Careers Beyond Academia: Options and Pathways for Researchers
Careers conference for Oxford University research staff and DPhil students
Conference overview
The Careers Beyond Academia: Options and Pathways for Researchers conference will take place from Monday 20 March - Thursday 23 March 2023, online and at theCareers Service building. Whether you are curious about or actively pursuing a career beyond academia, you will benefit from joining the conference. Find out more by reading the conference booklet.
Whether you are a DPhil or research staff at Oxford, you are now invited to register for some or all conference events below, and add the conference to your LinkedIn calendar and/or Facebook calendar.
Run by the Careers Service's expert careers advisers, Careers Beyond Academia: Options and Pathways for Researchers is a FREE conference that offers Oxford University researchers the chance to join online panel talks with PhD holders and former academic researchers speaking frankly about their daily working lives in a variety of sectors, attend an in-person networking event, and take part in interactive workshops to help you identify skills and strategies for optimising your career preparedness.
Thursday 23 March, 14:00-16:00 In person at the Careers Service
The fair aims to connect research Oxford University students and staff with recruiters from a variety of organisations. They will share details about the jobs and programmes open for applications, and discuss the careers paths you could follow in their sector.
For more conference events, click on the four days of the conference in the 'Schedule' section below and follow the titles to find out more and secure your place in CareerConnect.
If you’re contemplating a job outside academia, this session will help you understand what you might be getting into, the upsides and the downsides, whether it is in public sector, small start-up, national or multinational corporation.
After a brief overview of the diverse career paths available in the sector, you will hear from three panelists working in both technical and non-technical roles. They will share the day-to-day realities of their jobs as well as their experience transitioning to and developing a career in this sector.
From data engineering to quantitative research to data science, the field of data offers a wealth of opportunities for those with strong analytical and quantitative skills. Our panelists will share insights based on their professional experience and answer your questions on the day-to-day realities of careers in data.
How will you know if your new career path is right for you? Investing time in understanding yourself is an essential first step. During this in-person session we will work through tools for understanding your personal interests, strengths, and values. These insights can form the foundations of your career explorations and decisions.
Researchers are regular communicators, be it via reports, articles, presentations or public engagement. Hear from our panel of scientists who work in a range of roles within science and medical communications and hear about their career journeys.
From freelance consulting and innovation to public engagement and policy influence, this session will explore the opportunities available within Oxford (and beyond) to deliver impact alongside your research, and use this experience to support your career transition.
From advising on the implementation of novel technological or medical solutions to project management and strategic thinking in finance or social enterprises, consultancy can be a stimulating and rewarding career for those moving beyond academia from any discipline and wanting to have impact. This panel session will feature PhD holders who are now working in consultancy across a range of sectors.
This session will feature speakers across the physical and life sciences and from a range of industry contexts who have continued their research beyond academia. They will address those most commonly asked questions by those considering this career transition including ‘How can I gain relevant experience to strengthen my job applications?'
Are your research skills and experience valuable beyond academia? The answer is 'yes'! It's just a matter of packaging them in a format that employers beyond academia will understand. In this in-person session, we will provide tools for identifying your professional skills and converting your research experience into strong applications.
PhD holders are sought within these industries for their transferable expertise, and vitally this can be a PhD in any discipline. During this session, we will focus on how to make the shift from academia to the Creative Industries and how to start to think about your career within these subsectors.
Using a career development action plan framework, this session will help you plan and make the most of the opportunities available across the university, from training in leadership and management, to gaining experience in teaching and commercial awareness. Led by the Oxford University Researcher Hub and Careers Service, join this session to learn about the range of different training and resources on offer from across the University and beyond.
The technical expertise, critical thinking, and analytical skills researchers possess are essential and can give access to careers that have significant impact on local and global scales. Our panel of speakers will share their experiences transitioning from academia to working in a range of roles and contexts within policy research and implementation.
Wednesday 22 March, 14:30-15:30 Online and In Person at the Careers Service, OX2 6PA
Early career researchers are incredible super numerate, super literate, problem solving, project managing wonders. The wider world needs your talents! So why do so many of us find moving out of academia such a big mental leap? We will explore how to give ourselves the permission slip to make positive and proactive choices for our careers – academic and otherwise.
