Author: Josephine Thomas // Editor: Jill Merlini
Like many PhD students, I went into my PhD with high hopes of a career in academic research and finding the next wonder drug. Also like many PhD students, I had realised in my second year that the lab was not for me and I started thinking about other career options.
When Covid hit in 2020 I had just handed in my first-year continuation report and had absolutely no new data to analyse for the next 6 months of lockdown when I was stuck at home. Whilst I could work on academic outputs such as writing review papers, I also found myself pondering my future career in science and exploring other avenues (that is, besides trying to teach myself French and baking sourdough). I had just started working as a consultant for PhD pigeon, a desk-based role which involved scouring the literature for data sources that might be useful to pharmaceutical companies. Whilst this work was well paid, it wasn’t the most exciting and I couldn’t see myself doing it long term. I researched jobs at my main client to see whether a job in industry might be suited to me. However, the starting salaries were dire and I had seen how overworked my managers were when I was consulting.
One career that I was always interested in as a ‘backup’ was being a patent attorney, so I contacted one of the law academics at UoM and asked to attend one of their modules on patent law. I soon fell behind as I was then back in the lab (finally!) and realised that a career as a patent attorney wasn’t for me either. Later that year, I joined Proteintech as a field marketing representative, raising brand awareness and organising and advertising events. From the outset, I knew sales and marketing wasn’t a career I would likely pursue, but I’m glad for the excellent relationship I have with Proteintech today and the network I gained from the experience.
So how did I find out what I did want to do?
As a third-year PhD student, I was still struggling with the toll of failed lab work and months-long in vivo studies with no significant outcomes, but I had found some things within my group that I did enjoy. Over the COVID lockdown, I led a team to create a website for our lab and took over organising lab meetings. I wanted a break from my PhD, and I was lucky enough that my supervisor found the money for a 3-month placement opportunity at the Geoffrey Jefferson Brain Research Centre as a Research Management Intern. By the end of my PhD, I was able to persuade my supervisor to create a Research Manager role within our group, which I started in January 2023. Research and project management roles are pretty new to academia (despite being very common in clinical research) so I wasn’t sure what to expect.
I generally describe my role as supporting academic research throughout the research life cycle, with my goal of building capacity in the group to increase our outputs and quality of research and improve the experience of our researchers. We’re a big group – 11 PIs, 15 PDRAs and fellows, 33 PhD students and 2 technicians – so it’s fair to say that it’s quite a job to organise all this!
The research lifecycle begins with getting funding, so much of my role focuses on that. I identify grant opportunities (from department emails (a good reason to read your FBMH comms ones!) to searching online), and help the PIs to put together their applications by helping with costings, reviewing, or even writing the applications myself. I’ve also been involved in applying for ethical approvals for a study which will collect tissue from stroke patients, and frequently liaise with the ethics and research support teams. The grant support side of my role is the most stressful as it is the only part with hard deadlines, but it is one of my favourites as I can stay close to the science and learn more about the groundbreaking research our group is doing.
Grant deadlines seem to come all at once, so when there aren’t deadlines coming up or the PIs aren’t actively looking for grants, I busy myself with management jobs to support the research that’s already happening. At my desk, I set up and manage various spreadsheets to monitor things like animal usage and try to find new solutions for tracking our inventories of samples and consumables in the lab. I’m also very passionate about sustainability and have become a LEAF champion, working with people inside the lab and across various positions in the University to come up with new ideas for how we can use less plastic and reduce our carbon footprint. As a direct result of our efforts, we’ve recently been awarded our Silver certificate. Unfortunately, as part of this role, I seem to have become a bit of a lab manager and have become sucked into making the lab function better and even clearing out old freezers and cupboards, and often giving really boring presentations on putting things in the right bins and how to label things properly (yep). Still, I see this as a necessary evil to make the lab a better place. I’m also really keen to get more students from underrepresented groups into research and have led a drive in our lab to be more inclusive. The flexibility of my role means I’m free to engage with other teams in the university to drive EDI initiatives, so I’m working at the School and Faculty level to develop new programmes, such as summer placements and research awards for widening participation of students.
Overall I really love my role – I get to stay involved with one of the biggest (and best, but I’m biased) labs at the University, and keep up with our science, whilst also being able to develop my own ideas for research management processes and generally improving our collective experience. If any, the biggest downside is not being able to do the science anymore, but I think the broader impact of my role makes our lab a better place while allowing me to develop professionally, which is plenty good enough for me!
If you would like to get in touch with any questions about my role you can email me at josephine.thomas@manchester.ac.uk or contact me via Twitter at @josiemthomas
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