EURAXESS Smart Talks
The EURAXESS Smart Talks podcast for talents is your personal guide to Research Careers, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship.
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EURAXESS Smart Talks
Discover Careers Beyond Academia - Part 2
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Why do researchers need to explore careers beyond academia? How can EURAXESS help young researchers in career development? For answers to these questions and practical tips, listen to today's EURAXESS Smart Talks and learn more from experts and two life stories of Ph.Ds. who made this transition successfully.
In part one of this episode, we will hear insights and tips learned from the successful Rebeca mentoring EURAXESS project, by Mr. Xavier Eekhout, followed by an interview with Dr. Tomas De Garay Herrera, a graduate of this program. We will also hear an in-depth explanation of how EURAXESS can help young researchers in career development by Ms. Dalila Coviello, Information Systems Coordinator for the EURAXESS EU portal.
In part two of this episode, we will hear tips from an experienced career expert, Mr. Dean Hogan, and then an inspiring success story about the transition from academia to a high-level position in industry from Dr. Udo Greiser, as well as more useful updated information from Mr. Slaven Misljencevic, a policy officer of Directorate-General for research and Innovation of the European Commission. These episodes cover specific obstacles researchers face in the transition from academia to industry, as well as practical advice and important tips from experts in the field.
Keywords: talents, science, career, business, academia-industry interface, European researchers, beyond academia, mentoring, career path mobility, transition from academia to industry, European labour market.
Euroxas Smart Talks for Talents. Your personal guide to research careers, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Hi, I'm Daria, a senior expert of the Euroxys National Contact Point in Latvia.
SPEAKER_04And I'm Jovan, a teaching and research assistant from Serbia, and you're listening to Euraxis Smart Talks.
SPEAKER_05Euroxis is a unique pan-European initiative of the European Research Area providing information and assistance services to researchers regardless of their career stage.
SPEAKER_04Backed by the European Commission and 43 European countries, it supports research mobility and career development while enhancing scientific collaboration between Europe and the world.
SPEAKER_05The title of today's episode is Discover Careers Beyond Academia. This is the second part of a two-part episode. If you missed part one, it is waiting for you on the Euro Access portal and on your podcast application. According to US science journalist Chris Woolston, the findings from 2021 show that researchers in industry are more likely to be satisfied with their jobs, enjoy high salaries, and be optimistic about the future that their colleagues in academia. Today we will take a closer look at this option. In part one of this episode, we heard insights and tips learned from the successful Rebecca Mandarin Euro Access project by Mr. Xavier Ekhout and an interview with Dr. Thomas de Garay Herrera, a graduate of this program. We also heard an in-depth explanation of how Eurexis can help young researchers in career development by Mrs. Dalila Caviela.
SPEAKER_04Are you interested in a career beyond academia? Let us talk smart and continue to explore this topic together. We are pleased to welcome Dean Hogan. Dean is a career coach, professional trainer, and consultant. Mr. Dean Hogan specializes in enhancing skills and competencies relevant to choosing career paths of postgraduates and early career researchers. In 2018, Dean worked with the British Council to design and develop an online tutorial toolkit asset for use across the Euraxis Network by research career development support staff.
SPEAKER_00Thank you guys. Great to be with you and to make new friends and to meet all friends.
SPEAKER_05Thank you. The Beyond Academia Hub in the Euraxis Hubs pilot focuses on careers beyond academia for researchers. Why is it important to help researchers explore careers outside of academia? What is your opinion?
SPEAKER_01We could probably talk for 24 hours solidarity.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, exactly. I thought that it would be a lecture from you.
