The Early Career Blog

Jessica Hedge & Natasha Rhys Conferences, meetings, symposia, roundtables, debates... what was once a 'conference season' increasingly seems to run throughout the whole year. Many early career researchers (ECRs) have the opportunity to take part in meetings organised by professional or ‘learned’ societies, and some will be happy recipients of travel grants, discounted registration fees, or prizes for their presentations. But beyond these obvious benefits, what can ECRs gain from society membership? As postdocs who have valued support from learned societies at important junctures in our own careers, we’re keen to highlight some of the best, newest or most surprising opportunities for all ECRs. Professional societies are membership organisations that support, promote and represent a particular discipline, sector, profession or skill. They work to advance education within the field, cultivate public interest, advise the government, and influence policy. Societies also pr...

Dr Steve Joy At a recent talk to early career academics, I was arguing for the importance of engaging non-academic audiences in your research, when one disgruntled participant shot back that I was encouraging them to become celebrities. This wasn't what I intended, but the response isn't untypical. It reflects an unease among a lot of early career researchers: on top of everything else, do I really have to learn to become a media don or children's entertainer? Is this what I actually need to do to improve my career prospects? Advocates will counter, rightly, that this view of public engagement is unfair. They will say that the reason to do public engagement is not solely to advance one's own career, and that we have a duty to explain to the public what we do. However, motivations for engaging the public can feel more practical than ethical. We all know that it's simply what's expected by the Research Excellence Framework (REF) assessors, the funders, universit...

Dr Steve Joy Today's post is in response to a phrase that has always been ubiquitous but seems to have crossed my path much too frequently in recent months. You will no doubt recognise it yourselves. "This project will be the first book-length study on [insert your topic here]." Seriously, this won't do. Why not, you ask? Surely, what anyone who has successfully completed a PhD learnt from that process is that research projects need to make an original contribution to scholarship. In other words, here is a gap (as proven by the fact that no book has been written on this precise topic before), and this project will fill it. Sorted.  But here's my question. Does it even matter than no previous scholarship exists on this precise topic? It might well do, but you must say how & why. What are other academics unable to do because of this gap? What has this lack of understanding been leading us to get wrong hitherto ? What will we be able to do differently once ...