Who gets a fee waiver for publishing Open Access? 

The cost of publishing Open Access (Article Processing Charge or APC) is excessive, far outweighs the actual costs of type-setting, promotion and distribution, and is increasingly excluding scientists from publishing. If you don't believe me, consider the graph below from (Grey 2020). Grey clearly demonstrates a relationship between impact factor and the OA publication fee (APC).

Now ask yourself whether the cost can really increase with the Impact Factor (IF), or (as even publishers admit) the fee to publish is based on what academics can afford to pay. That is, publishers allow the cost to be set by the market. Because if you have your paper accepted in a journal where the IF is 13, you are likely to find the money to pay for it - even if this is 5 times the cost of the journal with an IF of 2.5. Yes, they may be in exactly the same publishing house. They may be distributed on the same platform. But when the IF went up, the value to your career and reputation also went up. Those publishers know it and they are going to exploit you willingness to pay for it. 

Getting a waiver for the >$1000 cost of publishing OA is therefore very important, if like me you can't afford to pay. So how do you think the waiver system is administered? 

Read the journal websites and you'd be forgiven for thinking that journal waivers are provided for the poorest academics who can't otherwise afford to publish. That's what publishers want you to believe. But actually, like elsewhere in life these freebies are actually given out to authors in order to get them to come back. Yes, just like getting that free can of coke at the supermarket, publishers are using the same tactics to get us to change to publishing OA in their journals. Why? Because they make so much more money, that they are laughing all they way to the bank.

The case of PLoS

Some time ago (31 July 2018), I wrote to PLoS to find out about their fee waiver system. At the time, I saw that waivers for publishing (largely in PLoS-ONE) were being handed out to people all over the world, irrespective of their financial status. This appeared to jarr with their stated policy, so I wrote asking for data on this and asked them to explain their process (my email slightly edited):

I did get a response from Susan Au at PLOS:

I pushed further and was told that PLOS simply doesn’t retain data on who gets waivers. If my figures (above) are typical, this means that PLOS is not being entirely honest about their stated waiver policy (in their financial declaration) and where waivers are actually given. They make it sound good, but actually they are using it as a hook to pull customers in.

More recently, I questioned the policy of another journal in this regard,Neobiota. In that blog entry, I showed that Neobiota have a policy very similar to PLOS, providing waivers for (potentially) one single author (seeblog post here).

The bottom line here is that fee waivers are being given out that PLOS declares in their financial statements as being to the benefit of authors that can’t afford to pay fees. However, the majority of waivers are actually being handed out to unknown authors, but likely not those from poorer countries. If PLOS keeps no records, does any APC charging journal? 

Should we make a fuss about getting fees waived? Or simply get fees waived when we can and keep quiet?

My view is that an open and transparent system should be compulsory. There would be no shame in the acknowledgements stating that APCs were waived. Indeed, I suggested this some years back (see blog entry here), but apparently to no avail. 

And if the system isn’t transparent?

It would be fair to assume that some people are profiting at the expense of others. This is the time-honoured tradition in the publishing business, and relates back to the power of privilege. 

Indeed, I'd suggest that now these people have started sucking the financial blood out of our academic sytem, the only real way to move fowards is to get rid of the publishers altogether. 

Grey RJ (2020) Sorry, we’re open: Golden open‑access and inequality in non‑human biological sciences Scientometrics (2020) 124:1663–1675

Submitting a paper for review

In this week's lab meeting, we discussed the process of submitting a manuscript to a journal, and what happens once this is done. Here, I’ll briefly summarise some of the points that were made in the meeting:

