Experiences of post-PhD researchers: Building strategies for success

1. Experiences of post-PhD researchers: Building strategies for success SRHE Symposium December 2015

2. Post-PhD academic researchers • Internationally, • Increasingly normative and longer path to a research-teaching position • Period of building independence and scholarly profile • Includes both • Competitive, insecure and often fragmented work as salaried researcher (researcher) • Highly competitive research fellowship which to (temporarily) focus on own work (post-doc) • Our goal: • Add to limited research into this period • Stimulate discussion

3. Plan • Four papers (25 minutes each including questions) • Metaphors of post-PhD researcher experiences (Gill) • Post-doc experiences related to writing and well-being (Montserrat et al) • More than lucky: exploring how post-doc professional networks are activated in gaining research fellowship awards (Kay) • Becoming a PI: luck, agency and persistence …”just keep rowing!” (Lynn et al) • Plenary discussion on these questions (15 minutes) • What synergies do you see across the four papers? • What might next research steps be? • What are the overall pedagogical implications?

4. Becoming a PI: agency and persistence …”just keep rowing!” …and a little luck Lynn McAlpine, Gill Turner, Sharon Saunders, Natacha Wilson Partially funded by University of Cambridge Internal Funds, Leiden University, Elsevier New Scholars Programme, University Skills Group, University of Oxford

5. Becoming a PI: Framing the study • PI-ship an aspiration for many researchers to demonstrate a scholarly identity and direction • But getting a grant difficult, sometimes only 1-in-10 chance • Workplace learning(Billett, 2006): • an environment, both local and global, with affordances and constraints • Identity-trajectory and agency (McAlpine et al., 2013): • Working towards goal by drawing on networks and institutional resources

6. The study, 1 • Asked 60 individuals who had become PIs: • What is your experience of becoming a PI? • What advice would you offer to a) get a grant, b) manage it? • Participants from 3 universities: 1 continental Europe and 2 UK • 39 males, 21 females • 33 national, 27 international (higher proportion of nationals in European university) • 24 Humanities/Social Sciences, 36 STEMM

7. The study, 2 • Data: Interview; journey plot (visual image of highs and lows of journey); CV; biographical information • Analysis: • RQ 1: narrative analysis (Reissman, 2008) integrating interview with journey plot, CV and bio to create 60 case summaries; then cross-case analysis • RQ 2: emergent coding (Miles & Huberman, 1994) of interviews to categorize all solicited advice (report advice noted by more than ¼) • What advice would you give to those aspiring to be PIs? • What advice would you give to PIs who have just received their first major grant?

8. RQ1: Experience of getting the grant? • ‘Learning by doing’ with + but – overtones (over 1/3) • Rejections ‘could be very scary but you can learn from them’ (Laura) • ‘Learning is tiring and demanding …[but] exciting’ (Faith) • International mobility • 2/3 moved across borders at least once • Emotionally demanding to learn new culture and perhaps language, new institutional and research regimes • UK and continental European migration patterns • 2/3 of European nationals went elsewhere and nearly all returned • Explanation: positive effects of international mobility for non-English-speaking researchers (Horta, 2009) • Less than 2/5 UK nationals left with 1/2 returning • Explanation: pattern of in-flow into UK (Cantwell, 2011)

9. RQ1: Experience of getting the grant? • It takes time and requires resilience • Awarded 1-11 years after graduation (mean 5.08 years) • Nearly ½ obtained a grant after 5 years • Could involve multiple rejections and the ‘randomness factor’ (Alphonse); 1/3 named luck as a factor in success • NB empirical evidence of luck in the review process (van Arensbergen & van den Besselaar, 2012) • Luck played a role more broadly along with agency • 4/5 noted role of luck in finding a mentor, new opportunities, a job, etc. • I’ve been very lucky …in being offered both opportunities and being able to recognize an opportunity ,,,and seize it’ (Marianne)

10. RQ1: Agency, resilience, persistence Dancer unemployed at the time of the interview • ‘I attend the [team] meetings from time to time. I’m still producing publications, and will probably continue for…for several years to come …I’m trying to make it an opportunity …I’m still working full-time on my own on these publications, I’m still going fieldwork, I’m going to conferences, so I’m keeping myself active in exactly the same way as I was doing [when paid], except that I don’t have an income so…that’s the only difference.’

11. RQ2: Collective advice becoming a PI? • Seek support from a range of sources • Informal and formal support and guidance from range of sources; also range of forms • Invest in the right things • Focus on what matters, e.g. publishing, getting the right paper out, moving; also knowing what to avoid • Drive your own success • Vision, drive, passion for research, take risks, persistence, resilience, clear plan, may involve many small steps • Understand the system • Understand the system for promotion, tenure-track, promotion, governance, grant funding • Know yourself • Be self-aware, self-reliant, self-critical; know your limitations and weaknesses (managing stress and challenges)

12. Examples • Support: It’s really helpful to get feedback from people who went through this process before, both who were successful but also, if they were not successful (Dorothy) • Invest: Going abroad …if you finish a PhD, do it, go abroad, take a postdoc somewhere else, and then come back, because it will increase your chances (Emma) • Drive: Tenacity and not just getting annoyed with the system or complaining …you’ve just got to go for it …try and get a little foothold somewhere (Otto) • Understand: Understand what the criteria are for selecting the proposal but also how the internal processes work …who is on the committee …(Dorothy) • Know: Understand your own limitations …look at yourself in the mirror …and slowly become better (Fabien)

13. RQ2: Advice becoming/being a PI?

14. Insights into workplace learning and identity development? • Workplace learning: in a learning mode • What resources were available and not • How different national systems were confounding • Generally not much resistance – with the exception of finding ways to say no to institutional demands such as teaching • Explanation: still establishing themselves; did not want to disrupt relationships with their peers • Identity-development • For aspiring PIs, developing and using extended networks • Working towards personally-chosen intentions and goals • Sustained motivation in the face of multiple challenges • Advice made visible the role of agency, self belief in dealing with luck and nurturing resilience over the long-term.