REDS 2023
REDS 2023 'Career Transitions for Researchers'
Our 9th Annual Researcher Education and Development Scholarship (REDS) Conference took place on Wednesday 11th October 2023.
Call for abstracts 2023
The REDS 2023 Conference theme: 'Career Transitions for Researchers'
Context and sub-themes
A long-term career in academic research has become less linear, and less likely, in today’s highly competitive environment. The movement of skilled researchers away from universities and into roles through which they apply their skills, experience and intellectual capital is the basis of the concept of the ‘Knowledge-Based Economy’ (Powell and Snellman, 2004). The UKRI UK Research & Innovation - Strategy 2022-2027 states that in order to deliver benefits for society and the environment, and contribute to economic growth:
"We must redefine outdated views of a ‘traditional’ research career path, making more visible the full range of careers available in research and innovation and creating exciting new opportunities to attract a new generation of talented individuals and teams."
Yet, new postgraduate researchers still tend to operate on limited awareness of their likely career prospects and reproduce outdated institutional discourse about the doctorate being a high-stakes test of the individual’s preparedness for membership of an academic discipline (McCulloch & Bastalich, 2023) retaining attachments to an anticipated, if problematic, academic ‘good life’ (Burford, 2018).
For researchers, transition into and beyond the doctorate is not always transparent, linear, intentional, or desired and it requires diverse knowledge, skills, awareness and support to achieve successfully. It is a negotiated process of discovery, striving, and identity shift that takes time to process, and involves emotional as well as mental, and physical transitions.
Career transitions – such as entering a research environment; progressing in a role or changing role; moving to a different discipline and/or institution; or, moving between academia and industry – can therefore happen in different ways for different people and may be sought, or circumstantial, intentional, or inevitable. The 2023 REDS Conference will focus on how funders, employers and university stakeholders (e.g. supervisors, researcher developers, directors of PGR programmes) can conceptualise and support effective transitions for researchers.
We invite papers related to empirical or theoretical perspectives on the following:
- Transition into, within, or beyond the doctoral degree, from a range of prior professional contexts
- Progression in an academic research career through different stages
- Transition to different role, occupation, or sector, into or out of academia
- The knowledge, skills, experiences and awareness that enable effective transitions
- Support programmes for career transitions
- New models for research careers that support inter-project transitions
- Any other career transition related topic