Have you ever wondered what it would be like to pursue a career in scientific management? What would a regular workday look like? What skills are valued in this sector and what are the opportunities for career progression?
Tune into this episode of The Cancer Researcher Podcast for an insightful conversation with our three expert guests who each work in scientific management in different positions and sectors.
Listen here, scroll down for the transcript and subscribe now via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music/Audible, Deezer or YouTube so you’ll never miss an episode. You can find all episodes and their transcripts here.
Our guests in this episode:
- Lynn Turner, Director of Research at Worldwide Cancer Research
- Olivia Tort, International Project Manager at IRB Barcelona
- Javier Carmona, Head of Scientific Strategy and Translational Programs at Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology
And our host: Alexandra Boitor, EACR Scientific Officer.
Episode transcript
Alexandra: Thanks everyone for joining me today and for accepting to share your work experiences with us. Moving straight into the topic, if you could please describe your current roles and tell us a bit more about how your daily work routine looks.
Olivia: My background is in biomedical sciences. I studied biotechnology. Then I did a masters and a PhD in structural biology, so very much fundamental research and biomedicine. After that, I did a couple of postdocs in clinical settings, so moving from fundamental research into clinical research.
And then I realised that I miss the impact of research in society, so I reflected on what was next, and becoming a project manager of international projects came to mind. I tested this out and found that I liked it, so I started as an international project manager at IRB Barcelona, managing an international doctoral network. And from there I found that I enjoy writing projects a lot: diving into the strategy, finding the impact of the projects together with researchers, putting together a consortium, etc. It had a component that I liked a lot, which was communicating with a lot of international scientists and putting together a different perspective. That is something that I enjoy a lot in science; that it can have this talk between different disciplines and towards the same goal.
The main role I’m doing now is managing a European consortium called CGI-Clinics. My role is executive coordinator, which means that I help the scientist in charge of this project, Nuria López Bigas from IRB Barcelona, and I help her in implementing strategy and the project.
Alexandra: Thank you, Olivia. Javier, do you want to go next?
Javier: Sure. I’m currently the head of scientific strategy and translational programs at Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology. My background is also in research. I did a PhD postdoc in translational cancer research, first in Barcelona and then in New York, and I had a period between postdoc and my current role, where I was for 6 years working as scientific editor in a research journal that gave a broad view of scientific research, especially in lab sciences.
A bit over two and a half years ago, I moved to VHIO in Barcelona, where I’m involved in a wide range of things, ranging from projecting institutional programs that are aligned with the mission and vision and objectives of the Institute, recruiting new research groups that could potentiate those programs, also coordinating the Institute in European consortia or international consortia in terms both of research or science policy aspects.
And on a day to day I am also part of the scientific management area where I work, we provide support to researchers to investigators in the conceptualisation of research proposals and the writing as well as research manuscript and so on. And also trying to foster partnerships with other institutions that share our core values and goals.
Alexandra: Thank you very much. Lynn, do you want to share with us your experience?
Lynn: So I’ve got a similar background to Olivia and Javier. I did a PhD in a fairly sort of basic cell biology lab, then moved to a more translational cancer research lab for postdocs. Then I decided that maybe the lab wasn’t my long term home, so I started looking around and I know how daunting that can be and it’s difficult to know where to go, but just to reassure everyone that there are a lot of options and you might be surprised at the different options out there. The first thing I did was a science writing role, and that was just for a year, but it was a really good experience to sort of learn how to communicate science to a generalist audience. And I’ve used that all the way through my career. And that’s then when I moved to work for a cancer research funder.
So that’s where my career is slightly different, in that I’ve always worked for research funders, and I now work for a cancer research charity that’s based in the UK, but it funds discovery research all over the world. And my team are responsible for running the process where we receive applications from researchers, and we then obtain the peer review and pass them to our advisory committee for decisions, then look after the funded researchers and make sure they do what they said they were going to do. So I work in a slightly different environment from Olivia and Javier.
Alexandra: I’m learning so much about your jobs right now. I was wondering in order to try and make it a bit easier for me and perhaps for our listeners to understand, would it be possible to draw a parallel to other sectors? For instance, industry or academia, would you be able to tell us which would be the equivalent position in another sector?
Lynn: It is quite difficult. So obviously, I’m working in the charity sector, which is quite different from sort of a commercial organisation, but there’s a lot of project management. I’m now at a position in quite a senior role. So a lot of my time is spent supporting and coaching members of my team, which you will get in any sector. And also, that strategic direction of the organisation. So I think Javier mentioned policy and, you know, sort of where are you going as an organisation? So there are sort of similar things in commercial organisations, industrial roles, but I really enjoy working for a charity. You know, ultimately we are here to benefit cancer patients, and we’ve not got any shareholders, we’re not here to make a profit, and that fits best for me.
