Further internal resources
For EMBL fellows
Within EMBL, further internal resources (e.g. recorded career seminars) can be found on our career exploration intranet pages.
A life science careers blog for early career researchers
This blog aims to inspire early career researchers exploring different career options. We provide interview-based profiles of life scientists working in diverse science-related careers and articles on a broad range of career-related topics, with new content added on a regular basis.
In addition to positions focused on research or scientific services, it is possible in many countries to have an academic career focused on teaching.
Each country has a unique higher education system and different way of organizing research and teaching within universities, technical universities and other higher education institutions. We recommend resources in the ‘want to learn more’ section below that can help you learn more about teaching-focussed roles in different countries.
In our careers and skills survey, 4 people with academic teaching careers told us the competencies they use most in their daily work The most frequently selected competencies were:
To be eligible you will normally need to be fluent in the local language. Although an increasing number of graduate courses are taught in English, undergraduate teaching usually takes place in the local language.
Career entry and career progression is highly country-specific and dependent on the relevant national system; in many cases a large proportion of teaching is done by staff on precarious and/or part-time contracts, but some career tracks provide stable positions. There are different national prerequisites for teaching at the university level – in some countries accreditation is required. The application process for positions often requires a dossier of evidence documenting your relevant teaching experience.
In our careers and skills survey, 4 people with academic teaching careers told us what they appreciate most about their work. The most common selections were, that the work:
For EMBL fellows
Within EMBL, further internal resources (e.g. recorded career seminars) can be found on our career exploration intranet pages.
For all career areas, we highly recommend first learning more about the careers using the resources above, then conducting informational interviews to gain further insights directly from former PhDs working in career areas that interest you.
Last update: October 2022