SPEAKER_01If we had enough coffee. So every researcher makes that investment in their time and education and their future. Those who fall away from research, it's a personal tragedy also, and it's a great loss to the rest of us. I think look, there's there's so many things. Like Euraxis itself, as you guys know, began as an organization to enhance mobility amongst researchers. And once we grasp that particular nettle and we see it to be solving that problem, it was at that point that we started to move on to career development to try and stop the number of researchers that were being lost to research. I think it differs from region to region dependent on the available resources, and also depending on how these things are taught. Like if if you you can go from very different regions, for example, in some regions, and it's not true like just generally, people might say, Well, look, what is all this self-assessment nonsense? We don't need you, just need a job, and you get the job and you move on. I personally know people who think like that, and life works for them with that mindset. And then there are other people who think, oh, well, no, I want to feel valued and I want to feel like I'm making a positive contribution, etc. So we need to find something in which everybody will fit in, and that's why the Eurexis network or the framework that we have set up for researchers works the way it does. But at the same time, too, researchers can be very suspicious of people who come in from the outside wearing a shirt and tie, telling them what they could and should not do, especially people who have no awareness of the daily problems that the researchers face. So I think we should be we should be careful not to be seen to be pushing the researchers too much toward industry because I think that's going to happen anyway. I think what we need to do is we need to educate them in terms of the realities of a researcher's life and then talk to them about the possibilities that they have and the opportunities that they have. And you know, we we we have thrown ourselves with great enthusiasm into the whole area of research or career development, and to a point now we have been successful, but I think there's probably ways where we can do it better. Like, for example, should we wait until somebody has a PhD before they start figuring out what they're gonna do with the rest of their lives? You know, maybe we should be doing this career development and self-assessment at a much earlier stage, if not at master's level. Well, then if you've decided that you're gonna do a PhD, why not maybe do something along the lines of the Euraxis curriculum about what to expect from life as a PhD? You know, many people could be the first person in their family to go to university and they get a PhD, and maybe their family's thinking they're gonna be making 100,000 euro a year now, they're gonna be rich. Well, you know, that's not the case. Um, so again, it's not just a question of giving the researchers uh realistic expectations of their future, but maybe those who are close to them also, because they also get that pressure too. They get pressure from work and then they get pressure from their families as well. When is this education going to finish? When will we see the benefits of all of this? Um yeah, like I don't I just don't think that researchers are prepared for a lot of the pressures that they're going to face. Like we've seen on so many occasions that many people enter university who later go on to PhDs, but at the time they entered university, they'd no intention of doing a PhD. And we get so like you know, one day a professor who they really admire said, Oh, you're really good, you should think about doing your masters. You know, fine, let's do a master's. But again, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do with the masters? It's great to do a PhD also, but why am I doing it? You know, do I have a specific reason? Like that's a big that's four years of your life. And I think the other thing we need to look at as well is um exposing researchers as early as possible to the culture of private industry. I think if you wait, if we wait until somebody is past the age of say 25, into their late 20s, their personality is very well formed, their working habits are formed. Um, and so consequently, then if they go into private industry at a relatively late age, as in their late 20s, it's a huge culture shock. I think we need to kind of work closer with industry to give young researchers, early career researchers, a taste of what life is like in private industry and also just to give them a sense of the culture and and more importantly, what will be expected from them.
SPEAKER_05Are we uh thinking it's uh literally that uh a researcher is taken from, for example, Dublin and to going to participate in the project uh in Riga, for example? Now it occurred to me that probably mobility has uh the second meaning uh that we are trying to help them uh not only to see themselves in the uh research and in science, uh, but probably it's also a possibility to uh make uh their path in uh industry and your access exactly could help them. First of all, they need to assess themselves where am I? Where should I go? What should I do?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, self-awareness. Um, developing self-awareness is really important. Like in the last 20 years, things like emotional intelligence and social intelligence have become very popular. But um, there's there's a lot of research work being done at the moment in the US on self-awareness. And I think um once we begin, once we get to a point where we can actually quantify self-awareness, where we can hold it up and show it to you and explain this what it is, this is what it is. Like self-awareness is basically understanding yourself and understanding how you come across to other people, you know, knowing the right thing to say at the right time and knowing what what not to say basically and how to how to you know behave in certain situations. Um, you know, that there's very interesting little sidelines. Like one of the things they noticed that people who take lots of selfies have low self-awareness, which I thought was very funny. You need to understand yourself before you can make plans about your future, about what you're gonna do. You need to understand what is the best working environment to do. You need to understand what values that you can't compromise in, because when you're compromising on your basic values, that leads to a lot of stress and unhappiness because you don't believe in what you're doing. It's the same if you can if you can find a job where you follow your passions, well then maybe you may not have to work at all. You don't see it as a job because it's something that you really enjoy.