Keynote speaker: Dr Emma Williams is on a mission to enable researchers to take the next career step positively and proactively. Harnessing her 30+ years in and around Higher Education – from physicist to training business owner – she speaks, writes and trains on all things researcher development. Her favourite soapboxes include women’s development in Universities and encouraging researchers to investigate all things enterprising. She brings creativity, empathy and usually a large coffee to her work.
Wednesday 22 March, 15:30-17:00 In person at the Careers Service, OX2 6PA
Learning from those who have undergone a career transition themselves can be the most informative way to learn and be reassured about your own career planning and decisions. In this in-person event, you will be able to hear from and ask questions to individuals from a range of different backgrounds who have recently undergone career transitions themselves to diverse employment sectors.
This session will be an opportunity to hear from and talk to former HE researchers who have developed careers in HE outside of research and academic teaching, and find out if this might be for you.
Panel talk with former university researchers who have launched new initiatives to secure their career path beyond academia, and are involved in jobs supporting innovation and entrepreneurial thinking.
Thursday 23 March, 12:45-13:45 In person at the Careers Service
Panel discussion with senior managers and recruiters who will share what they look for when hiring researchers applying for roles beyond academia. The session will cover networking approaches, CVs, and interviews.
Thursday 23 March, 14:00-16:00 In person at the Careers Service
The fair aims to connect research Oxford University students and staff with recruiters from a variety of organisations. They will share details about the jobs and programmes open for applications, and discuss the careers paths you could follow in their sector.
Who can attend
The events are open to all current Oxford University DPhil students and research staff and are free to attend.
Oxford University research staff and students who have a CareerConnect account should sign up to all the sessions that they want to attend on the event pages in CareerConnect.
Oxford University research staff who DO NOT have a CareerConnect account can gain access on the CareerConnect registration page. NOTE: Once you have requested a CareerConnect account, it can take a few hours for it to be approved. Once the account is approved, you will receive a confirmation email that you can login to CareerConnect and register for events.
NIHR researchers, and other University research staff who are NOT ELIGIBLE for a CareerConnect account should email hello@careers.ox.ac.uk to register their interest in attending.
Ab Initio’s customers use their enterprise software platform to build applications that tackle the largest and most complex data processing challenges. These applications are some of the most complex operational and analytical systems in the world - mission critical applications with demanding performance requirements. Ab Initio are looking for Computer Science and STEM students who love to solve problems by really getting into detail, as well as having a desire for continual personal learning and development
d-fine is a European consultancy firm with 1000 employees, distributed across ten offices in seven countries. Our London office in the heart of the City was established in 2005 and is focused on analytically challenging and quantitative projects, with the aim of designing and developing future-proof solutions for business problems. These solutions are based on extensive practical experience and highly qualified employees with a quantitative and technological background.
Jane Street is a global trading firm with offices in New York, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Amsterdam. Their approach is rooted in technology and rigorous quantitative analysis, but their success is driven by their people.
Jane Street is looking for smart people with curious minds to fill a number of roles across its five offices. Think you might be the right fit? Explore Jane Street's open opportunities.
TNG Technology Consulting is a German value-based consulting partnership focused on solving hard IT problems with high end technology – from setting IT strategy to implementing practical solutions. We offer the right place for everybody who has an analytical mindset, already possesses some coding experience and wants to develop their skills. Find out about TNG’s employment opportunities and different locations.
The main purpose of Careers Beyond Academia: Options and Pathways for Researchers is to give the Oxford researcher community (research staff including postdocs, research assistants and research technicians and PhD students who are nearing completion) an opportunity to discover and explore as broad a range of career alternatives to academia as possible. We are always looking for employers who recruit staff with the technical and transferrable skills that our researchers offer to take part in these events, and for former researchers to share their knowledge and experience of moving beyond the academic sphere.
Employers
There are three ways to get involved in the conference as an employer:
Sponsorship: Sponsors benefit from a range of promotional opportunities, a free spot at the employer networking lunch, plus options to participate in the event schedule.
