Ever wondered what research staff do when they move out of academia?

The ‘What do research staff do next?’ project run by Vitae in collaboration with Naturejobs is investigating the careers of researchers who used to be employed as research staff in UK or European universities, but have since moved on to other employment sectors.

The project will focus on researchers who have been employed in higher education (as research staff, postdoctoral researchers or on fellowships) and then moved into other occupations. It will reveal the tipping points in their careers, understand their decision-making processes and explore their experiences and reflections of their career paths. This will provide an invaluable insight into potential employment opportunities for research staff considering moving out of higher education.

Our aim is to generate new evidence towards the question that is genuinely under-explored in the research community: What do research staff do next?

Here’s what our partner Naturejobs says about the project on their blog.

Do you know any research staff who work outside higher education?

One of the challenges of this project is contacting former higher education researchers.

If you know of any research staff who have moved out of a UK /European university or public research institute, please tell them about this project and encourage them to complete the survey.

We also encourage you to use your networks and social media (using #PostAcStory) to promote this project to anyone that you think would be interested in this project or helpful in promoting it. The higher profile we can achieve the more likely we can reach out to research staff who are now working outside higher education to participate in our survey.

The survey is now open on www.surveymonkey.com/s/wdrsdn

Please, forward the link to the survey to former HE research staff and encourage them to share their #PostAcStory on Twitter.

More information about the project is available here