Useful Links

Learned Societies

Here are some of my favourite societies. Societies are useful to join as they usually offer travel and training grants for students. They also provide a platform for networking and keeping up to date on new research in their respective fields. Pro tip: don’t pay for membership out of your own pocket, use your PhD/grant funding.

• Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution
• British Ecological Society
• International Union for the Study of Social Insects
• The European Society for Evolutionary Biology
• The Genetics Society
• The Royal Entomological Society

Fellowships

Fellowships are post-PhD opportunites to obtain your own funding to carry out an independent piece of research. They are super competative but look fantastic for your career and make obtaining a ‘permanent’ academic position much easier. There are various types, e.g.

• Short-term fellowships such as the EMBO short-term fellowship which offers a 3month stay in another research lab. It’s possible to do one of these during your PhD. There are also smaller ones such as the Varley Gradwell Travelling Fellowship which supports a short project on entomology.

• Early career fellowships these vary dramatically and usually consist of a few years salary and some research costs. It’s possible to get one straight out of PhD (e.g. Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowship, EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship, Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Research Fellowship, Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, Human Frontiers) but most require a couple of years postdoc work first.

This website lists 100s of fellowship opportunities world wide: Early Career Researchers Central.

Some excellent advise for writing a UK BBSRC fellowship (also good advise generally for fellowships.)

Other

Link to a blog post on how to hire a postdoc in a fair and inclusive way here.