1. Targeting journals for submission: there are a lot of journals out there, and you need to make sure that you are submitting your paper to a journal in the right subject area. Your advisor should help with this, but if you are starting from scratch you can list journals in areas such as ecology or evolution using Web of Science or Scopus and rank them according to impact. This gives you a proxy list to discuss with your advisor and co-authors when preparing a manuscript for submission. Keep the agreed list, as if you are rejected from the first journal you’ll know where to go next.
2. 1. Take special note of journals that require fees (Article Processing Charges: APC), either for Open Access or as page charges (some US journals). See blog posts about Open Access and APCs here, here and here.
   2. The MeaseyLab policy is not to use research funds to pay for publishing, so you’ll need to make special provision for finding this money if you really want to submit to a journal that has an APC. 
3. Prepare your manuscript (ms) according to the journal guidelines: this may require a lot of work especially if the journal requires full formatting on first submission. Some journals require additional items such as graphical abstracts, so make sure that you know what is needed. 
4. 1. Very important to note are any word limits (including for the abstract), and potential caps on number of citations.
   2. After approval from your supervisor, circulate this final version among your co-authors. This is a good time to gather the needed meta-data for submission. 
   3. You’ll (usually) need a letter to the editor, key-words, recommended (or opposed) reviewers, and addresses (with ORCID) for all authors. These should all meet the approval of your co-authors.
5. Uploading your ms to the editorial management software requires time and preparation. Give yourself a good couple of hours for this process, as it can be frustrating.
6. Once submitted to the system, your manuscript is usually checked before being passed to the editor. You may get it sent back if the meta-data is wrong.
7. Inside the management systems, there are various workflows, and here I’ll describe something typical, although others do exist. Once the editor (often Editor in Chief) has your ms, they will decide which associate editor (AE) will handle it. 
8. 1. The AE should read the ms and may reject it if they feel that it won’t make it through review. An AE rejection isn’t great as they don’t always have the best experience in knowing what will and what won’t make it through. The editor usually has more experience. Hopefully, this won’t have taken long (1-2 weeks) and so won’t be very painful. This rejection may be fair or unfair, but it’s hard luck and there’s nothing much you can do except return to step 2 (above).
   2. Normally, your ms will be sent out to review and you can expect to wait 4-6 weeks (good), but sometimes up to 3 months, for a decision. If it’s away for over 3 months, you should definitely make a query on the editorial management system.
9. Once back from review, you’ll get an email from the editorial management system with the decision.
10. 1. If it’s rejected, take the comments of the reviewers on board. Think about it for a couple of days, and then set about revising the manuscript. However unfair you think the reviewers have been, there should be some important messages for you to consider carefully and discuss among the co-authors before going back to step 2.
    2. Reject and resubmit: This is a category that means you need major revision, but the journal doesn’t want the time that it takes to do this on their stats. In many journals, this result has replaced ‘major revision’. Back to step 3 with a track changes manuscript and response letter to reviewer comments.
    3. Major revision: essentially the same as 6b. Both 6b and 6c result in your ms being reviewed again. You’ll need to carefully prepare both the ms and the response to reviewers as the reviewers will see both. Back to step 3 with a response letter.
    4. Minor revision: is unusual at this stage, but your ms should now only be assessed by the AE, so you should address your responses to them.
11. If you are resubmitting, aim to prioritise this to get it done in 2 to 3 weeks if possible. 
12. 1. The reason is that the same reviewers are likely to be willing to look at your ms again within a month, and will remember all the points that they made. Similarly, the AE will remember all of the issues that they had. It’s hard to stress how valuable this is, as keeping it all fresh will result in a swift response.
    2. If you don’t or can’t manage to get your responses back quickly, you might expect a rocky ride through the review process when you go back for the second round. The reviewers you had before might not be available, but the AE will be obliged to have at least 2 reviews again. This means that you may get new reviews. New reviewers are likely to throw up new issues, and could result in your ms getting rejected at this stage, or that you’ll have another major review decision, sending you back to step 3 with a track changes manuscript and response letter to reviewer comments. This drags the whole process on for much longer and reviewers and AEs are likely to look less favourably at your ms. 
    3. A better result is when there are only minor revisions. In this case the ms is simply bouncing between you and the AE and even if this happens more than once, it’s fine as long as you can keep the response time reasonable (within a couple of weeks).
13. Hopefully by now your ms has been accepted, and you are entering the last stages of the process. Your accepted ms should be sent to the publishers for typesetting, and you can get the proofs back very quickly (for some publishers). Most demand that the proofs are returned very quickly (often within 48 hours), and you should try to prioritise this if you can. If you can, please also send it to the co-authors. The more eyes the better at this stage for spotting errors. Don’t expect to be able to change a lot in the proof process, it’s really just for catching errors. Carefully check all figures, tables and legends. It’s not unknown that typesetters cause problems when they make proofs (tables can be disasters). 
14. 1. Check the acknowledgements again and make sure that your funders are included. You should always acknowledge:DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biologyfor their support. I also suggest adding in the reviewers (even if anonymous) for their help in improving the ms.
    2. If you (or a co-author) spot a fundamental error with your data or analyses at this point (or any of the other steps above), you should discuss it with all co-authors and decide what to do. It’s better to withdraw the ms than to have to retract it later.

