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I would like to know what are the scopes for semi-administrative positions like research coordinator, scientific coordinator, program manager or something similar that are available for someone with PhD and postdoctoral experience. I have definitely seen LinkedIn profiles where they completed a postdoc in certain universities in France, it was 4th or 5th year after their PhD in STEM field (his are was astronomy and data analysis), and then got a senior project manager (not even Junior manager) in Ireland.

I have some questions regarding this type of positions:

  1. What is the nature of the job outside their research?

  2. What prerequisites are needed to get these jobs apart from PhD+postdoc? Is it just university research in PhD+postdoc? Or something more?

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Maybe there was no answer to this question, yet, because there is no clear answer. The nature of such positions vary, but in most cases, administrative maanging of larger projects and coordination of reasearchers or research groups is involved. In fact, many principal investigators are looking for someone, who just manages the project in a way that they don't have to dig into details or do much paperwork etc. You'll learn a lot about orgnization, lateral leadership, politics, funding, administration; you'll work with motivated PhD students; but you won't do too much research by yourself and you will have to deal with the ugly parts of the job.

After a few years, you will be able to decide whether a full professorship is something for you or not.

To get such a job, you'll have to show solid scientific performance, and it is very helpful if you wrote or assisted in writing research grand applications or led smaller teams.

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