Career mobility in academia has traditionally been seen as a one-way street. You're either in academia, or you leave - never to return! But is this true?

In this episode of the Research Culture Uncovered podcast, hosts Taryn Bell and Ruth Winden discuss career mobility with Danni Croucher, Policy Lead at the National Centre for Universities and Businesses (NCUB). We also hear from researchers at Leeds with experience moving between academia and other sectors.

Key takeaways:

✅ Career mobility has huge potential benefits for both researchers and organisations, whether moving into industry permanently, or for a short-term secondment.

❗However, there are organisational and structural barriers to mobility which need to be tackled to make it easier to move between sectors.

📣 Thankfully, there are a huge number of initiatives out there to support researchers as they gain experience in a variety of organisations.

Resources and initiatives mentioned in the show:

• National Centre for Universities and Business (NCUB) career mobility webpage
• NCUB reports: Marking one year on: Researcher Mobility Taskforce; Pathways to Success; Building a data-driven picture of researcher intersectoral mobility in the UK; International characterisation of researcher mobility schemes; A qualitative deep dive into experiences and attitudes towards the cross-sector mobility of researchers
• Prosper
• Developing Business Aware Academics
• UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships (FLF)
• Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs)
• Centre for Postdoctoral Development in Infrastructure, Cities and Energy (C-DICE)

• Danni Croucher
• Gokcay Balci
• Ally Shepherd
• Scott McLaughlin
• Eric Atwell

• Researcher Development
• Research Professional
• Research Talent Management
• Research Impact with Ged Hall (follow Ged on Twitter and LinkedIn)
• Open Research with Nick Sheppard (follow Nick on Twitter and LinkedIn)
• Research Careers with Ruth Winden (follow Ruth
• on Twitter and LinkedIn)

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