Roles and responsibilities

The exact responsibilities and conditions for a PI role vary depending on the country and type of institution – for example, how much teaching is involved, and whether the position is tenure-track, permanent or for a defined period. 

The responsibilities of the role are likely familiar to early career researchers. We nevertheless include some of the important aspects below as a reminder:

•  Establish and run a research group:
  • Set the research vision and scientific direction of the group.
  • Attract funding by writing grant applications.
  • Recruit and lead a research team; supervise and mentor masters, PhD students and other team members.
  • Establish an organizational framework for the lab and manage the budget.
• Oversee the group’s research – including providing guidance on projects and scientific good practices.
  • Some PIs also continue to carry out research work themselves.

• Establish and manage scientific collaborations.
• Oversee the dissemination of the labs’ research outputs (findings, protocols, materials) through publications, talks, data/code deposits and other activities.
  • If applicable, liaise with the institution’s tech transfer office regarding innovations with commercial potential.

• Contribute to institutional teaching and academic administration duties (e.g. committees).
• Provide scientific service to the community (e.g. peer reviewing manuscripts and grant applications, participation in working groups, conference organisation, PhD examinations).
• Further develop and share expertise in your research field, by remaining up to date with/contributing to the literature, and attending/presenting at conferences.

Career entry and progression

Many junior principal investigators are recruited via open, competitive calls. However, sometimes departments are willing to consider hiring candidates outside the regular calls, particularly if their research fits well and the candidate can bring in start-up funding that will help establish the group (e.g. in Germany, Emmy Noether; UK, various Career Development Awards). Faculty members report that they are open to being contacted by potential candidates when there is no open call to discuss potential opportunities (see our survey here). 

There have been several attempts to shed some transparency on what factors are considered in faculty hiring decisions – including:

• Insights from a survey-based analysis of the academic job market – elife 2020
• The Academic Career Readiness Assessment: Clarifying training expectations for future life sciences faculty – bioRxiv 2019
• Myths and facts about getting an academic faculty position in neuroscience – Science Advances 2021

as well as other interesting quantitative analyses, including

• Publication metrics and success on the academic job market –Current Biology 2014
• Intellectual synthesis in mentorship determines success in academic careers: Nat. Commun.. 2018

and discussions including:

• eLife Webinars: getting an independent position & how to get hired 

We highly recommend the resources above. During your postdoc, these can help guide your priorities. If you are still a PhD student or plan a second postdoc position, it is also important to consider carefully what you will need to get from your (next) postdoc to achieve your career aim, and choose a postdoc role carefully with this in mind.

We also note that, while in most cases it is possible to enter a PI role directly from a postdoc, in some countries a researcher position can be a typical or optional intermediate step between postdoc and official group leader role. It is therefore helpful to understand potential career paths and specific requirements for becoming a PI in the countries you are applying to. We include some resources for choosing a postdoc and understanding career structures in different countries in the ‘want to learn more’ section, below.

Career progression: We estimate that more than 90% of EMBL alumni who obtain a group leader role remain in research principal investigator roles or gain more senior leadership positions (e.g. departmental head) [based on our career tracking study]. Some remain at the institution they were a junior principal investigator at for their entire career, but others move their lab during their career. A small number (~5%) transition to industry roles or very occasionally move into a service/infrastructure role (1%) or leave research (<1%).

Knowledge and skills

The EMBL Fellows’ Competency Framework describes competencies that can support an academic research career.  This was developed based on interviews with EMBL group leaders.

Language and teaching requirements

A common question from postdocs interested in roles in Europe is whether teaching experience will be required and whether knowledge of the local language is necessary. We asked about this in a careers and skills survey carried out in autumn 2020 (summary / full results here).

• Regarding teaching:
  • For research institutes not associated with a university, most respondents (12/19) indicated that teaching experience is not a consideration in hiring decisions.
  • For respondents based at university departments or university-associated institutes, the majority of respondents (7/12) indicated that – whilst some teaching experience would be advantageous – excellent candidates will be considered without this.
  • For university departments, at least some experience is usually expected or advantageous – but for most this did not have to be extensive (only 2/45 indicated that extensive teaching experience was required).
• We also note that the type of institution seems to correlate with language requirements – with group leaders in university departments often needing at least some knowledge of the local language. This may be linked to undergraduate courses being taught in the local language.