Research institutions, funding bodies and non-profits create resources to support researchers with their careers in academia and outside.
This month’s podcast I explore some of the February 2014 Nature Careers and Naturejobs articles with Monya Baker, and I speak to three people about three projects that are looking to increase support available for early career researchers and their career transitions.
MIND (Motivating INformed Decisions) at the University of California in San Franciso,is an experimental career programme supported by the BEST grant from the National Institute of Health. BEST stands for Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training, and is designed to increase trainee and mentor awareness of career pathways available in the biomedical workforce. MIND takes a two pronged approach by working with the students as well as working with the staff at the university to find out what support they need. Jennie Dorman, one of the lead researchers on the MIND project, shares what they are doing with students and faculty.
The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) has run a feasibility study to assess the possibility of creating nationwide systems that can track PhD alumni from all disciplines. The CGS is concerned that career outcomes, although a a key outcome that hasn’t yet been measured, is directly related to the efficacy of the research programmes. The lack of reliable information about PhD careers beyond first placement (the first jobs that students and grads get out of academic studies) means that someone needs to fill the gap. The feasibility study explored whether or not this is achievable. Julia Kent from CGS explains what they’re doing.
Vitae, in partnership with Naturejobs and others, is sharing career stories from postdocs that have left higher education to do other things from their What do research staff do next? survey. The results published so far are from researchers in the United Kingdom, and now the survey has extended to explore what the European landscape looks like. Janet Melcalfe exlpains.
Monya Baker, writer and editor at Nature Careers, joins me on the podcast for the first time as we discuss some of our favourite career-related articles from February:
From Scotland to Brazil: part 1 and part 2
You can listen to the other Naturejobs podcasts via the blog, or you can subscribe to our Naturejobs iTunes channel, so you never miss an episode!
Note: the Council of Graduate Schools is incorrectly referred to as the Council of Graduate Students in the podcast. Apologies to the CGS for this.
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