Series 10: Ep. 3 - Strategic Thinking in Your Academic Career

This week's guest is Pippa Sterk, a postdoctoral teaching fellow at King's who was curious about where their research could take them. Seizing an opportunity, they successfully applied for a place on the King's Parliamentary Research Internship (for doctoral and postdoctoral researchers). Pippa tells us the valuable lessons they learned through this work experience and how it has shaped their future career plans.

In this episode we meet Dr. Lienkie Diedericks, a King's PhD graduate. After completing her PhD Lienkie worked for the Royal Institute of British Architects on their equality and diversity initiatives. She has now returned to work at King's on research culture in our Faculy of Dentistry, Oral and Craniofacial Sciences. In this episode we discuss the unexpected turns researchers careers can take, being an international student and professional in the UK, what higher education institutions need to do to be more equitable and what research culture means in practice.

We're back with Series 11! We are delighted to be joined by King's PhD alumnus, Adrian Signell, Senior Associate at Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Adrian completed a PhD in Biology and Genomics in 2023 and started it 'with the full intention to ride the academic wave until, you know, being a professor into my late 70s'. Find out what happened next including tips for building relevant experience and what the biggest differences were between academia and consultancy. Useful links include: www.kcl.ac.uk/careers for King's students and research staff https://www.savitas.co.uk/newsletters for sector updates www.bcg.com - Boston Consulting Group

In this episode we meet Joe Shute, a humanities PhD researcher at Manchester Metropolitan University. Joe is also a journalist and is about to publish his third book. In this podcast he talks about combining his three careers and offers us his insights on how they compliment each other. He also provides us with tips on getting started in writing and how he manages the multiple demands on his time. We also get to find out more about creative non-fiction. We'd like to thank the Leverhulme Trust for their introduction to Joe and their generosity with their time and support to make this episode possible.

“Narrative CVs are an attempt to be able to surface all of the things which academics do in a structured way.” We would like to invite all researchers and their supporters, developers and enablers to build their awareness of Narrative CVs (NCV) with this podcast episode. They are increasingly used for funding applications, in recruitment or promotion processes, and as such are also a useful framework for academic career planning. We are delighted to be joined by narrative CV researchers, Becky Ioppolo and Kate Murray from the University of Cambridge who are doing fascinating research into the use of narrative CVs to uncover more about them and answer the big questions about whether or not they meet their purpose of being more inclusive, how to write a good one and where you can go to find out more. Resources below mentioned in the episode: King’s researchers can access one-to-one specialist careers support and narrative CV resources. If you are based in another institution, check for careers support and training available to you. Résumé for Research and Innovation (R4RI): guidance – UKRI Video-based resource from the University of Glasgow provides insights as to how other researchers have approached writing an NCV The University of Oxford’s resource on writing NCVs.  Search their website for more information on writing team NCVs. NCV sharing platform - Join for access to narrative CV examples, set up by the Marie Curie Fellowship Alumni Association and others. ARRC Project one-page PDF supporting researchers to write an NCV and signposting to many different sources of help. ARRC Project NCV FAQs and do submit any you would like them to answer! LSE blog post⁠ - Bordignon et al. summarise the reasons behind the creation of the NCV Evaluation from the FNR, Luxembourg national funder, mentioned in connection with the amount of time it takes to write an NCV. Alzheimer’s Research UK podcast on implementation and general advice Jargon: NCV - narrative CV R4RI - Resume for Research Innovation (same as a narrative CV) UKRI - UK Research and Innovation - UK government research funding ARRC Project - Action Research on Research Culture

'It's really an art' - join us for an enjoyable and informative conversation with Antonio Forte about the ups and downs of applying for fellowships, the importance of resilience and building a supportive network and the joy of thinking outside the box (and how this helps with applications). There is also a fascinating glimpse into the future in the form of shape shifting meta materials. For King's researchers applying to fellowships you can also find recordings from fellowship funders on the CRSD webpages and get support and advice from the King's funding teams in addition to speaking to careers consultants about CVs and applications.

In this episode, Dr. Sarah Burton, writer and researcher tells us about her career in education and about her experience of gaining funding from the Leverhulme Trust, what that meant to her and gives some tips on making an application. Many thanks to the Trust for introducing us and making this episode possible.

In this episode we are joined by Dr. Dmitry Kishkinev who is a lecturer in animal behaviour and behavioural neuroscience at Keele University. He tells us all about his career history, moving countries, the need to think strategically about your career and the support he has received from the Leverhulme Trust. We'd like to thank the Leverhulme Trust for their generosity in helping us record this episode.

“I wanted to see what it was like in a different environment.” For this episode, we’ve passed the mic to Lingxing Kong, a King's PhD student in his third year of research in Robotics, and an Inclusive Careers Education Ambassador (ICEA). Lingxing is joined by Dr Emmanouil Spyrakos Papastavridis, Lecturer in Engineering, who shares his fascinating career journey. Emmanouil's career has taken him from academia, into a startup lab, and back again – he shares his thoughts on the benefits and drawbacks of working in both contexts, tells us about the skills he acquired along the way and provides plenty of inspiration for those exploring career options.   For more info on the ICEA programme: https://keats.kcl.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=61839&section=7 for King's students and staff Public links: Phoenix Issue 164 February 2022 (agcas.org.uk) https://www.agcas.org.uk/write/MediaUploads/Phoenix/Phoenix_Issue_164_February_2022_-_Students_as_co-creators.pdf Emerging insights from a peer-to-peer social justice careers education programme | Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling (nicecjournal.co.uk) https://www.nicecjournal.co.uk/index.php/nc/article/view/464

We’re celebrating International Women’s Day with a special episode and we're joined by Drs Amal Abuzainab, Lovelin Obi and Rokhshid Ghaziani who are all academic researchers, teachers and involved in many other things alongside their main careers. In a very uplifting conversation, we hear about how they came to be academics, what kinds of barriers women can face in academic life (and how to overcome them) and the challenges of managing complex careers and responsibilities.