The Researchers' Newsletter – June 2024
Research Career Planning
In this first newsletter we cover issues around research career planning (part 1).
Feedback, queries, suggestions for topics most welcome; please email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Don’t Flap about - Strategy without Identity
You will struggle to write a research career plan without knowing who you are as a researcher, and therefore what you stand for, what you will do and what you hope to be known for – in writing, one or two sentences.
Getting from Identity to Strategy
Once you have an identity statement that you are happy with, and that can evolve as you evolve, then you can think about strategy.
Normally the next step would be an overall career strategy. There is no “correct” form of career strategy and plan, just develop something that works for you. Early in your career it will likely be quite short and propositional. Your research strategy and plan will build from this career “strategy”.
Why do I need strategies to build or strengthen my career?
Research leaders will often talk about strategies - for collaboration, for getting published, for income and grants, for your overall career.
When people talk about strategies, they often mean activities - doing those straight forward things that successful researchers and research leaders do to become stronger researchers.
So strategy means different things to different people. We use strategy to mean the overall goals and expectations that you set for yourself, taking account of your unique knowledge and skill set and what you can reasonably aim to achieve. It will include high level actions, such as the skills you believe you need to acquire and where and how you will gain them. Your written strategy becomes your career plan, and if you also write a research strategy focused plan, that will be your research career plan.
The activities that flow from your strategies and plan are things like – being clear about your goals, doing the things you need to reach those goals, taking “yes and no” decisions in line with those plans, seeking (stakeholder) input, reflecting and refining goals and plans and activities. These are all implementation activities.
I’ve got a plan, what more do I need?
Very few new researchers and fewer new PhD holders have a written plan.
Success in research involves planning, acting and reflecting in a continuous cycle –about both your overall career and your research strategies. As with your research, if it is not written down it cannot be enacted, monitored and reflected on.
Can you point to a formal Research Plan that includes the following?
- The key theme(s) of your research
- Your research “pitch”
- Your key research questions
- Current projects and others under review
- Your current and future value-add collaborators and partners
- Planned research projects for the next 2-5 years, including funding
- Publication and dissemination activities
- How you will document your impact.