Networking lunch: Come and talk to highly skilled researchers from all disciplines.
Panel sessions: If you already have members of staff who left academic research (PhD or a postdoc/research assistant/technician role) within the last seven years, we may be able to include them as speakers for one of the conference panel sessions. Panel speakers typically give a short, informal talk (no slides needed) about their current role, experience of leaving academia/entering their current sector, tips on how to prepare for career transition etc., and take part in a Q&A session at the end of the panel. Do you have a staff member who could take part in this way? Our researchers really appreciate being able to hear from others who have taken the steps that they are contemplating.
If you have moved out of academia within the last seven years or so, enjoy sharing your experience of making that move with others and are willing to do so in a conference session, please get in touch with us. We’re always looking for panel speakers and are grateful to everyone who finds the time to share their knowledge in this way.
The conference brochures contain details of all of the sessions taking place at each event. These include bios for speakers and workshop facilitators and an overview of employers who took part in the employer networking lunches.
We are proud to have persuaded speakers with fantastically varied research backgrounds and from a wide range of sectors and companies to take part in the panel sessions at each of our previous conferences. Browsing through their bios is a great way to start thinking about potential routes beyond academia. Be open-minded as you look, and don’t read only the panels most closely aligned to your research area; many of these bios give evidence of inspiring degrees of career flexibility.
We are also grateful for support from the Oxford UniversityResearcher Hub.
Session details
The Careers Conference for Researchers is for researchers who are wondering what their next career move might be, are keen to find out which employers and sectors beyond academia value the skills they have developed as an early career researcher, and are curious to know how other researchers have applied their expertise in non-academic contexts.
Conference booklet
The Conference programme includes sessions run by the Oxford Careers Service's expert careers advisers, the Researcher Hub, Enterprising Oxford, representatives from University divisions, and top recruiters, all providing insights into the variety of career pathways available to researchers. Read the Conference booklet for details of each session and to find out more about our panellists and facilitators.
Finance and business roles are not just for BA graduates! These sectors offer many different career pathways and call for a variety of skill sets.
Speakers on this panel will share their personal experience of moving from an academic to a finance or business role and give tips for those thinking about developing a career in these sectors. A session led by our 2022 Conference sponsors: SIG | Susquehanna International Group, OxFORD Asset Management, and Jane Street.
Are you a scientist who is thinking about leaving research, but keen to retain some science in your role? There are many opportunities to use your expertise in science outside of laboratory roles, for example in science policy and administration, in patent law, or in science communication, journalism and publishing to name a few. In this session we’ll hear from people who have successfully transitioned from academic research to use their science degrees in different ways outside of the lab.
If you’re exploring (or decided on) a career outside academia, but you need some pointers on how to make this happen, this workshop will get you started. During the session we will look at tools and strategies for identifying attractive roles and understanding what a job really entails, whilst also considering the importance of knowing your own skill set and using that to shape your job search. This is a virtual but interactive workshop, so please come ready to participate!
There is an enormous need for insightful expertise and skilled policy-makers to guide our conversations across all areas of policy, whether local, in your home country or on a global scale. Speakers on this panel will share personal experience of their daily working lives, how they moved from academia to policy-facing roles and suggestions of what you can do now to strengthen your chances of gaining a foothold in the policy world.
Join us for this unique opportunity to hear careers advisers and a panel of Humanities PhD holders give guidance and tips on how to approach and navigate the non-academic job market. This is a great opportunity to learn how others have uncovered rewarding opportunities and successfully made the transition out of academia into the wider job market.
One potential avenue for researchers looking to explore roles outside academia is academic publishing.
The speakers we will heave from in this panel have made the move into this sector, and will share their experience of leveraging their disciplinary knowledge and/or their transferrable skills to secure roles in the publishing world.
Researchers typically have knowledge and skills that others will pay for, yet many may not see this or think of consulting as a career development or income stream. In this session we will illustrate opportunities for independent consulting as a researcher, some popular models and how to get started. Researchers with freelancing experience will share what they enjoy about this role, challenges and tips for making it work.