Olivia: If I may try to translate that into industry, as my project is very medical device oriented, I could maybe anticipate that according to seniority, you could start with a role like analysing data. Then you go to project manager that you take into account, like a bit broader or taking charge, more responsibilities, and then you could arrive to the C level like as Chief Operational Officer, for instance, not in charge of the operations of a startup, for instance, this would be, I think, the line. The more you dip into strategy in the seniority path, you could reach, let’s say, these potential roles in a company. And for me, also in the research part, if you compare with the life in a lab, you could start as a PhD student where you are guided by a postdoc or someone senior than you. And you participate in experiments, then you get a role where you already design your own experiments as project manager, and then you are maybe postdoc or junior PI where you already design the strategy of the lab or the experiments, in case this helps the audience have an idea.
Javier: Yeah, I think the roles we have can be very diverse and have a bit of everything. Sometimes I see similar roles in pharma, for example, in people working on alliance management, when they work with academic partners in trying to come up with studies to promote the early development of a drug. Or project managers who are also running specific portfolios or research programs, which we do with different partners. Also, it has a component of consultancy because you’re also advising and working as part of the internal scientific committee to identify research priorities, which is very similar to what a consultancy firm would do. And sometimes we’ve also interacted with professionals at the European policy level, where we have discussions on research priorities or funding schemes. So that would be a kind of more policy oriented job. I wouldn’t know what is the equivalent, but I guess it has a bit of that also.
Alexandra: I’ve noticed that you have somewhat similar backgrounds, but also, different career progressions, or at least what seems to me to have been different. So I was wondering whether you could talk me through the career progression in this sector. Is it similar to academia where you have a rather rigid structure or do you have to plan maybe a lot different or you can take what I would call a lateral position and then come back. Are there any types of entry level jobs that someone could look for if they want to try a transition like this?
Lynn: I think there is quite good progression and there is that opportunity for lateral move. I work for quite a small organisation probably compared to other contributors. So there are only 50 staff in our charity. So we get exposed to quite a lot of different things, which means that the opportunity to then move somewhere else because you’ve had involvement in intellectual property or you’ve had involvement in science communication or things like that. So I think there is quite a lot of opportunity, but I think that comes from what the size of the organisation you’re working in because sometimes the bigger the organisation, more you will be focused on one particular aspect. So I think that’s something to think about.
I would flag that having worked in the charity sector, the nonprofit sector has quite a lot of flexibility and if you’re looking for that in your career, then that’s definitely a good choice. I always like to say I actually had a nine year career gap. So I took time out to have my children and I managed to come back in and pick up my career relatively easily. And thanks to my current employer, I should add, but you know, I think in the charity sector there is that flexibility. It maybe doesn’t offer quite the pay that you might get in industry, but there is that flexibility, which is important.
Entry level, yes, we have a lot of people in my team in particular that come straight from the lab. We’ve just had somebody who’s just finished the PhD who’s started with us this week. So, we have entry level jobs in this area.
Alexandra: I’ll come back to Javier and Olivia with this question. But what you said just prompted another question in my mind. You said you have people that recently graduated from their PhDs. And I was wondering if someone’s maybe not made a decision yet, especially so early in their career, is there any opportunity or possibility to return to academia if someone realises it might not have been the career choice for them?
Lynn: That’s a good question. We have had somebody, in the last couple of years do that. Not because they chose, they felt happy in academia, but for personal reasons, they felt that it gave them an opportunity to move back to their home country easier in academia than in what they were doing. So yeah, the proof is that that has happened. So yeah, I think you can pick up experience and skills from working behind the scenes and research that could then be useful for you if you go back to the lab.
Alexandra: Thank you. Javier, do you want to talk us through how career progression would look like in your sector?
Javier: First of all, I’d say, from my perspective, I think this is a career path currently in high demand, because the role of scientific managers is a role that is gaining relevance because of a need for researchers to have support for their activities and also for institutions to help directing the long term goal. So I think this is currently in high demand and also very diverse in terms of career paths. We have entry level positions, even coming straight from the lab after a PhD or postdoc. But also people in this field can come from charities, cancer charities in our case, because we are a cancer institute, from editorial or publishing like I did. I’m also an example of someone who stepped out of academia for a number of years and then returned. And the same happened with people who moved on to companies in diagnostics, in pharma, and are now part of our team. Or even lateral moves working in scientific management in other disciplines, because in the end, someone working in scientific management needs to know the concepts, rather than being an expert in the details of the science.
