Career development is best with a values-driven team

By Gabriela Gerganova, PGR Intern for Research Staff Development (completed)

There are numerous articles on the value of doing an internship after an undergraduate degree and I certainly benefitted from conducting a scientific internship before I began my PhD journey. However, internships for professional development during a PhD have only started gaining traction over the last decade or so. But happily, there is an increasing volume of evidence that broadening a biomedical PhD candidate’s skillset during postgraduate training increases their chances of making choiceful career decisions.

To help you understand my motivation to do my internship whilst conducting my doctoral training, I’ll rewind to 2013 when I first moved to Scotland. I had a relatively traditional progression onto a PhD track. I completed an undergraduate degree, enjoyed my final year project and stayed at the same institute for my PhD. I even chose my Honours lab project supervisor as my primary doctoral supervisor.

However, within my time as undergrad and postgrad at the University of Glasgow, I took every opportunity that came my way to move around. I participated in an Erasmus exchange for a term, a work placement year abroad and a 6-month traineeship at a European regulatory science centre a few months after I graduated. Despite the mobility I enjoyed during these experiences, I have increasingly become aware of the fact that I have been educated at the same University for over 10 years. While that experience has been invaluable in shaping me professionally, I felt that it was perhaps time to explore new avenues once again. I somewhat serendipitously found, applied for, interviewed for, and accepted a year-long internship with the Research Culture and Researcher Development Team. This came at a rather turbulent time of finishing experimental work for my PhD, but has allowed me to develop a more cohesive and strategic view on how I’d like to develop my professional career. To convince you that it was not only a breath of fresh air for a stressed final year doctoral candidate, but also one of the best experiences I could have asked for, I thought I’d dissect how my time in the Research Culture and Researcher Development Team aligned with the Team values.

1. We are part of an ecology of partners in learning, education and development. We recognise that development opportunities are everywhere, and we aim to enable researchers and research professionals to locate and select the forms of development and support they need. We work closely with supervisors and PIs, the Schools, Colleges, Groups and Teams across UofG as well as external experts.

I gained understanding of the diverse University-wide support offered to researchers that I was not previously aware of (from publication authorship and research integrity, to career planning and wellbeing) and was able to apply this knowledge to real-life scenarios for my own and others’ development. I also became aware of how the team works with partners across the university, in Colleges, other service directorates, and with external providers, and facilitators. It takes a great number of partners to deliver a full framework that addresses everything a researcher may need.

• We take the broadest view of ‘who is a researcher’ and ‘who is a research professional’ and welcome all who are actively engaged in research work through our doors.

I worked with both broad groups of university staff, and as well as becoming more aware of the diversity integral to the groups (and how many kinds of expertise it takes to make research happen). I came to appreciate the Venn diagram of the overlaps and differences between Researchers and Research Professionals in terms of their career development needs. The best part of this was that by becoming aware of the wider scope of the terms ‘researcher’ and ‘research professional’, I felt a sense of belonging to both.

• We insist on inclusion at the point of design as part of our commitment to creating stimulating, fair, and inclusive environments in which colleagues help each other to succeed.

I was elated (and somewhat petrified) to be offered several opportunities to be involved in the design or enhancement of new initiatives and activities, including consultation events, workshops, and online training. By including input from people with different disciplinary experience, personal and professional backgrounds, career stages, and perspectives the team are striving to maximise inclusivity.

• We commit to open sharing of our learning designs and do so through our blog.

This blog platform and the Team’s page on LinkedIn are key to providing regular open sharing, that supports other universities to learn how we do things, saving them time and energy. I have contributed to two reflective blog posts on the Auditorium. My first three months I learned how to juggle my many responsibilities, while in a later post I discussed the ‘what next’ of my career and how my internship supported me to have broader understanding of the pros and cons of academic careers.

• For those we develop, we encourage engagement through choice and at the point of need, in line with adult learning theory.

Time is always of the essence in a short-term project such as the doctorate, and PGRs are disciplined to be careful with how they spend their allocated time.  My research was funded by one of the nation’s biggest charities, so I felt a moral obligation to do justice to the donors who entrusted the scientific community they support to do their utmost best.  The RC&RD team understood that and allowed me a great level of flexibility to work around my research obligations, but also made sure I could choose my projects and gain the career and professional development I needed from the internship, in a constructive way. I believe I improved my researcher skills too by being an active research professional, blending the two sides of me. While taking up the internship meant I somewhat delayed producing my thesis, I felt it happened at the right time for me, as it allowed me to step outside my PhD shoes and observe myself from the lens of an independent researcher at a critical time for my development.

• We reject the deficit model, and value what people bring to UofG as well as take away. We recognise that the true value of discussions, networks, and communities, is the people who take part in them.

I was always valued by the Team for the projects I was holding during my time as a PGR Intern and have gained more skills and received more guidance than I initially anticipated. If I ever doubted what contribution I could possibly be making to a team of established education experts, developers and doctorate holders, I was quickly reminded that each one of us is needed for the puzzle to fall into place.

• We are aware that behaviour impacts on others more than knowledge and skills, and we drive for impact through enacted practices.

I found the collective professionalism and collegiality of the team exemplary and can only model future behaviour analysis on that.

• We know that experience counts with employers, we create ways for colleagues to put skills into practice and take up opportunities.

In addition to the above rich career experience, I was offered further opportunities for creative writing, delivering presentations, and poster design for sector-level conferences, as well as regularly co-facilitating sessions, all of which have enriched my professional portfolio.

• We are committed to reflection, review, and enhancement of our work to create an evolving contemporary offer. In this we work in close partnership with the researchers and research professionals, through feedback, evaluation, and consultation.

I designed my own evaluation process for an initiative I was the leading, where I consulted participants and received and analysed qualitative feedback on their experiences. The work, both outcomes and methodology, was then presented as a poster at the inaugural Research Professional Staff Conference held in July 2024.

In summary, here are the top 3 reasons why I think an internship is worth doing for a postgraduate researcher.

1. Working in a team offers a unique experience for many PhD students, who are working on a niche intellectual question and who may have little daily communication on the topic with others.
2. Exploring new university neighbourhoods is especially useful for those postgraduates who would like to embed themselves within the University ecology long-term, as an academic or professional colleague.
3. Standing out to employers is achieved by developing skillsets that your peers would not have had the chance to during their PhD.

In capturing the value this internship brought to me, I hope to inspire others to undertake similar opportunities.