Research within the academy is exciting. But science goes beyond experiments, data analysis or writing and publishing papers. Therefore, many researchers sense that there are other ways to work in science, but it is often difficult to make the leap from academia to industry or other related areas.
To meet some of these concerns, the last week of February the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB) held the ‘Career week’. This series of participative talks and workshops – co-organized by the Intervals program of the PRBB together with the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) and the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences, Pompeu Fabra University (DCEXS-UPF) – aimed to promote the different job options in science beyond academia.
The ‘Career Week’ series consisted in four roundtable sessions to get to know first-hand how the day to day looks like in four science-related areas:
Get to know first-hand the day to day of different jobs
Coping with change is not easy. Therefore, many participants appreciated that the speakers shared their personal experience and their views on training opportunities, daily routines, pros and cons or which skills are the best to get a job in each area.
“If you have doubts about your future, give yourself a chance. Write a post in a blog and try if you like it before applying for a master’s”
Adelaida Sharukhan. Scientific Writer at ISGlobal
Understanding that working life is not as lineal or fixed as one has imagined, or trying out whether you like a job before starting to formally train are some of the tips that speakers gave at the science communication roundtable. A session where several participants thanked the speakers and the organizers for the opportunity to discover some of the options of working in science beyond academia.
Good numbers for the first ‘Career Week’
The first edition of the ‘Career Week’ closed with good numbers of participants. About 225 people attended one of the roundtable sessions and 75 people filled all the spaces for the workshops “So what’s next? Managing change and challenges in your scientific career” and “LinkedIn workshop for researchers – make yourself more visible!”.
Most attendees to the ‘Career Week‘ were PhD students from the six research institutions of the park. And a fact that invites reflection, three out of four participants were women.