The peer review process is not ideal, but it is worth remembering that it’s there to help improve your manuscript. Different reviewers have different styles of review, and these tend to be culturally distinct around the planet. You should be aware that apparently ‘rude’ comments by reviewers might simply be attempts at humour. Try not to be disheartened by anything that you read in a reviewer’s comments. You never know the conditions that they were in when they read your manuscript, or what their day was like. This is also a point to consider when writing a review for a paper, but let’s tackle that in another blog post.

What is needed for your proposal?

In the Faculty of Science at Stellenbosch University, you need to have your PhD or MSc approved by a group of 3 independent staff members (i.e. not including supervisors) in your department (Botany & Zoology). The department requires that your written proposal is publicly available to everyone in the department to look at (normally deposited in the secretary’s office) at least 7 days prior to the oral presentation of your proposal. 

Your proposal is a collection of documents, where each document is a chapter of the thesis, and is roughly equivalent to a published paper. Ideally, these should be bounded by an introduction, which gives the bigger picture of how the thesis is placed, and a time-line at the end that demonstrates how you can complete the thesis within the two or three years for your MSc or PhD, respectively. Note that your project proposal is placed on your permanent file within the department.

Simply planning a study that results in two (MSc) or five (PhD) chapters equivalent to publications is not that hard. So what turns the collection of chapters into a thesis? Remember that the requirements for MSc and PhD are not the same. 

I think that it is useful to know what the examiners are asked to respond to when reading your thesis. 

When reading your MSc thesis examiners are asked:

• Have the study objectives and the problems that were investigated been formulated satisfactorily?
• Does the thesis show conversance with and a critical attitude towards the pertinent literature?
• Is the material presented in a clear, systematic and logical manner?
• Does the thesis show that the candidate is sufficiently familiar with the relevant research techniques and methods and have the research results been interpreted correctly?
• Does the candidate show signs of independent, critical thinking or other signs of originality?
• Does this investigation contribute to the knowledge of or insight in the relevant field of study?  Are new aspects in the field of study, if any, clearly identified?
• Is the linguistic, stylistic and technical editing of the thesis acceptable?
• Is the work acceptable for publication?

Note here that for an MSc, the examiner is asked whether the investigation contributes “...to the knowledge of or insight in the relevant field of study”, and requires independent, critical thinking and originality. The Master of Science is done to demonstrate mastery of an existing body of scholarly work within the subject area. That is, you show that you are competent to do it: a Master of Science.

When reading your PhD thesis examiners are asked:

• Has the motivation for the objectives of the study been formulated satisfactorily?
• Do the research results constitute a meaningful contribution to the knowledge of and insight into the relevant field of study?
• Does the dissertation distinguish clearly between own, new contributions to, and known results in the relevant field of study?
• Is the candidate capable of evaluating the scientific meaning of his / her results and of placing this in context within existing knowledge in the field of study?
• Does the candidate show signs of independent, critical thinking or other signs of originality?
• Does the candidate show that he / she is sufficiently capable of doing independent research?
• Does the dissertation show that the candidate is sufficiently familiar with the relevant research techniques and methods?
• Does dissertation show conversance with, and a critical attitude towards the pertinent literature?
• Is the material presented in a clear, systematic and logical manner?
• Is the linguistic, stylistic and technical editing of the dissertation acceptable?
• Are the research results acceptable for publication?

The critical difference with the PhD requirements is that you are now required to produce a “meaningful contribution to the knowledge of and insight into the relevant field of study”, and show that you are “...capable of doing independent research”. This degree prepares you to be an independent researcher, and so you are expected to have a critical attitude toward other research.