Moving from one research role to another or shifting into a new sector involves both practical activity and a mental shift. In this session, we’ll explore the mental and emotional aspects of managing career transitions.
Researchers communicate a lot, be it via reports, articles, presentations or public engagement. So Scientific Communications too can take various forms, such as journalism or medical communication, to name a couple, or even by uncovering creative personal outlets. Find out about our panellists’ transition journeys and why science communications caught their fancy.
“Aren’t Career Development Reviews a waste of time?”, “Wouldn’t I be better off just using the time to write up some research?” – If you have thought or said this in the past or you just wonder how CDRs can help you, then this session is for you. We will discuss the benefits of the review and how to prepare for one and apply the results and put it into the context of a wider look at researcher careers.
Analytical skill has become one of the most popular requirements in recruitment, across many disciplines. Susquehanna International Group (SIG) invites you to an applied data analysis skills development session, delivered by one of their quantitative researchers.
Many academics place ethics and values at the heart of what they do: from celebrating the beauty and relevance of arts and literature, to echoing silenced voices or exploring trauma. Critical thinking, teaching, writing, are conceived as intellectually stimulating and ethically rewarding, contributing to knowledge and its dissemination. Gathering former academics, early career academics and careers advisors, this session will discuss strategies for identifying roles that align with one’s value set, and explore career pathways and sectors beyond academia which offer similar or comparable attention to ethics, values and the public good.
In any career path, there are key skills and behaviours that help individuals attain success. More often than not, those skills and behaviours are linked to an enterprising or entrepreneurial mindset, including creativity, spotting opportunities, and mobilising resources. Find out how you, as a researcher, can learn and apply these skills in any career you wish to follow.
Research skills are important in the multi-faceted world of consulting where small teams examine complex and often ill-defined problems. If you enjoy intellectual challenge, working collaboratively and quickly building relationships with colleagues and clients, consultancy could be attractive, whether working on big picture strategy questions or more specialised and niche fields.
This interactive session will provide an opportunity to reflect on your learning from the conference and provide tools to help guide your immediate and longer-term career planning.
Do you like working in Higher Education (H.E); do you like the vibe, your colleagues, and the environment? As you might be aware, there are lots of different careers to be found in HE outside of research. Many of them are very rewarding and multi-faceted. This session will be an opportunity to hear from and talk to ex-researchers who have developed careers in HE, and find out if this might be for you.
If you are a medical or life sciences researcher aiming to use your scientific training in an industry or public-sector role and you want to know more about the options and practicalities of such roles, this session is for you. Our panel of speakers who work within, or alongside, business and the public sector will share insights into their daily working lives, the career steps they have taken and tips for anyone wishing to pursue a similar career path.
A Career in Industry – the Dark Side of the Moon? with Jacqui Hall, Head of Early Careers, BioPharma R&D at AstraZeneca
Our keynote speaker will draw on her extensive experience of supporting and developing researchers in an industry setting to give insights on how best to prepare for roles beyond academia.
Please note that you can book to attend the keynote talk either in-person at the Careers Service or online.
NETWORKING @ THE CAREERS SERVICE 16:00-17:00 - In Person
The keynote talk will be followed by a networking session (NB: in-person only) at which you will have a chance to: meet and chat with our conference sponsors; ask questions of our keynote speaker; explore the kinds of support available in the ‘Oxford Ecosystem’ to researchers; and share thoughts, concerns and tips with your fellow researchers. Come and have a cuppa and a chat and meet some of the Careers Service team and:
Jane Street
Joel Philips - Quantitative Researcher
John Martin - Quantitative Trader
Sam Price - Recruiter
Sarah Nagar - Recruiter
Oxford University Innovation Limited
Jaci Barnett MScEng MBA RTTP - Head of Consulting Service
Rebecca Glenapp - Licencing and Ventures
Research Services Innovation & Engagement Team
Leah Thompson - Enterprising Oxford Manager
Christina Brennan - IDEA Programme Coordinator
Oxford Policy Engagement Network
Jessica Hedge - OPEN Coordinator
Jessica Simkiss - Humanities and Public Policy Officer
