Inside the head of an Early Stage Researcher — Part 3 and last

You might have heard the term Early Stage Researcher (ESR), and, it is likely that many of you reading this post already know who an ESR is. The question we’re asking today is, however: what does an ESR think about her/his role?
In order to better understand these ‘strange’ creatures, and maybe get some inspiration from them, I decided to have some chats with some of the ESR-level members of the Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA) — who better to give us some insights into their feelings?

Yet, before diving into this roller coaster of emotions, let’s refresh your memory about the formal definition of an ESR… An Early Stage Researcher — for the European Commission — is a person who “at the time of recruitment by the host organisation, is in the first four years (full-time equivalent research experience) of their research careers and have not been awarded a doctoral degree.” Pretty clear, isn’t it?
To make it even simpler, we can say that an ESR is basically doing a PhD programme funded by a Marie Curie Scholarship.
Still not convinced? Swati Aggarwal (from India, an ESR of the RAMP ITN) likes to define ESRs as “Energetic Experimenters, Self-Assertive Scholars and Resourceful Researchers who start loving their mobile scientist life.” At this point, we should all have a common playground to start with; thus, let’s find out now a bit more about this role by those directly involved.

In this third and last part (if you missed the previous two, go and read them: Part 1 and Part 2), we will go deeper in understanding which are the challenges of being an ESR and will give you some advice on how to overcome them. And finally, we will answer the most important question: “Will I find a better job if I’ll become an ESR?”

It is a path full of challenges

“Research is fun. Once you really see the fun in learning, it sets things into perspective. This surpassing all these hardships and challenges is already an achievement itself. You seize the whole experience by challenging yourself to turn what seems to be unattainable into something that you can actually achieve.”

As Yron Joseph Yabut Manaig (from the Philippines, an ESR of the MANNA ITN) stated: don’t be scared to put yourself in a challenge!
If you like science, if you are curious, if you are ready to meet people with different cultures, and visit many different universities, centres of research and companies, throw yourself into the game.
An ESR certainly faces many challenges, but what would be a life without them? All these obstacles are helping to craft the ESR’s knowledge and to become a better person. Without forgetting that the final aim of an ESR is to do a great research and to learn how to improve as a scientist. Jorge Peinado (from Spain, an ESR of the MANNA ITN) said: “I have already gone through difficult periods that have made me feel quite discouraged, and I’m sure that many more will come. However, I hope that my passion for science and my determination to overcome difficulties will keep me motivated and will allow me to take full advantage of being an ESR.”

Passion and the determination must be your strengths, and you should always remember that you are doing this in order to become a better person, a better researcher, and hopefully enhance your future job possibilities. According to Giuseppe Pronestì (an ESR of the MAPS-LED project): “since the beginning up to the very end of my MSC journey I felt empowered, and gradually build the belief that such experience would have shaped me not only as a better professional but also as a better person,” and today he found his place as an investment finance professional, always remembering that the project in which he was involved gave him “the opportunity to learn and grow up, to travel around the world and get a wider view of it, to build competitive advantages on the labour market through shaping a multifaceted professional profile which allows me to better position myself in different fields. In one word, empowerment!”

Being an ESR gives you different perspectives, it helps you to widen your horizon and to find out what you want to do with your career, whether you remain in academia or move into the industry. Marina Pekmezovic (from Serbia, an ESR of the OPATHY ITN) underlined, “I learned so much about different aspects necessary for my future and thus I feel more confident for making the next step in my career;” this is definitely what a project should teach to an ESR.

To conclude, remember that no one is a superhero, and as a last advice for present and future ESRs, I want to quote Rafaela Furioso Ferreira (from Brazil, an ESR of the MANNA ITN):

“One thing that no one tells you about being an ESR is that many times you are going to feel afraid. We are afraid that something is going wrong with our experiment, afraid that we missed some important information that we will only discover too late, and afraid that we are not good enough for this. Impostor syndrome is real, and we will all experience it at some point.”

Feeling afraid is absolutely normal, what you need to do is to remember the good things you did, track them, and think about your “little victories — papers published or presented abstracts, grants received or even an email from your advisor saying that you did a good job,” Rafaela concluded. All these little things will give you the energy to keep going and to overcome the obstacles you will encounter during your career.

Is it worth being an ESR?

At this point, someone who’s not an ESR yet and is maybe thinking to apply for a position like that may think: “Is it a life-changing experience? Will I find a better job if I’ll become an ESR?”

Regarding the first question, I, as the writer and current ESR, would say it definitely is. I have talked with many ESRs and none of them have told me that they were not happy about their role. Of course, some of them underwent difficulties, various problems, but overall, the experience they were having was definitely positive. It is something that will certainly change your life and will open your eyes to the world of research, which is bigger than what you may expect.

The second question is much harder to answer, particularly because I don’t want to tell you that you’ll certainly find a great job (I can’t predict the future), however, what I can tell you is that I truly think that the experience you can gain while being an ESR is definitely something you won’t find in a ‘normal PhD,’ and it certainly puts your career in the spotlight. Giuseppe said: “I still strongly believe that having been part of an MSC program was a crucial, if not the most important factor to shape my professionalism and to gain competitive advantage on the labour market,” and I would certainly agree with him.

A final advice I want to give you is: do not think only about a future job, think about what makes you happy, think about what you like. Being in a position that you like and doing the research that you like can be extremely rewarding and you will be able to enjoy the majority of the days — sometimes a ‘low moment’ can happen to everyone. But, most importantly, when you will look back at it you will certainly feel a great sense of achievement to what you have done as an ESR.

Conclusion

As I said before, this was the third and last part of our trip inside the head of an ESR. I really hope to have given you a nice overview of not only all on the roles of the ESR, but most importantly also on the feelings of an ESR. I hope you have enjoyed this short series and I really hope that out there, many undergraduate students who were thinking to apply as ESRs, now will have a better idea about what to expect, but I truly hope they will be even more convinced now to apply for a position.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank all the ESRs who helped me writing this piece, without your inputs I would not have been able to express all these feelings that we, ESRs, have during our lives.
Thank you. I wish you a glorious career!

Ruben Riosa is an animal nutritionist currently working as a PhD student at the University of Bonn / University of Glasgow, where he is part of the MSCA ITN project MANNA. His project focusses on dairy cow’s nutrition and physiology. In the MANNA network he is also the Scientific copywriter.
He is deeply interested in science communication and loves to write.