With a title like that, it's no surprise this Saturday session at the ESOF 2008 meeting was packed full of postdocs and Ph.D. students, even at the early hour of 8:30 a.m. (It is Barcelona, after all.) But once the question and answer period began, it became clear that the path into a research career is anything but carved in stone.
One of the first questions came from a Ph.D. student at the
Centre for Genomic Regulation here in
Fulvio Esposito, rector of the University of Camerino in Italy, also pointed out that PI positions are competitive -- and people know that not everyone can become a PI. With that in mind, young researchers should always be thinking about their entire range of options and not just a single path. But the questioner quickly pointed out that these responses are very general and not specific to anyone's career path. How should someone go forward with such general advice?
Karoline Hollander, the current president of Eurodoc, suggested that the Bologna Process, which aims to harmonize national higher education systems across Europe, is having a negative effect in this regard: Perhaps the standardization of degrees has made the system too prescribed, such that the lack of structure in a Ph.D. can be overwhelming. I thought that was an interesting point, although I'm not sure to what extent it might be true.
Finally, Serpieri offered up what I thought was the most concrete answer to the question: Researchers themselves need to take ownership of their research career to find the best path. That's not to say that funders, institutions, and industry employers can't do their part to make the process transparent, fair, and as seamless as possible, but ultimately, it's on you to determine what your definition of a concrete career path is.
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