informed career choices rather than casting about for their next move with partial information and feeling uncertain about their decisions. Topics therefore centred around themes on career conversations between researchers and their managers, helping to bust career myths for researchers, and help them to gain agency and ownership in making confident decisions.
The whole Pathfinder Expert Voices series is published here. The articles, all 5-10min reads, are open resources that can be freely accessed from any part of the world and hence is a valuable resource for the sector.
Reflections on the Voices of Experts
The purpose of this 10th blog in the series, and the end of the first phase, is to reflect on my favourite highlights of the blogs in the series, and then to offer my own three key pieces of advice for any researchers wondering ‘what next?’.
The first article (and most popular so far!) by Dr Holly Prescott addressed the importance of using appropriate languages by managers of researchers in having career conversations with their researchers. “Using terms such as ‘non-academic,’ ‘plan B,’ (or even ‘the dark side’) to refer to career options beyond academia, unintentionally inferring that these options are inferior to academic jobs.”
In her blog, Sarah Blackford emphasised the need for researchers to be ‘intentional’ about their career development. “By associating themselves with a range of communities, they will start to find themselves in incidental situations that may turn out to be the ‘lucky’ turning point in their career”.
Dr Sally Hancock debunked the assumption that careers outside of academia are ‘alternatives’ to the norm. Reflecting on employment outcomes of PhD graduates in the UK, she showed that “a career in research is no longer limited to a career in academia”, as “over half of those working outside academia are employed in a research role”. Furthermore, she highlighted that most (over 95%) of these doctorate holders employed in research roles beyond academia were satisfied with their careers.
My final highlight is from Dr Robin Henderson, who emphasized the need for researchers to understand the higher education landscape, so that they map their paths to diverse careers ‘within’ and ‘beyond’ academia and engage with appropriate career planning and development opportunities. He suggested: “… adopting a curious and proactive approach to exploring the changing landscape ….and to look beyond immediate circumstances, comprehend the broader environment, and keep your focus not only on what’s directly in front of you but also on the bigger picture.” And that “To begin building and developing these wider maps, a logical starting point is to explore any training and development opportunities offered by your institution.”
With this said, and having worked with many of our PGRs and Research staff over the last year, my own three key pieces of advice for any researchers wondering where to start are:
- Follow what are you passionate about: It is important to reflect on what aspects of your career you enjoy doing and find jobs that allow you continue doing that. As a researcher, one of the things I enjoyed most is supporting other researchers to find their way and get opportunities to develop their career. I intentionally sought opportunities to continue doing this in all my research positions, and eventually as a full time Development professional.
- Stay connected to developments in your sector of interest: Join mailing lists of organizations you are interested in and follow influential leaders on social media to keep abreast of developments and new opportunities. I got to know about my current role at Glasgow through following Dr Kay Guccione on LinkedIn and posts on LinkedIn about her team and how they design their work.
- Start from where you are: Researchers should learn to maximise where they are and what the experiences they already have. You should not always be quick to take on every next opportunity but must think strategically about how it aligns with your next career ambitions. Thereafter, you can maximally engage with resources that are currently available to you, to prepare for your next career destination.
The series has been viewed over 1500 times (as of the date of publishing) from around the world. Colleagues in the UK and globally have interacted with the blog and highlighted the value of the blog posts across the sector. The feedback we have received underlines how important it is to develop accessible resources that address career development for researchers across the sector. Advice and recommendations from the blog posts will be well utilised, adopted and adapted by researchers, researcher developers and the managers of researchers to fit into their own contexts. Important considering that the Higher Education landscape and the experiences of, and opportunities open to researchers vary in different parts of the world. Openly accessible resources are of particular value in institutions that have limited resources for supporting researchers and their careers.
I would like to sincerely thank our contributors who have given their expertise and time to write these blog posts. On a personal note, it has been a privilege working with these amazing people to deliver the Pathfinder Expert Voices blog and I am thankful for the opportunity to have led this project. It has been such a positive experience for me, moving from being an end-user of career development to now designing and delivering career development opportunities and resources for researchers. That transition is a story for another day – perhaps part of the Pathfinder Career Narratives series!
The Auditorium: a research culture and researcher development blog 