As a scientific manager, you’re more a facilitator in many cases, so you need to understand what the role is and it’s easier once you understand that to apply to different fields of research. And then internally, there’s, of course, a progression. People who have perhaps come straight after graduating, they might enter as a junior project manager and then progress towards more senior roles in the team. And also, especially in academia, there’s a flexibility to steer those careers according to the interests and to the strengths of each one.
Alexandra: Thank you. Olivia, is there anything you would like to add?
Olivia: Many aspects were already covered by Lynn and Javier, but I agree with the seniority path, that’s clear, but also I think we can mention some specialisation. So there is the opportunity if you like a bit more the policy aspects to get deeper into policy, meaning checking the new research programs, adapt the grants to your institution, or both. Also ethics or regulatory, there are many aspects that can be covered. And in terms of entry levels, I mean, a PhD I think it’s a great training because you go deep in science. You go deep in knowing about papers, conferences, you are immersed in the scientific environment, then it’s very useful when you have to, for instance, start to write a grant, you know that you need to refer papers and how to refer those, or you need the input from different scientists, or getting to know that in the exploitation part or communication, you have to cite conferences, the relevant conference of the topic, and there is a lot that it’s in the that sometimes we don’t realise, and that’s important, in that sense, and related to the expertise in my office, for instance, we have also several people coming from different places. Experts in communication that were working in a scientific communication agency before coming from pharma. Coming from postdocs in pharma or in academia and both have a fit and it’s good to be complementary as well.
Alexandra: From what you’ve said, I understand that there’s no optimal time for a career transition and you can do it at any stage of your career. And from what you’ve just said, Olivia, it seems that you can transition from different scientific careers into scientific management. But I was wondering if there are any transferable skills that someone that’s interested in such a transition should focus on.
Olivia: Yeah, sure. Probably problem solving would be a highlighted one and being organised and productive.
Javier: Yeah, I was thinking also on proactivity and versatility because you need to work with many different researchers and also people from other institutes in different positions or organisations. So for that, communication skills are key because you need to adapt very often your language and to be able to understand different types of language in a way. So I think that is another key aspect.
Olivia: Even mediation sometimes, if you go higher in the strategy diplomacy. Many skills.
Lynn: I would add one thing, and I’m not sure if it’s the same in your work environments, but there’s a little bit more of a sort of teamwork, possibly, than in the lab. And that’s how we definitely work. So, if you like to be part of a team and like to have that sort of shared goals and things, then these sort of careers maybe are better suited to you than the lab, but it’s very much being able to work together and being accountable to one another and having each other’s backs and things like that. So that can be quite a different environment than some labs.
Javier: Yeah, absolutely.
Olivia: I fully agree as well. It might seem weird because you are more on an administration side, but there are a lot of internal meetings to align and to do a common strategy, but also when it’s about a project, there is this team effort everywhere that sometimes it’s even more than in the lab work, right? It can be a bit more lonely sometimes. And here you can find something very collaborative, because it has to be, because you coordinate or you have to put people together.
Javier: I guess the success of the role of a scientific manager is a collective success, in a way. So when the team achieves the objective, that’s a win for everyone. Whereas other types of careers might be a bit more individualistic in a way, despite being also a collective effort.
Alexandra: So how does your daily work routine look like?
Javier: In my case, it’s very diverse. There’s no one day that is similar to the previous one or to the next one. And you can have a very detailed to-do list. And at the end of the day, you end up not having been able to concentrate on any of those because hundreds of other things have come up on the way. Meetings, teleconferences, etc., but that’s also one of the appealing things, in my opinion, of this work, and also being able to work within a team that you can rely on or work together whenever needed and for whichever task is needed. In general, there’s a lot of teleconferences especially now that everything can be done remotely and that helps a lot, organising working groups or discussing specific projects and so on. So there’s a lot of that, a lot of communication with people from the institution or from other centres, depending on the project, towards achieving a specific goal.
Lynn: I would agree. My days are very varied. I probably interact with a wider group of people, maybe, and obviously I’m interacting with the research scientists we fund and our advisory committee and our internal staff. But I also get the opportunity to interact with people that are supporting the charity, that are donating to us. So, for instance, in a couple weeks I’m going to help out with the big Edinburgh marathon. So I get a chance to meet our supporters and also to meet cancer patients and the people that will actually benefit from the research that we’re funding. So I really enjoy that as well.