Thus for your PhD research, your work needs to be novel. This means that you are not simply applying the same experiments to another species or another scenario. But you are genuinely using your study system to generate new knowledge in an approach that is original. 

Given that all this will be needed in your final thesis, the academics that are reading your proposal will be asking whether or not the proposed work is going to meet all of these requirements. For both types of proposal, the assessing academics will be asking themselves whether the proposed work is practical and feasible (especially within the allotted time-frame), and they will ask whether or not the studies undertaken are posing testable hypotheses (see here). You can see how many of the questions for the final thesis can also be asked of the proposal. 

For the PhD work, the thesis needs to fit together preferably within a framework. I like students to draw how their chapters are interlinked, and to present this in the introduction of their proposal. A useful concept to be aware of is the 'Hierarchy of Hypotheses' (Heger & Jeshcke 2018 - see blog entry here). In this approach, you are encouraged to consider the 'bigger question' in your research area, identifying both what studies have produced evidence and identifying gaps from a theory driven approach. Generally, it is only possible to consider these types of concepts once you are familiar with the literature (both theoretical and experimental).

Handbook

The Department of Botany & Zoology has an online postgraduate handbook (here) that contains a lot of useful information. It is updated annually, and you should make sure that you are looking at the current version. The department, faculty and university are prone to changing the requirements for these degrees, and these changes should appear within the handbook. If you find anything that concerns or worries you in the handbook (or elsewhere), don’t sweat it, but come and talk to your supervisor.

Examples

One of the best ways to learn about what is a good research proposal is to look at some examples. You should have already been sent some recent examples, and if you haven't please ask for one. Don't worry if it's not exactly the same subject that you are doing. Remember that the academic staff that assess your proposal are similarly removed from the subject area of the content. Instead, they have more experience about science in general and about what is practical and feasible to do.

Oral examination

For MSc marks, the department has a 80% to 20% split for thesis and oral presentation. The final mark will be written on your degree certificate, and you need to have >75% in order to get a MSccum laude. 

A PhD also requires an oral defense. The regulations surrounding this are more murky than for a MSc as it does not contribute toward your final mark: for a PhD you do not get a final mark, it’s simply pass or fail (hopefully pass!).

Structure

We expect that your final thesis will be a set of papers (data chapters sandwiched between an introduction and discussion), and so we ask you to prepare the proposal in the same way. That is, you will have two (MSc) or five (PhD) data chapters. In the proposal, each chapter will consist of three parts:

Introduction

I’m not going to go into what’s inside the introduction here, as it’s already been done in other blog posts on formulaic writing (here) and specifically about the introduction (here).

Methods & Materials

What’s in the M&M section is also covered in the blog post on formulaic writing (here). At some point, I’ll write a specific post about this, but essentially you need to:

1. Introduce important aspects of your study organism and/or study site
2. Describe exactly how you’ll set up your experiment and/or collect your samples
3. 1. You must explicitly state how each of the variables (introduced in the introduction) is collected
4. (If necessary) Describe how you’ll turn your collected data into the variables needed for your analyses
5. Data analyses (how you’ll test your hypotheses). This should include a description of the statistical or analytical techniques. It’s useful to structure this section by each of the questions/hypotheses that you are posing

Hypothetical Results

It’s a very useful exercise to imagine how results will show that you have (or have not) accepted your hypothesis. You can’t show results that would cover every eventuality, but give some typical scenarios that you think may happen if you accept and reject each hypothesis. This could be a bar chart, a map, a scatter-graph, etc.

Your Proposal - what is it good for?

Once you’re done with your proposal, you might feel that you’ve done an awful lot of work without having added anything towards achieving your PhD or MSc. However, it’s actually a really useful document that you can use in a number of ways:

1. Copy and paste directly into your thesis. One PhD student estimated that she pasted 60-70% of her proposal text directly into her thesis. This included nearly all of the methods and materials section verbatim.
2. Use it to raise money to do your studies. Writing grant proposals is essentially the same as your thesis proposal, and so you can use this document (with some modifications to taylor it to the grant objectives) to raise money for your work. 