SPEAKER_04Could you please tell us or outline the process uh for a researcher who made the decision to transit to from academia to industry on how this process should go? Where should they look for information? What uh what steps should they take?
SPEAKER_01I think everything is internal first. It's like you know, you can't make anybody else happy. Um you can never make somebody happy, but you can make yourself happy, and nobody else can make you happy either. So all the answers you're looking for are inside you. Once you have ticked all of those particular boxes, or you're happy that you have, then you look at the situation and the possibilities. And of course, that's the thing about your axis, and this is why we approach it the way we do, because there is no framework that could completely cover every possible area of research. So, what we do is we it's all about self-directed research. So we put the tools up there, we ask the researchers to use them and then come back to us for advice. We behave like the backseat driver. You're gonna drive the car, but we will sit in the backseat and we will, you know, advise you. Are you sure you want to take this corner? Why are you turning here? Do you understand why you're turning here? Okay, well, if you do, let's do it. If you don't, let's stop and talk about it. So, once you have the plan, every situation that you come across will require a decision. Well, the plan that you have developed will inform your decision. Which of my choices here is more closely aligned to my plan, or which of these two choices will get me to where I want to be according to my plan. So it it it stops a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of worrying about what I should do. Once you've made your plan, well then we can individualize it in terms of you know your unique preferences. Um if you put the plan in place and it's your plan, well then that should really help you to make decisions that will come up in the future.
SPEAKER_04Are you suggesting that researchers try uh dual education and try uh to find colleges which offer the chance to simultaneously learn on the university and go out uh to uh industry and make a parallel career out of their academic one?
SPEAKER_01I'm glad you brought up dual education because I think in terms of postgraduate studies, I think that's coming and I think it's gonna be an integral part in years to come. Obviously, the challenge will be for the individual universities trying to match up every postgraduate student into a suitable role. Um I think the term they use at the moment now is succumbment to industry. So, you know, very early in your PhD or very early in your research career, you should go work for maybe six months to 18 months in in industry and then come back and begin your research work then. And you know, those of us who have gone to university within the family get teased constantly by um by other family members. Like, for example, I didn't go back to university until I was 26. I left school at 15 and I went to become an electrician simply because I hated school and I refuse to listen to my parents' advice. They refused to recognize my genius at 15, I knew everything. Um people in in who go on do postgraduate studies, like their family will tease them and say, you know, you're gonna be the perpetual student. Uh you know, uh and again, like they expect when you finish all these years of school that you're gonna be rich. Well, you must be doing this because somebody's gonna pay you a lot of money in the future.
SPEAKER_04So, what would be your suggestion in conclusion to those people who wish to make a transition from research who started their their PhD studies and now want to transfer to industry?
SPEAKER_01You know, when you think about it, for somebody to commit themselves to that much education, they're placing a great deal of trust. Are they placing the trust in the future? Are they placing the trust in the their university? Are they placing their trust in the benevolence of mankind that you know somebody will come along and reward them for doing all this hard work? You know, we just need to make them aware of what the realities are. Like, I would never talk somebody out of doing a PhD, but you've got to have a good reason to do it. For me, motivation and self-confidence are the two main things I look for in every researcher. If you have motivation and you have confidence, you can go and take on anything.