Olivia: In my case, I could divide my blocks of tasks in three groups: management, coordination and strategy. For the management part, it will be mainly reporting emails, liaising, contracts, then the coordination would be more, making the project flow within more packages, or between work packages, mainly organising meetings, all together or identifying gaps in one side and informing the others, try to fill these gaps. And then the strategy would be more creative activities, for instance, organising how to do a canvas, what’s the business idea, developing this, having the input of all the stakeholders, and thinking a bit farther where we go.
Alexandra: You’ve made your jobs sound really interesting. So I’m sure many people will want to start looking for something similar. So where would one have to look for these type of positions?
Lynn: We’re based in the UK, so there’s probably various sorts of centralised places in the UK. There’s an umbrella organisation called the Association of Medical Research Charities, which has a vacancy list. Wider than that, I would just say that most countries have several cancer research funding charities. Maybe your lab is receiving funding from different funders. So have a look at your website and see where all the funding’s coming from and just reach out. And we have interns. We have people that come and do a bit of work experience with us, or maybe even work remotely to help us with a project or to do some science writing. So you can get a bit of experience first. But yeah, reach out, look and see where your lab’s funding’s coming from.
Javier: In our case, because we are a fairly big team, we’re almost 30 people, and our range of activities, it’s very diverse. So we advertise when we need to fill a position with specific details on what we need, depending on the time on our institutional website, but also we take advantage of social media, also employment websites in the Barcelona area, but also, at a more European level if that’s the case, but also reaching out directly to the people. We often receive unsolicited applications and we give them consideration if the profile fits a need in the team at the time. So that is also something that might be effective.
Olivia: Something to take into account is where you want to work, no? If you ask this question, and then start to look at the concrete institutions where you would like to contribute, because it’s the topic you like, or a place you like, or you heard it’s a nice place to be, or for whatever reason you have, I think it’s good to go to their website and don’t hesitate to send an application, as Javier was mentioning, even if there isn’t any open positions.
Javier: One piece of advice that I could give is whenever anyone is interested in a specific institution to target that interaction. Because if you receive an email and you don’t feel that this application is tailored to what you need or to your institute, you probably think that you’re one in a thousand and you won’t be given that much consideration. So targeting those kind of interactions, it’s a much more effective way of getting there.
Lynn: We use LinkedIn quite a lot and I think that’s quite a popular way to advertise jobs and to reach out and link with organisations you might want to work with.
Olivia: It’s a very useful way also for the colleagues to share within our community. So it’s also an effective place to be.
Alexandra: Really, really good advice from all of you. Thank you for allowing us these glimpses in your professional lives. Unfortunately, even though I really enjoyed this conversation, we are approaching the end of the episode. And I would like to end our conversation on a rather personal note. I wanted to ask you, how did you decide to follow this career path?
Javier: In my particular case, my motivation was because I was working abroad, and as I returned to Spain, I want to come back also to give back to whatever I had learned on my way. I wanted to apply it. And also I was very keen on returning to academia because of the impact that your activities might have. I think it’s very much aligned with my personal values and my interest. So that was what motivated my decision. And specifically at VHIO, I was very enthusiastic in joining this position when I met the group because it’s a fantastic human environment and when I met everyone that I work with on my day to day, that was the absolute piece that made me have no hesitation in joining this role that I’m currently at.
Olivia: In contrast to Javier, I wanted to stay, not move, but stay. And after two postdocs, my third one would have meant to go abroad, probably. I had two small children just after the pandemic, so it was a good moment for reflection thinking of a career change. I did a self-reflection. I actually hired a career coach, so I did that together, which was, I think, a good idea in a moment of loneliness a little bit that we all were involved in.
And in terms of values, I needed something in contact with international people. So I needed something related to an international environment that had impact in science. So looking more impact in science and society, and where I could apply my skills in problem solving, languages, and also I wanted to skip from this focus vision in the lab, like in a very concrete team, to a more broader vision and having the umbrella of what the scientific problem was related to, and those were the main reasons of the change in my case.
Lynn: For me, I think it was more accidental to begin with. I knew that I wanted to leave the lab. I’d enjoyed my time in the lab up to that point, but I’d begun to realise my limitations and didn’t want to move to a group leader level or anything like that. I knew that I would need to look for something else and just accidentally found my way into research management, but it really, I think, plays to my strengths and my interests. I’m a very good administrator and I really enjoy science, still find science fascinating. And this means I can stay in touch with science, but I can use all my other skills and I can let everyone else do the lab work now, which is great.
I really enjoy the size of the organisation I work for now, and the opportunities that gives me to get involved in lots of different things. It’s a great place to work and a great team. And yeah, working for a funder in the charity sector is quite different so it’s good fun.
Alexandra: Thank you again for sharing your experiences with us and for having this conversation with me!
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