Careers inside academia

Last week, we looked at how a postgraduate degree equips you for theworld outside academia. This week we turn our attention to becoming an academic. We invited four academics from outside the MeaseyLab to zoom into our meeting and asked them: (i) the course of their career that took them into their current position; (ii)  the reasons why they think they were hired (and insights into how they hire others); and (iii) skills that they think were important during their post-grad positions that they continue with today. There then followed a Q & A session where they revealed key insights into their world.

As previously, I had the benefit of a recording of the session in putting this blog together, and the participants have all had the opportunity to correct my quirky interpretation. 

Name	Graham Alexander	Katharina Wollenberg Valero	Aaron O’Dea	David Blackburn
Current position	Professor of Herpetology	Lecturer, Ecology and the Environment Deputy REF lead	Staff Scientist	Curator & Professor
Institution	University of the Witwatersrand	University of Hull	Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute & University of Bologna	University of Florida
The path to current position	Given a snake as a pet Was given lots of advice and interest nurtured by two mentors Gained advantage through passion of subject Was hired at Wits	Got interested in phylogenetics at university Got into a lab which studied phylogenetics of frogs (Germany) Switched from frogs to anoles (US) Interested in genomic reasons for adaptation to climate  Pregnancy interrupted career Took tenure track position at a teaching university (US) Teaching and research position at U Hull (UK)	Studied maths [exited mysteriously] Ecology at U Liverpool Paleobiology at U Bristol 11 years of postdoc and started family [applied for many jobs, but didn’t get called to interview] Hired into Smithsonian where postdocs were conducted Lives and works on ismuth of panama	Anthropology Paleontology Evolution & development Better at keeping animals dead than keeping them alive Got insight from museum specimens 3 one-year post docs in same place while family started Few jobs offered CalAcad curator & scientist Moved to Florida to museum and have lab group
What you need to get a job	Passion for your subject will make you stand out above others Possession of certain traits including good work ethic, intelligence, logic and creativity   Competence in a suite of skills including good writing skills, numeracy and ability to synthesize ideas	Products that you can show: papers, infographics, engagements, evidence of productivity Good work ethic Technical proficiency Teaching experience	Demonstrate that you are committed to the position and place	Research productivity (starting and finishing projects) Evidence of grant writing

Key Insights

Here is a list of key insights that our team shared. They are in no particular order, but each one probably deserves a lot more information. 