SPEAKER_05Thank you very much, Dean. It was inspiring, really. Your access Smart Talks for Talents, your personal guide to research careers, innovation, and entrepreneurship. We are happy to host a researcher who, after a highly respected career in academia, has made an inspiring transition as a team leader in a premier global specialty chemicals company. Dr. Udo Greiser is team leader applications research at Ashland Specialities Ireland LTD. Dr. Greiser received his PhD degree from the Max Planck Group, Friedrich Schiller University, Germany on the involvement of liposomal particles in signal transduction of gross factor receptor.
SPEAKER_04He acquired further expertise in research institutes and medical centers in San Francisco and Dublin. Additionally, Dr. Greissa has around 41 peer-reviewed publications and generated various intellectual property. Dr. Greissa's career beyond academia began with him being a research scientist in USA for two years, Kermes Bioscience Inc., where he developed antibody targeting devices for liposomal anti-cancer drugs. He joined Vornia Biomaterials LTD as a managing director, managed 11 EU grants, and became team leader of applications research at Ashland Industries in January of 2018. Quite an amazing career. Dr. Greissa, thank you for joining us.
SPEAKER_02Thank you very much, Daya, and very much, Jovan, for that kind introduction.
SPEAKER_04Please tell us a little about your career choices and why this particular career was interesting for you. Why did you choose it?
SPEAKER_02I think looking back on my life, many years of my career planning, and I can definitely say I made my decision to become a chemist uh very early on in high school. Especially biochemistry was an interest of mine. At that time, many, many new novel technologies were created in the area of molecular biology and biochemistry, and I was just fascinated by these opportunities. At that time, it was meant to be the future job markets and an area of product development. That was my great love, the love of my life, and I stayed with biochemistry and chemistry since then.
SPEAKER_05So, what motivated you to move from academia to an industry job?
SPEAKER_02What I always wanted to do is applied research that benefits the patients and improves their qualities of life. So, and uh I always wanted to focus on really product development, on innovative product development in the pharmaceutical and biochemistry industry. Initially I started in academia and the transition to industry was not straightforward, it was not a direct line. Switch to industry coming from academia, and then I switched back to academia. I finally decided to make the transition to industry because with Ashland I found a great employer, uh socially and ethically responsible company where I could realize my dream of uh improving patients' life with novel and innovative um products and process technologies actually.
SPEAKER_04And how did this switch back to research after uh moving to industry work?
SPEAKER_02It was uh quite challenging to walk between the worlds, um, but you learn it. You learn a lot about industry and academia by um keeping an open mind. And after my PhD, I actually went to America, to San Francisco for an additional postdoctoral training. And after my postdoctoral training, uh my boss principal investigator hired me for his company, for his start-out uh startup spin-out company, where I gained a lot of uh industrial expertise. However, I wanted to return to Europe and the company was not really moving in the direction that I wanted to do. So I came back to Europe to learn about stem cells and gene delivery, uh, which I could not do in America at that time. I finally found a professor with whom I could work on a startup company, Spinout University Spin-Out Company. It was a great team. We developed very innovative products, generated initial sales, and after several years of uh very successful product development, we were finally recognized by the global company Ashland. I became uh employee of Ashland due to these events.
SPEAKER_04Uh, what were the main challenges you faced? Did academia prepare you for industry, and vice versa? And how did you handle them?
SPEAKER_02While I was in academia, I actually always worked towards the transition to industry because I felt attracted by industry. So uh of course I acquired my advanced knowledges in molecular biology, biochemistry at the universities, and I was privileged to work at highly regarded universities. Um and uh however I focused on the transition to industry there. Uh, you know, um universities these days and national funding agencies like the European Union offer great funding instruments to make the transition to industry. So very early on in my PhD, actually, my position was funded by uh by a project grant, and I learned to write reports and help my professor write reports. Later, when I went for a postdoctoral fellowship in America, I wrote my own postdoctoral fellowships. So it was really all about grant writing and gaining expertise in this area. And then later I wrote more grants and bigger grants, and as you mentioned in your introduction, I have been managing over the time now 11 European grants.
