Imagined and emerging career patterns: perceptions of doctoral students and research staff

Abstract

Increasingly, research staff positions rather than lectureships are the reality for social sciences PhD graduates wishing academic work. Within this context, our longitudinal study examined how social science doctoral students and research staff in two UK universities imagined their futures in and out of academia. The variation over time in how they viewed their futures is examined through the lens of identity-trajectory. The results emphasise how individuals balanced their academic intentions with social, personal and physical desires and constraints. The results also enrich understanding of early academic career experience and the conceptualisation of identity-trajectory. Research and policy implications are considered.

Keywords:

• careers
• doctoral students
• researchers

Notes

1. In North America such positions are often called post-doctoral when they come shortly after graduation. In the UK, the term researcher refers to individuals whose role is focused on research and not teaching and includes individuals with very little research experience as well as those with 10 or 15 years’ experience.

2. In the European community, mobility is encouraged and non-home students pay the same rates as home students.

3. This is comparable to transfer from a master’s to a doctoral degree in North America. In the UK, there is no coursework during the PhD; coursework is completed in the master’s.