• Academics often suffer fromimposter syndrome
• A suite of skills that are all are required:
• • Need a logical mind: even OCD
  • Good writing skills
  • Computational skills
  • Attention to detail
  • The importance of finishing the job
  • Being creative (not just for arts students)
  • Need to read (a lot)
• The coolest job in the world as you’re paid to learn
• Research has to be fun 
• • Once you have a tenured position metrics are unimportant
  • Have to produce a publication that you are proud of
• You have to tolerate rejections
• • Papers
  • Conferences
  • Positions
  • Don’t be harsh on yourself - it happens to everyone
• Don’t rely on how people used to get hired, or that positions you see now will become available in the future 
• Don’t ignore the importance of natural history observations (theMartin Whitingapproach)
• • Write the notes as they demonstrate productivity
  • They make your CV look stronger in the early stages
  • Use them to get things published strategically
  • Don’t fill your CV exclusively with these notes (there are more important things)
• There is still a glass ceiling in employment institutions
• • Things are improving
  • Don’t allow comments phase you - many people don’t understand their own prejudices or discriminations.
  • Share the down sides, you’ll find out that lots of other people experience them, and not just you
• Role models are very useful in science
• • Especially someone that you can identify with from your own background
  • Use your network to explore which role model might fit best
• Someone needs to fit into the context of the job
• • This means that not every job will be right for you as other people might fit better [not the fault of you or your CV]
  • Could be why lots of people get jobs from the inside - they are already known to fit into the team
  • Many institutions pride themselves on their position in the community, and will look fondly on people who are clearly committed to the place. This could include:
  • • Speaking the local language
    • Writing popular articles for a local audience
    • Engaging with the local press and media
    • Giving talks to local groups
  • Give back into the faculty or institute - can you demonstrate that you do more than just conduct research and write papers. Are you active in your community (both big - academic community & small - departmental community)
• Learn about opportunities & take advantage of them [you make your own luck]
• • Many people don’t know about opportunities that are out there. 
  • Meet people one on one at smaller meetings [big meetings aren’t good for this]
• Moving around [in postdocs or between jobs] can make it more difficult to get accepted into some places that have a culture of staying put
• • If you know where you want to be, it’s worth investing time to that institution and community [but don’t count on it!]
  • Try to keep multiple irons in the fire
• Even though career paths look linear, this is really only in hindsight. In reality they are wondering paths that sometimes wonder right out and back in again
• Writing small grants isn’t a waste of time as it develops this as a skill 
• • Grant writing is different to thesis writing or paper writing
  • Having a CV with evidence of lots of grants gained (even if they are small) demonstrates to people that you know this stage of the process
  • Showing that you can finish the same projects and produce outputs is even better
• Try saying yes to opportunities (especially early on in your career)
• • You never know where it will take you
  • Establish collaborations outside your direct circle
• Creativity includes reinventing yourself and your science as you move through your career
• • Each grant proposal is to do different work and take you into new paths and directions
  • Some will work out and open up whole new areas or specialities. Others won’t
• It’s easier if you can describe exactly what you do early on in your career
• • A very mixed up CV leaves some people unclear about who they are hiring and for what
  • This doesn’t mean that you have to be overly focussed, but early on it’s useful to have a tag (or a few specific categories like “systematics”, “comparative anatomy”, “natural history” to organize your publications if they’re really different from each other)
• What type of job do you want?
• • Teaching - then get teaching experience 
  • Research - then make sure your CV is strong
  • There are more types of jobs out there, but if you know what you want (or don’t want) then make sure that your CV reflects this
• Your first job is not necessarily your last job 
• • But it could be if you love it (like Graham!)
  • You can use it as a springboard to go elsewhere
  • You might need to take the first job to get somewhere else
• Learn about what you are good at and embrace it
• • This might require some honest reflection
• It’s totally possible to have a job outside academia and then move back in
• • Some jobs might even give you an advantage in getting an academic position
  • Many academic subjects are applied, and so experience in the relevant jobs really help [industry relevant experience]
  • • You may then have inside knowledge to subjects that are taught
  • Maintain your understanding of the field (to get back in)
  • Make sure that there is a continuing narrative, a reason why you left and why this helps you come back in 
• Keep irrelevant jobs off your CV
• Knowing what you don’t want to do can be as helpful as knowing what you do want to do
• • Internships are great opportunities for this
• Get feedback on the letters that you write when applying for jobs
• • Ask people whether they will give you a letter of reference, and if that will be positive 
  • Different regions of the world have different styles for letters of reference
  • • US letters are thorough [and often over the top, even flamboyant] and very long
    • Europeans tend to be understated and more direct
    • Some parts of the world may provide just a few sentences
  • I ask students to draft their own letters that accentuate what they themselves want to underline about their experiences. I won’t use the same words, but it will help remind and inform me of what colleagues have done.

Thanks very much to all of our guests for their insights into how to get and retain an academic career.

During the meeting, Aaron mentioned that very few people from Africa apply to go to the Smithsonian to study tropical biology. This could be considered one of those opportunities. Both internships and fellowships are available.

Here are the links to internships at STRI

https://stri.si.edu/academic-programs/internships

And Fellowships at STRI:

https://stri.si.edu/academic-programs/fellowships

For both, the trick is to communicate with the potential advisor before submission. Staff at STRI and their research focus are listed here:https://stri.si.edu/staff-scientists

Careers Outside Academia

For this lab meeting, I invited three former MeaseyLab members who have now left academia and gone into the wonderful world of work. Each left at a different level and has been employed in a different work sector. To prepare for the meeting, each was asked to think of skills that they had gained during their time in academia and how this has (or hasn’t) prepared them for the work that they do now.

I’ve chosen to produce a table to list their responses. I’ve also allowed them to edit what I’ve written here.

