Pathfinder Career Narratives is an ongoing series tracking the career choices and experiences of doctoral graduates. You can see all of the posts in the series here. You can find all the Pathfinder resources and opportunities here. Today’s blog is written by Dr Orla Kelly, Knowledge Exchange & Innovation Collaboration Manager at the University of the West of Scotland. You can find Dr Kelly on LinkedIn here.
Name: Dr Orla Kelly
Doctorate subject area, and year of completion: Physics, 2011
Role and employer: Knowledge Exchange & Innovation Collaboration Manager at University of the West of Scotland
Approximate salary bracket of this type of role: Grade 8
In the ten years following my PhD, I worked in specialist manufacturing industry designing equipment for scientific applications, before moving back to universities in different research & innovation ‘professional services’ roles. My current job title is Collaboration Manager, where I work across all 19 Higher Education Institutions (universities) in Scotland, and bring people together to share best practice and support collective action around big strategy and policy drivers from government, funders, enterprise agencies, and local authorities.
I completed my undergraduate MSci in Physics & Applied Maths in 2008, followed by a PhD in experimental Physics (femtosecond studies of atoms and small molecules) in 2011, both at Queen’s University Belfast. I really enjoyed being in the lab, building equipment and running experiments, but couldn’t see myself continuing with a career in research, particularly with the uncertainty around funding and the need to find new science.
I was 25 years old and had lived in Northern Ireland my whole life, so it was finally time to make my escape! Lots of my peers at the time, if not staying in university research, were either joining big finance firms in software development roles, or joining the NHS Scientist Training Programme to become a Medical Physics Clinical Scientist. I really didn’t know what my next move should be, so I applied for a few different things while I was still writing up my thesis. I was then faced with two options – to start the 3-year NHS Clinical Scientist training at a hospital in London, or to do a 2-year Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with the University of Bristol but based at a small manufacturing firm in South-East England. I opted for the latter, with the somewhat absurd rationale that I’d rather be a big(-ish) cog in a small machine than a tiny cog in a huge machine.
I often look back and think “what if?”, but I have absolutely no regrets. If I picked the Clinical Scientist route, my career may have been more linear, with clear progression through the NHS and a good salary. As it stands, doing the KTP led to the most amazing opportunities and experiences, and I thoroughly enjoy where I am now, and am quite content not knowing where I will be in another ten years.
The KTP project itself was to design, manufacture, and market the first commercial Velocity Map Imaging spectrometer, for use in physical chemistry or ultrafast laser labs. Looking back, this was a near perfect next step for me, from happily tinkering in a university lab to happily tinkering in an industry lab! When the 2-year project ended, I continued employment with the company as a Research & Development Engineer. This was a new permanent role, created off the back of my successful KTP project. In fact, the majority (62%) of KTP Associates are offered employment by their company at the end of their project, and the majority of those (79%) accept (KTP Evaluation Report 2023). A KTP project can be a critical stepping stone towards a future career in industry.
The end user, our customers, were predominantly in universities or other advanced research labs, and so throughout my time at the company I kept strong links with universities. For example, I was involved in a number of successful collaborative funding bids to the EU, in funding programmes FP7 and H2020. Given my experience of working collaboratively during my PhD, this world was very comfortable to me, albeit I now wore an ‘industry partner’ hat. There’s a great deal of trust and mutual respect needed for these types of collaborations to succeed, and this has played a central theme in every role I’ve had since.
It was family circumstances that prompted my move from South-East England to Scotland, and ultimately a career change, in 2015. With my background in both research and industry, and experience as a bridge between the two, I naively felt I could do anything. I applied for industry roles, research roles, and funding/commercialisation support roles. After many, many job applications, and five unsuccessful interviews, I was finally offered a job at the University of Dundee as Technology Marketing Manager. My role there was to take the university’s IP, often in the life sciences or medicine, and develop marketing packs suitable for industry as potential licensees.
Despite being part of or working alongside universities for the previous decade, the world of exploiting university-owned IP was very new to me, and a steep learning curve. However, the essence of taking extremely complex information and translating it into something more accessible was definitely a skill gained during my PhD, by writing abstracts and papers, presenting posters, and giving presentations. My background gave my employer some level of confidence that I could handle the task at hand, and it also gave me a level of credibility when talking with senior academics about their research outputs.
University Research & Innovation offices are often made up of small, dynamic teams. As I have seen happen with countless others in similar roles, my job at the university soon evolved to be something more than what was written on the job specification. There were inevitable challenges and frustrations, but those were far outweighed by the opportunities to grow in the role, to take on new responsibilities and lead new opportunities. Since 2020, I’ve been in a role hosted by University of the West of Scotland but working across all the Research & Innovation offices in Scotland, where I connect in with government, funders, enterprise agencies, Innovation Centres, Research Pools, and more. It is a unique role and one I feel very privileged to have. Crucially, it’s a role that didn’t exist ten years ago when I finished my PhD, so there’s no way I could have predicted that I would end up here. Many people working in ‘professional services’ roles in our Research & Innovation offices have PhDs, but very few will share the same journey to get to the point that they’re at now. With no defined routes in, it makes it particularly challenging to recruit new people into the sector. However, given the diversity of roles on offer and the huge list of potential employers – 19 HEIs in Scotland, nearly 300 across the UK, and thousands more worldwide – it’s a very savvy career move!
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