SPEAKER_05Why you choose USA? Or it wasn't your choice, it just was an opportunity that you seized and went to study there.
SPEAKER_02At that time I made my PhD on liposomes, on liposomal effects on signal transduction, and I had the great opportunity to go for postdoctoral training in Professor Demetrios Papadiopoulos' uh lab in um San Francisco. He is considered the godfather of lipid biophysics and biochemistry. So this was just the opportunity of my life to go there and learn more about lipids and liposomal-based gene delivery and liposomal-based drug delivery. So that was an opportunity I could not really pass up. I benefited tremendously from this expertise.
SPEAKER_05United States are the first, I think, who understand how to promote themselves and teach uh their PhDs to do so.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, this is correct. So um I learned grant writing actually in America, but then I became more proficient and much better than later in Ireland when I returned to Europe. I built on my American expertise there. And uh then here in Ireland I was especially lucky to get some of the commercialization awards offered by Irish funding agencies, and I learned how to uh administer my own budget, I learned uh to hire employees, work with them, build my own team. Basically, I made the transition to write my own independent research grants as well. So not just working at the university for a professor and uh work on his projects, but really you know, develop my own ideas, my own product ideas. And then also the universities these days have technology transfer offices with commercialization specialists, so you can work together with them to develop patents, invention disclosure forms. So you learn a lot about patent writing, searching patent databases, and this this helped me greatly to make the transition to industry.
SPEAKER_05There are only twenty four hours, you know, in a day. So writing grants takes a huge amount of time. And uh working on something so uh difficult uh as you stated, biochemistry is not a very simple subject, you know. So how you manage uh all this?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, this was one uh major challenge for me as I made the transition also to industry. You need to learn to be multitasking, you need to learn uh to wear different hats, basically. Uh so being a scientist is only a very small part of your job description. You need to learn to work with a team, you need to be able to communicate with different types of people, for example, lawyers, for example, university management, uh financial administrators. And you learn this when you do grant writing and you develop your patents. So the thing about the thing is really be open-minded, uh learn advanced communication skills and uh do multitasking. This is something you learn while being at the university, and later there's additional industrial trainings as well when you are in industry. So um I'm still going through training phases here at Ashland. I'm in my 50s now, but I'm still technically going to school and I'm still learning. There are so-called project management courses at universities that you can attend. They basically teach you how to make the best out of your time and how to allocate the right resources to it. Uh, they teach you how to write end charts and um write up budgets. Um, so it's basically a training exercise that you can uh go through while at the universities and more experienced scientists who had uh a lot of um experience with grant writing, talking to professors, but also talking to industrial partners, you know. There are a lot of industries now involved in university research. It is very attractive to them to um, you know, benefit from the advanced technology knowledge that exists at the university and the research excellence that is taking place there. So um you have all the opportunities there, and you just need to be able to find the people and uh to source them. It is really a learning experience. So, grant writing, um you know, the success rates are 20%, sometimes as low as 10% that you get the grant. However, you can always refine and improve a proposal and make it better, and also you learn from your failures. This is actually the best teacher in life to learn from your failures and learn from disappointments. Uh nobody is always on top of the mountain all the time. The great minds have always had to go through valleys and disappointments and failures.
SPEAKER_04Are there any subjects which you would include if somebody asks you to give suggestions for correcting the current PhD curriculums that are uh taught on universities?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there is a lot that is required in industry that is currently not being taught at universities. But when you go, for example, as a student on internships with industry, placements, second months, uh, and you meet industrialists, they will tell you what is required. Uh looking back on my life, the transition from academia to my own spin-out company where I helped a few professors uh to start the company and generate sales and uh develop these products. Judging from this experience, I can say that you need to learn a lot that the universities do not really teach yet. For example, discussions with lawyers, for example, you need to draft employment contracts. And sometimes it is about financial management. You need to be able to monitor bank accounts, you need to issue invoices. So very specialized quality managers are needed in industry to uphold this uh high production standard. In uh in the industry, the number one goal is only to go for a project when you put and a product when there's really a market need for it. This is uh it requires a different mind setting on the part of students, uh, not just publishing and gathering data, uh, but goal-oriented work to benefit patients and uh the markets out there. And this is something that should be done at universities and courses via additional training. But I think it's the dawn of a new time where universities realize that they need to generate their own revenue, at least in part, from patent from patents and outlicensing of technology. When I was younger, this did not really exist. I think it was a new wave that came from America and European universities are now starting to look into this financing model as well and realize that the career opportunities at universities are very limited, so the students really need to make the transition uh to industry.
