RUB Research School

Navigation for Your Career

Planning a Research Career

When you plan your career as a postdoc, you decide to take your next career step in science to advance your academic profile and to expand your research expertise. Advancing the latter in your early postdoc phase also opens up the opportunity for different career perspectives: you can stay in academia and pursue a research career, or you can leave academia to follow a career in industry or the public sector.

Participating in our career planning workshops and events will help you acquire personal orientation for your career planning and career-related skills for both career perspectives.

For those planning a career in research, we offer personal advising:

Advice on Planning a Career in Research

Your decision to follow a research career is highly driven by your personal career goals, your research interests, and your research field. It is helfpful to know the more general framework conditions for a research career and to include them in your career planning at an early stage. We help you to gain an overview of the most significant career paths, requirements, factors, and strategies to plan your career in science.

We offer advice on your path from your doctorate to your first career step as a postdoc and offer personal guidance in planning your advanced postdoctoral career. We are pleased to help you with any questions you may have about planning a career in research, such as:

  • How can I start my postdoc career?
  • What is important to consider for a career in research?
  • What are the career paths within universities or other research institutions?
  • What career requirements do I need to meet?
  • What are explicit and implicit career factors?
  • What career strategies should I follow?
  • What personal decisions do I need to make?
  • How can I attract funding?
  • Should I stay or should I go – what about mobility?
  • How can I continue my advanced postdoctoral career towards a professorship?

Individual Development Plan

An Individual Development Plan can help you to explore and identify your career objectives, your career achievements and professional development needs. You can document and analyse your current career status, reflect your career aims and define what you need to achieve your career goals. You can use an Individual Development Plan for your own career planning.

Individual Development Plan

On the following homepages you can find examples that might guide you to develop your own Individual Development Plan or which you can use for yourself:

Imperial College London: Personal Review and Development Plan
University of Stanford: Initial Individual Development Form
University of Southern California: Individual Development Plan for different research areas
Science Careers (with login): Individual Development Plan

If you have any questions about planning your first career step as a postdoc:
Your contact:

Dr. Ursula Justus

If you have any questions about planning your advanced scientific career as Postdoc:
Your contact:

Dr. Christiane Wüllner