Launchpad
SKILLS FOR EARLY CAREER RESEARCHERS CRCs can kickstart your post-PhD career, says Chloe Walker. Making the transition from academia to industry is always a challenge for early career researchers. The skills needed for the private sector don’t always line up with those developed within a higher degree by research program. This puts candidates with industry links at a huge advantage — particularly those connected to a CRC. Recent analysis by LinkedIn found that the top five soft skills most sought after by employers are creativity, persuasion, collaboration, adaptability and emotional intelligence. Careers in industry require much more than simply a deep knowledge of a subject area and the ability to analyse data. Top candidates also need to manage stakeholders, pitch their ideas to investors and balance a budget. Communication skills rate highly on every list of what employers want, and Chuhao Liu, a PhD candidate in civil engineering at the University of Wollongong (UOW) and the Rail Manufacturing CRC, takes every opportunity to develop his presentation skills. In 2018, he won the UOW Three Minute Thesis competition before also winning the CRC Association’s Early Career Researcher Showcase. Chuhao credits the learning opportunities he’s had through the Rail Manufacturing CRC for much of his success. “Working with the CRC is extremely beneficial,” he says. “Once a year we have a PhD training workshop, where we learn things such as how to pitch, how to look after our mental health and how to build our LinkedIn profile.” Networking with people outside his usual circle at UOW, including both industry experts and other PhD students,
is another benefit. These connections are what led Chuhao to start working on his startup idea, a sound-based AI track monitoring system that landed him in the top five at TEDxSydney Kick Start, where he found some potential collaborators. Working with the CRC has also highlighted the many factors involved in commercialising research. “Before, I just focused on the technology,” he says. “But if you want to apply your research to real life, technology is a small part. How do you make people trust you? You need to network and understand law, branding and advertising.”
LO O K I N G TO S PA C E FOR COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITIES Understanding the commercial implications of research outcomes has been one of Samantha Le May’s key takeaways from working with a CRC. A PhD candidate in environmental science at RMIT, Samantha also worked with the Space Environment Research Centre (SERC) during her Honours year. She says one of the things SERC really emphasised was intellectual property. “As a researcher, you’re not thinking about intellectual property, but as soon as you have industry participants, you begin to understand that research is really a business,” she says. Samantha’s research focuses on more accurately mapping space debris to improve catalogues. She also considers how regulation might be shaped to address the problem. Having access to a range of industry experts through SERC has been key
Putting science to work innovation.ansto.gov.au
SAMANTHA LE MAY’S CAREER PATHWAY Bachelor of Environmental Science, RMIT >> Honours, RMIT/SERC >> PhD, Geospatial Sciences, RMIT/SERC to bringing it all together. “Being involved with SERC has given me a broad perspective on the topic,” she says. “I’m trying to tackle an overall view of the problem and connect ideas together in one place. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without this diverse range of input.” Later this year, Samantha will be heading to Texas as a Fulbright Future Scholar. She says that attending international conferences, thanks to the travel allowance provided by SERC, helped boost her profile. “I think a lot of the opportunities that made my Fulbright application competitive can really go back to the fact that I had the support of SERC.” rmcrc.com.au serc.org.au