SPEAKER_04So speaking in industry terms, basically, uh during your PhD studies, the main products that universities created were were students themselves.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that is that is correct. So it's not just products, it's also production processes or no novel ways of organizing work. Universities also generate good spin-out companies, startup companies that could work as a liaison with big pharma industry out there, and you know, my my former startup company is an example of this. Industry, you know, always seeks uh joint partnerships and contacts at universities to avail of these opportunities of the resources and the knowledge. And um I think universities these days are more open uh to this kind of collaboration than they were like a couple of decades ago when I was in my twenties.
SPEAKER_05And what would be your recommendation for those who are willing to try but are afraid?
SPEAKER_02As I said, life is uh uh is a is a learning experience and you continue to go through life and uh you know you learn from experience, you pick your topics, you know, pick your star and follow it, you know, have your dream and uh don't be disappointed. Pick yourself up when you fail, improve your own skills, improve your personality, and uh as as time goes by, you know, you see things will fall in place, you know, sometimes you get help from above as well, you know. Sometimes you're lucky and uh yeah, you you make it through when you hold on to your dreams and fight and improve yourself and pick yourself up after failure, you will achieve great things.
SPEAKER_05Thank you very much, uh Dr. Kreiser. Thank you for your positive and optimistic attitude.
SPEAKER_04We are honored to host Mr. Slaven Mislenchevich, who works as a policy officer in the Directorate General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission and is responsible for the realization of a European labor market for research and the development of EuroAxis and Resaver Pan-European Occupational Pension Fund.
SPEAKER_05Slavin, thank you very much for taking the time to be with us today. As a policy officer responsible for the realization of European labor market for researchers, why is this important and what is your vision?
SPEAKER_03First of all, thank you for having me here. I think if we talk about tackling the current and future societal challenges, then it becomes clear that on one hand, we need to increase the investments in RNI, but also the fact that if we want to develop new technologies and solutions that solve some of these current and future societal challenges, that these solutions are also becoming increasingly complex and require multidisciplinary teams. And therefore, it is quite challenging for individual regions or cities or countries to do this in isolation. They might not be able to unlock all the necessary investments and realize economies of scale, or they might not possess all the necessary skills within their borders in order to actually complete or actually to realize these technological developments. So, therefore, if we want to tackle these main global and societal challenges, but also to remain competitive in the global economy, we need to collaborate. If we collaborate cross-border, well, this automatically results in exchange of knowledge and employees. That's why, from the policy side, the European Research Area, which was already launched back in 2000 in the context of the Lisbon Strategy to address the fragmentation of the EU's research and innovation landscape, was at that time considered as a big breakthrough because we have to understand that back then the EU landscape consisted of a collection of national RI systems and the EU-level funding program. So, with the European research area, what we also often abbreviate as era, we aim to build a common scientific and technological area for the EU, creating a single market for research and innovation, fostering free movement of researchers, scientific knowledge and innovation, and encouraging a more competitive European industry. And of course, this involves restructuring the European research landscape towards more cross-border cooperation, content-wide competition, building of critical mass and coordination, and the improvement of national research policies and systems. It helps countries to be more effective together by strongly aligning their research policies and programs. So since 2009, achieving the ERA has also become an explicit treaty objective as expressed in the Article 179 of the Treaty of the Functioning of European Union. We clearly see that creating this single European market will eventually result in free circulation of researchers, and this will lead to a better allocation of resources across the European Union, and therefore better quality and higher impact of research. And this is needed because back then and still today, but to a lesser extent, there are still quite some challenges when it comes to creating this