Phew! I’ve finally submitted my PhD thesis and I now have some time to get back to the blog.
After months and years of avoiding the question: “When are you going to hand it?”, I’m now trying to duck everyone’s next question: “What are you going to do now?” So much for basking in the glory and the relief that you’re meant to feel after handing in three and a half years of work – that seemed to last no more than the time it took me to walk from the science faculty back to my desk!
It’s not that I don’t know what I want to do, it’s just that other PhD students and academics make some really confused facial expressions when I tell them about my career plans. At the moment, I’m working a few part-time jobs in different areas of science teaching and science communication and I’m really enjoying it so far. That said, I’d really like to continue doing some research on the side as well, but is that possible? If not, why not?
It seems that the only way to do science research is to make it a full-time career. The traditional career trajectory of a successful researcher is from PhD to a post-doc position, and then perhaps another post-doc, and then a lecturing job, and then, if you’re really good, a professorship. Post-docs, lecturers and professors are generally full-time academics; part-time academic positions are few and far between. Unfortunately, those lucky enough to land these jobs may find themselves struggling to be taken seriously by their full-time peers.
Are part-time academics being left at the bottom of the pile when it comes to winning grant money?
The Australian workforce is undergoing a process of casualization, where more and more jobs are being made into part-time and casual positions rather than full-time ones. I understand that part-time and casual positions may offer less job security, which is a real problem for some people, but I can see some definite advantages of this type of employment.
Part-time and casual roles allow greater career flexibility, provide work opportunities for parents with young families, and encourage young people to gain a wide set of skills while working in different and varied roles. With young people now expected to change jobs and careers more often than members of previous generations, job security will come from being employable, adaptable and flexible, rather than simply being employed.
So, will science research roles follow suit as other careers embrace part-time and casual employment? Interestingly, the University of Melbourne’s Human Resources website encourages their staff to improve their employability by engaging in different types of work arrangements, including full-time, part-time, contract and self employment. Whether this advice really applies to academics and researchers is another story.
Some scientists may lack the transferrable skills required to make a career change
Given that a large part of being a researcher is competing with other researchers for grant money, I can completely understand why the default career in science research involves a full-time position. Full-time academics can devote more time to writing grants and papers, and their career, therefore, progresses faster than that of someone dedicating only part of their time and mind space to the job.
However, there are signs that things are changing. Many funding bodies, including the Australian Research Council (ARC), are now assessing the track record of academics “relative to opportunity”, which takes into account how an academic’s research and publication record may be affected by changes from full-time to part-time work. After browsing the ARC’s consultation paper on the peer review process for grants, I can see how concessions for “track record relative to opportunity” certainly apply to researchers who are forced to move to part-time work, due to situations such as family or carer responsibilities or illness. It isn’t clear, however, how this concession would apply to people who are able to work full-time but choose not to.
It will certainly be interesting to watch whether careers in science research and academia will become more flexible in the future. Given my pipe-dreams of continuing to do research on a part-time basis, I just hope that I won’t be watching from the sidelines.
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