Career guidance for early career researchers in the life sciences and related fields
When early career researchers think of an academic research career, a principal investigator (PI) role leading a research group is normally the first option that comes to mind. However, there are also a wide range of non-PI research-focused roles within university departments, research institutes and research infrastructures. These include a variety of scientific staff roles in research teams (e.g. staff scientist, scientific officers, lab technicians, lab managers), as well as roles in core facilities and other research services and infrastructure teams.
Possible tasks may include a subset of the following activities:
Non-PI positions may be permanent or fixed-term contracts (often when linked to a specific project funding). In some countries – for example, France – there is a yearly, central recruitment scheme for permanent non-PI research positions, but in most cases, positions are individually advertised. Entry into research, service and infrastructure roles can be very competitive. Postdoc experience is often advantageous and might facilitate entry at the manager level (e.g. in small core facilities).
Career progression:
Based on data from our career tracking study, we believe that most EMBL PhD and postdoc alumni who enter non-PI academic positions remain in a similar position or advance to leadership positions in research and services. Of the EMBL alumni whose career path we know, and who held at least one non-PI academic role during their career:
Overall, this suggests that non-PI roles generally provide attractive opportunities to remain working in or close to academic research, as well as opportunities for career advancement or reorientation. Nevertheless, as with many career areas, there are a wide range of roles, some of which have ill-defined career paths and occasionally limited advancement opportunities. Therefore, it is essential to explore the exact responsibilities, stability and development opportunities of any role you apply to, to ensure that it will provide long-term perspectives and/or opportunities that will facilitate a transition to another type of role in future.
Example job titles:
The knowledge and skills required for non-PI roles include many developed during research training – such as scientific knowledge and problem-solving skills. Compared to the PI-track, there is likely to be more focus on organizational skills and willingness/ability to support others. For manager roles in infrastructures and core facilities, excellent leadership skills and deep knowledge of the technologies are also a must.
Our careers and skills survey was completed by:
We asked them which competencies they use most.
Academic research staff most frequently selected the following competencies:
Scientists working as staff members in core facilities or scientific services/infrastructures most frequently selected the following competencies:
Additional resource: EMBL’s Career Accelerator for Research Infrastructures (ARISE) has developed a detailed competency framework describing the specific skills, knowledge and behaviour that can support research infrastructure scientists in their role. This is available at the EBI Competency Hub.
Scientists leading facilities or infrastructures most frequently selected the following competencies:
Additional resource: RItrain has developed a detailed competency framework describing the specific skills, knowledge and behaviour that can support research infrastructure managers in their role. This is available at the EBI Competency Hub.
Fifteen respondents to our careers and skills survey were working in non-PI academic roles in countries where English is not the main language. Two-thirds of these (10 people) indicated that they needed to have some knowledge of the local language for their jobs, just over one quarter (4 people) did not need to understand the local language for their work and just 1 person indicated that their job required fluency in the local language.
In our careers and skills survey, 27 scientists working in non-PI roles told us that they appreciate that their work:
Websites of European Research Infrastructure Consortium members in areas relevant for EMBL researchers (with list of nodes )
We highly recommend learning more about the careers using the resources above, then conducting informational interviews to gain further insights directly from former PhDs working in career areas that interest you.
Further internal resources (e.g. library of recorded career talks) can be found on our intranet pages.
Erin Tranfield tells us about her career path in core facility leadership, what she looks for when hiring for her team, and advice for early career researchers considering a career in core facilities.