single market for researchers. For example, challenges related to visas, family-related challenges, lack of information about the jobs abroad, and social security issues. And while, on one hand, a lot of progress has been achieved since 2020, think of charter for researchers and the code of conduct for the recruitment of researchers, which also puts a very important emphasis on gender equality, the human resources strategy for researchers, again, a very important uh emphasis is also put on the gender equality and of course the Euro Access Service Network. But while the focus of on tackling these barriers will remain, for example, by launching new initiatives or improving the existing ones, if we look towards the future, we don't want only to focus on any type of mobility. What we want is to move from any type of mobility but more towards a balanced circulation of researchers. And also in this context, quite some initiatives are already out there. Also, the Euro Access supports the balanced mobility of researchers. But for example, we also have the Mari-Slotovaska-Karee actions, the Cost actions, and so on. But what is important to understand is that if we talk about this balanced mobility of researchers, that the pattern is quite mixed. We have to abandon the old perception of East, West, North, and South. It is much more complicated. And we also have to acknowledge that brain gain, brain drain are not necessarily a zero-sum game. So therefore, we have to look at how we can further facilitate brain circulation and therefore I would say bring the European labor market for researchers to the next level.
SPEAKER_04What message can you share with our listeners? Can you share a tip for young researchers interested in developing their careers?
SPEAKER_03Well, I believe, first of all, there is not one size fits all. But I think there are a couple of general um advice perhaps that could be shared with the listeners. So, first of all, I would suggest the researchers, young and old, to continue to be brave. I think researchers have so much to offer. Um, they have such a variety of skill sets that are interesting for so many different parts of the society. So definitely, I would first of all like to encourage researchers to be brave, to be bold, to chase opportunities across the world, and also to be open-minded to alternative career paths. Uh, second, perhaps, suggestion could be is actually given the amount of possible viabilities when there are the fact that researchers can work so many different sectors. I think researchers can perhaps ask themselves the question um, what are the key things they want to see different in the world? And by identifying the key points that you want to like to work on, you like to improve, this can, for example, help you to identify the sectors and perhaps the employers that might be uh interesting for you to work for. Third, I think starting from understanding your own uh skill set, I think it is important that researchers ask themselves the question about what are the skills of the future in order to define a learning and training program from themselves. And fourthly, it is really hard to understand what the next step is if you only just do this just based on desk research. So it is important that you, as a researcher, also engage with other researchers, uh, with the entire community, and that you actually take advantage of all the resources that are out there. Uh, think of, for example, of the Euro Access career development, where you can receive so much information about so many different aspects, and where there are people, perhaps even in your proximity, who can ask the right questions and help you figure out what your next career step should be.
SPEAKER_05Thank you for listening to the Euro Access Smart Talks podcast.
SPEAKER_04We hope you enjoyed these two episodes on careers beyond academia.
SPEAKER_05These episodes covered specific obstacles researchers face in the transition from academia to industry. We heard from experts in the field with practical advice and important tips, as well as personal life stories from researchers who have made the transition and were able to develop successful careers in different European locations. Like all changes, it is needed a challenge to make this move. But these researchers proved that it is possible with proper planning, support, and training.
SPEAKER_04Do you want to hear more? In the next episode, we will focus on scientific entrepreneurship, including success stories and practical tips. For more information on Euraxis, visit the Rexis portal. You will find more episodes of the Euraxis Smart Talks Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcast. This episode was prepared by host Dari Aksinov and Yomanjevovic, audio engineer Pavel Drashkovic, Outreach Manager Dina Samerit, production manager Moria Rika, editors Iser Hel and Mirsa Krian.
SPEAKER_05This episode is published under the Creative Commons CC BY license. Until next time.
