Julie Gould: 00:09
Hello, and welcome to Working Scientist, a Nature Careers podcast. I’m Julie Gould. This is the first episode of a new series called The last few miles: planning for the late stage career in science.
In this series, we're going to look at the later career stage in science. What it is, how and when it starts, and how to plan for it. But why this focus on the later career stage?
Well, in 2022, we published a series of episodes on the mid-career stage in science. The muddle of the middle, as we called it, which showed that people in this stage of their career need as much support as there is in the earlier stages.
So now, two years on, we’re looking at what comes after the middle, how you transition to it, and what it looks like.
In this six-part series, I’ll be speaking with those who are approaching the end of the middle, those who are approaching the end of their scientific career, and also those who are past the age where we traditionally think of as the end of an employed working career.
But first, I want to unpack what the transition from the middle to the later stages of a working career in academia looks like. I asked Inger Mewburn, the Director of Research and Development at the Australian National University about this.
Inger starts by reminding us how you know you're at the midcareer stage in science, and when to start thinking about the next stage.
Inger Mewburn: 01:32
There’s a lot of weak signals that you are actually no longer an early career researcher. One of them is “I can’t get access to funding”.
Second one is, if you apply for the early career researcher conference, they’re like, “Hey, not really that early”.
Or, you might be representing the early career cohort on a committee and someone finally says, “Hey, maybe an associate professor shouldn’t be doing that”. And then people start talking and using words like senior to you, and senior actually kind of means middle, like you’re a senior leader, or you’re, you know, you’re an older leader.
Julie Gould: 02:02
So by the time you're in the mid career, and you realize you’re in this part of the career …
Inger Mewburn: 02:07
… you’re actually probably at the start of starting to think about the last 10 years of your research life. And then no one likewise sort of says, you’re going to be retiring in 10 years, what are you thinking you might want to achieve?
All your progress reporting things and your performance reviews (are) always like, " What’s the next five years? And every year is "What’s the next five years?" And then no one sort of looks at your age and goes, "Actually maybe what’s the next two years." Or maybe "What’s the next one year?"
And then what’s complicated with things like our workplace laws, especially in Australia, you can’t tell someone to retire any more. They changed that somewhat some time ago, but I'm aware in places like Cambridge University, where I was last year, that there’s a hard retirement age. So in some places, there's a signal and you know, that end is approaching and other places, it’s just not. So I would say by the time you realize you’re middle, you’re probably wanting to think about what the end is.
Julie Gould: 03:02
So that’s what this series is about. The end, the last few years before the end, the end itself and what comes after. And just like the rest of your career, it turns out that the end, and the preparation, therefore, looks different for everyone.
I wanted to know what the later stage of this career looked like in general. And Inger described it as similar to the middle, but with some extra things to consider.
Inger Mewburn: 03:24
The muddle just continues, but you’re more tired. And so, there's more incentive on your side of the fence to to think about, ""here does this stop? Where do I draw a line in it? Where am I working towards?"
And that, so it’s sort of, “I’m sick of the muddle now, like the muddle is very tedious, and I’m no longer just trying to work my way through it, I’m trying to see it as a hard stop and work backwards from there”.
Julie Gould: 03:49
Inger’s message here is clear: plan ahead. And this is something that Shirley Tilghman, the former president and Emeritus Professor of Princeton University in the USA, discovered when she chaired a working group at the American Society for Cell Biology on "Second Acts: The career transitions that biologists face in the latter half of their careers in academia".
Shirley Tilghman: 04:08
(Of) the individuals who were successfully navigating this transition, or had already done it, the one common theme over and over again was planning ahead.
And the least happy people were the ones where it came, you know, quickly, and they were suddenly at a loss about what to do.
Julie Gould: 04:37
Vincent Seutin, a 63-year-old professor of pharmacology at the University of Liège in Belgium, started preparing for his retirement earlier in 2024.
In Belgium, there is a set retirement age for academics at age 66, which for him is not far off.
So, he made the decision to stand down from a committee he was a part of that took up a lot of his time, and made a concerted effort to bring back some of the joy he experienced as a younger academic.
Throughout his academic career, Vincent saw many people struggle with the pressures of being a full time professor.
Vincent Seutin: 05:08
They are under a lot of pressure because they are the very best of the best.
And they are under a lot of pressure to also get grant money, and develop their lab and show that they can have PhD students etc.
