Life as an Early Career Researcher is rather uncertain. The conditions for most postdocs aren’t really great and the availability of professorships isn’t increasing at the same rate as the number of PhDs entering the academic career path – we talk about this, regularly.

So it makes sense to seriously consider other career options, and we do so every now and then, too.

For this episode, I talk to Dr. John Stowers, engineer, neuroscientist, and founder of “LoopBio”, about the transition from postdoc to technology business founder!

We are back from the summer break! So, we resume the “Bart and Dennis” Talk format!

Bart and I briefly talk about Bart’s research, because he just published an article! And it appeared in a journal that is actually quite good, but it is pay-walled and published by Elsevier.

We then talk about the upcoming Open Science mandate that cOAlition S is trying to establish in Europe. cOAlition S includes some of the biggest funding agencies in Europe, like the Wellcome Trust and the European Research Council. Yet, a lot of scientists seem to still be blissfully unaware.

In this episode we talk about our experience with peer review and the importance of kindness and the advantages and disadvantages of the authors knowing the identity of peer reviewers. And in the second part we talk about how twitter can be a great place for science and scientists!

Academics are Spoiled. Right?

The stereotype of academics is that they live a well protected life in the ivory tower. But this is not the case for most of them. Maria Pinto from Portugal is a PhD student in marine microbiology in Austria. With the final stages of her work approaching, Maria is beginning to think about the future.

Forgoing Salaries, Benefits, and Life Planning Security in your Late 20s to 40s.

We talk about the many uncertainties in academia, particularly for early career researchers. In general the salaries are not good, but in poorer countries, where the salaries are particularly low and may not even include social security, there is also an expectation of students to pay field work trips themselves. In general, traveling in order to present your work at conferences is important to researchers and their careers, but for many, this is not affordable.

While the number of PhD graduates per year is rising worldwide, the number of proper long-term or permanent positions in academia isn’t. This leaves PhDs with ever decreasing chances of staying in academia. And it means that increasing numbers PhDs stay postdocs for a decade or longer, only to have to leave after all.

Most academics won’t stay in academia… or let’s say, not every PhD will land a permanent position as a researcher. With the increasing numbers of PhDs this situation is becoming more serious. In this context, we want to interview people who work in so called ‘alternative careers’. Some of these careers are still related to academia. We hope these interviews will be of interest to people in general, since they may learn something more about how academia works. For PhDs who may not stay researchers, it should be interesting to know what kinds of careers they can have beyond the ivory tower.

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