Becoming an independent researcher in academia is crucial to achieving future success.

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When you start your first postdoc, you often find yourself dependent on your supervisor: the one that provides the funding so that you can do their your research. But as you build up your experience, it’s important to start demonstrating your own independence as a researcher. Doing this whilst working for someone else is not an easy task.

It might sound obvious, but “just being a clone of your PhD supervisor may be a bad strategy,” says Jim Usherwood, Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow and Reader at the Structure & Motion Laboratory at the Royal Veterinary College in London. You might look up to them and admire their work, but in the end funding agencies will look for innovative applications that demonstrate how you will be doing new research.

But, it’s more difficult than it looks to build up independence without treading on a PI’s toes, especially when you’re hired to work on their research. “I do know there are disciplines where the PI needs/demands postdocs to stay in their field of expertise and put all their time in to the PI’s project,” he says. If that field is expanding and going to continue to expand, then this could be an advantage: at some point a new institution would hire a younger/cheaper duplicate of the PI. “But if not, then you may be competing to step into dead-man’s shoes… and there could be generations ahead of and behind you waiting to take that step.”

Usherwood suggests the following should be done early on in an academic postdoctoral career to build up some autonomy:

• Start supervising undergraduate student projects to give you extra time and resources on slightly different projects.
• Find out what other areas of interest the PI might have. They might not currently be working on them but they could be willing to discuss opportunities.
• Don’t be protective about your ideas. “It’s much better to chat about them and find what has been done before; if the occasional idea gets adopted/swiped along the way, have a new one and believe that there will be important people in the field appreciating your input anyway.”

Once you’ve started developing some of these skills during the first postdoc, it’s time to think about where you could find your own funding. Continue reading →