And I have witnessed a couple of these people, extremely talented postdocs in the US, huge impact factor papers, etc,
And coming back and telling me, "You know, I can’t cope with that, I need to find some joy in doing science again, and not just, you know, writing proposals, that will be at least, the majority of them rejected."
Julie Gould: 05:50
So, as he approaches his retirement, he’s been taking calculated steps to bring joy back into his working life.
Vincent Seutin: 05:56
Why not use part of your time to actually do experiments yourself and go back to the bench?
And I found it a rather nice way of completing the circle, you know, and going back to where I was in the 90s, for instance, when I was a postdoc, and then an assistant professor, and I find that quite enjoyable.
Julie Gould: 06:19
Vincent has blocked out two days a week at the bench to do his experiments.
Vincent Seutin: 06:23
I have a discipline, you know, to not take any appointment, nothing whatsoever, except the experiments, and be free.
What I even do is not look at my emails for a half-day, which is absolutely out of this world I think!
And, but it’s fun, it’s fun. And I really recommend it to people very close to their retirement.
Julie Gould: 06:50
Inger Mewburn, who is 53, hadn't thought through the pending retirement fully yet.
Inger Mewburn: 06:56
Part of me says, "Yeah, definitely, I’ve got 10 years, and then I’m out of here."
But then I’m like, oh, you know, I just did, I know I just did a thing today where I was putting in how long I was going to keep data from a project. And I just happily put in 15 years, and then I thought, "oh will I be here in 15 years?"
I've never had to think things like that before.
Julie Gould: 07:15
But now, Inger is spending a lot of time working backwards from her planned retirement date. And she encourages others to do the same.
Inger Mewburn: 07:23
Because you’ve got to think about things like, when am I going to stop taking PhD students on?
So so many people I know never ask themselves that question. And so they get to the year that they're retiring, and they’re not really retired, they’re like,
“Oh, I’m just seeing the last few PhD students out to completion”.
That might take five years, that might take eight years, if they don’t finish on time.
So, you know, there should be a point in time where you’re like, I’m not taking any more.
So I wrote a date in my diary: do not take any PhD students after this date. If you want to retire on X day, this is the last day.
Julie Gould: 07:56
Part of being active in the later stages of a career is to think about the succession plan: who is going to take over your work when you decide to leave?
María Teresa Dova, professor of physics at the University of La Plata in Argentina, is very focused on making sure that the people in her team can continue with her, and their work, should she ever decide to retire.
María Teresa Dova: 08:16
I always try to train my younger researchers to do all the things I’m doing, you know, and then there is one guy and I said, “Okay, you will be in charge of this soon. And then you will, you have to learn how to talk to the people in the government, you have to learn this”.
And then, suppose I shared some responsibilities, some now with someone else. So he can start, you know, doing all the, not only the bureaucracy, but also the other part that is more related to the scientific aspects and what to do.
Because I always said this, my legacy, but what about my legacy? Nobody will continue that, you know. So it's important to be sure that there will be a continuation, the smallest continuation.
Julie Gould: 09:14
In Argentina, as in Australia, the USA, and in many other countries around the world, there is no set retirement age, so it can be difficult to prepare in advance for a succession plan.
Something else to keep in mind is that people are living longer, healthier lives.
So, there is a possibility that you could continue working until you’re in your 70s or maybe 80s.
So, some academics ask, "Why should I start preparing my succession? And if I should, how do I do this when I don't know when it will be needed?".
Inger believes that there are things you can do to prepare the people around you for a possible exit.
Inger Mewburn: 09:46
So you could, for instance, really think about is it fair to take on a PhD student at the age that I am right now?
Like, is it fair to them if I suddenly get ill or I get sick, or that I have to hand them over at a really delicate stage?
If I am going to take on a PhD student, should I not take it on as, you know, with another colleague who is read in from the start, you know.
So, there’s things you can do I think that prepare people around you for a possible exit, without necessarily committing to it, I don’t think.
But I do think in it, there needs to be a line in the sand if you are going to exit with some grace.
Julie Gould: 10:23
To exit with grace, that is the ultimate goal. But what does this exit mean? Does it mean a stark goodbye? See you later academia, I never want to set foot in your halls again. Or is it not so simple any more?
That’s what we’ll explore in the second part of this series. Thanks for listening, I’m Julie Gould.