Another challenging year draws to a close, and you’ve probably given a lot thought to where your life is heading. If you find yourself in academic research, you might consider leaving. If you’ve already left, you might be considering a return. In a series of LinkedIn articles, I’ll explore the differences and commonalities between working in- and outside academia based on my personal experiences, challenges, and surprises. Today: the changes you can expect when switching ‘sides’ and a few questions you should consider if you’re longing for change.
Context: After completing my PhD in Astrophysics, I left academia. When the opportunity arose, I decided to return to take up a research fellowship (more about that in future articles).
Time to Impact
You’re back in academia and suddenly… no more deadlines, but also no measurables. Publications and citations are your measurable assets in academia, and just like investments they tend to grow in value over time. This also means that your primary stakeholders are you, your CV, and the abstract body of scientific knowledge. On the contrary, outside academia your work is most likely dominated by deadlines, client expectations, and more deadlines. Some more realistic than others. Your impact is evaluated at the end of a project cycle through client satisfaction, timeliness, and maybe in the long term through ‘product’ performance.
How do you measure your impact? Is the process of (academic) progress itself enough and can you wait until you accumulate citations? Or do you look at the impact of your work on the ‘business’ of others?
Ownership versus Collaboration
Whatever you make in academia is yours or has your name as the first author on it. You are an entrepreneur of scientific discovery. At the same time your endeavour can be lonely. You’re trying to carve out your niche of expertise, while carefully fitting beside the niches of the other superstars in your field. Outside academia, you’re a team player (or leader), working together on complex issues that plague your business. You’re rarely left to your own devices for too long. Simultaneously you might feel like a cog in the wheel of the company at large. Your work is presented by your client facing manager or gets the company’s name stamped on it.
How much do you value ownership and feedback? Can’t wait for the next daily team stand-up? Or happy to mull over your results over while your science collaborators get back to you?
Creative Freedom
This essentially captures all of the above. When you return to the pursuit of scientific discovery you get a lot of freedom, for better or for worse. You can decide to spend a day being in awe of some discovery or learn a new technique because you want to upskill. At the same time, you run the risk of getting stuck in rabbit holes for too long. Outside academia, you don’t have the same freedom because you have to report back to that one demanding stakeholder. You also have to ask your line manager to free up time so you can upskill. You maybe more constrained, but you also are more strategic with your own time and resources.
How much freedom do you need? Do you enjoy the challenge of navigating conflicting constraints? Or do you need space to maximise your creativity?
Getting out or getting in
You might be considering leaving academic research or considering returning to it. When I returned I noticed quite a few big differences, and the big questions that I had to answer were:
- How do I measure impact?
- How much do I value ownership and collaboration?
- How much freedom do I need?
Your answers may change over time, and that’s alright. The only way to figure that out is to keep asking yourself these questions! What things are you weighing up, or have you considered in the past? Feel free to leave any thoughts behind in the comments!
In this article I have made a few exaggerations, academic and industry positions sit on an often overlapping spectrum across the three facets discussed above. I also avoided discussing the classic tropes of ‘industry’ versus ‘academia’ , e.g. work-life balance, performance pressures, and compensation/salary. This post originally appeared on my LinkedIn profile.
Ronniy Joseph 