Name	Alex Rebelo	Mohlamatsane Mokhatla	Ana Nunes
Left MeaseyLab	MSc 2016	PhD 2018	Post Doc 2017
Current employer: job title	Enviro Insight: junior specialist	SANParks: Scientist - Social Ecological Systems	IUCN: Programme Support Associate (Invasive Species)
Current tasks	Field work Report writing GIS work	Social ecological systems Ecosystem services Cultural ecosystem services Amphibian monitoring Garden Route NP	Working on projects: EU regulation on invasive species Import regulations on soil Humane ways of managing vertebrate species Invasion impacts on pollinators EICAT implementation
Skills gained in academia	Working in unfamiliar field sites in adverse conditions	People skills	Report writing
	Report writing	Analytical skills	How to start on a new topic from scratch
	GIS work	Data management	Data management
	Programming	Correlative & Mechanistic modelling	Presenting data with graphs & statistics
		Communication of scientific results to a mixed audience of stakeholders	Time management skills
		Learning to learn

Key Insights

Here is a list of key insights that our team shared (together with some from Jonathan Bell - NCC). They are in no particular order, but each one probably deserves a lot more information. 

• The importance of the networks that they had made during their times as academics. In addition, the importance of how to manage and grow a network.
• Many jobs these days involve project work, and include generating the funding from donors as well as completing the project and writing the report. Post graduate degrees really help with learning how to start, manage, and complete projects.
• Although papers and citations gained during academic life won’t help with some jobs, they allow flexibility in the job market (potentially to re-join academia). They also demonstrate your ability to write. More papers are likely to improve your chances and some jobs include writing research papers as part of the job.
• Employers are interested in the experience and skills that you’ve acquired during your academic work. Instead of just listing papers you need to sell what you’ve done in cover letters and interviews:
  • What kind of experience do you have with invasive species?
  • Do you understand about management of invasive species?
  • Do you have good organisational skills?
  • Have you done fieldwork?
  • Have you managed students (particularly important as you might be required to manage personell in your new position)?
• Regardless of your academic background, you should expect to enter into your job at quite a junior level or even as an intern, and then work your way up
• Employers are looking for ‘emotional intelligence’ (the ability to understand and manage your own emotions, and those of the people around you). They will expect you to be a good team member, work with different stakeholders and clients. Conflict management skills are important.
• In South Africa, if you are going into a process specialist role (e.g. Environmental Assessment Practitioner)you should think of becoming registered with respective (EAPASA or SACNASP)
• You might not need to wait for a job advert. Use your contacts and write to people who are employers
• You might need to become ‘comfortable with feeling uncomfortable’: your work might be so different from what you’ve done before that you should and you should be able to adapt
• There are expectations from employers that you will meet challenges that your employers place before you (and not shy away)
• You might need to get used to different working cultures that are meeting focussed (even when you have meetings about having meetings)
• The working culture might not be static, and could change with the replacement of a manager or director.
• If you are employed by a governmental agency, it will be expected that you are accountable to your employers as well as the public that pays through their taxes
• The position you are employed in will likely involve you constantly acquiring new skills, such that you feel like more of a student then when you were studying. This really adds to the interest in the working life, and allows you to meet new and unexpected challenges.
• New subjects and other areas might be well outside your expertise, but can be just as rewarding once you rise to meet the challenges.
• Jobs outside academia are especially challenging in working out how to apply the results of scientific studies.
• Your employers might expect you to conceive your projects, as well as carrying them out.
• You are expected to be an authority in your work, and interpret your results with reasonable confidence

It was a very illuminating session, and I think that there was a lot of interesting to and fro between current and former lab members. Although none of these former lab members were present together with current lab members, they are still part of the MeaseyLab network, and you can use them! The alumni pages have contact details of all former MeaseyLab members, and where they are working now (I’ll try to keep them up to date, but let me know if they aren’t). Also, don’t forget the the CIB has a far bigger network with hundreds of alumni. It’s worth asking me (Dave or Sarah) about past alumni if you are looking for someone in a particular organisation. Your link with the CIB is very valuable, and you should use it.

Thanks again to Alex, Mac & Ana for making this meeting so interesting and informative. 

Next week, we are going to follow this format again, but this time talk about how to stay in academia.