Introduction
Providing support for career transitions and intersectoral mobility not only increases the employability of your alumni but also strengthens your organization’s external connections, enhances intersectoral collaboration, boosts employee satisfaction, and ultimately improves your institutional reputation.
Preparing individuals for career transitions does not mean pushing them out of academia, but rather equipping them with the information they need to make informed career decisions. To offer high-quality guidance and support their networking efforts, it is essential to engage with a broad range of potential employers, including those in the private sector. However, do not overlook public entities—researchers are highly qualified professionals whose skills are widely transferable.
Many of the activities and approaches described in these pages have been piloted by members of the Researchers' Careers Beyond Academia Hub, offering tested models and practical insights for effective implementation.
In the following sections, you will find guidance on how to connect with non-academic stakeholders—potential employers—and how to design and implement activities and programmes that support early-career researchers in exploring and pursuing careers beyond academia.
Connect with non-academic stakeholders
To create good quality activities dedicated to intersectoral mobility is necessary to engage with other sectors, special the private sector. Here we suggest some actions to engage with individuals, organizations and enterprises form other sectors.
To connect with private sectors, it is crucial to map what bridges your organization has or can tend with this sector. These are the possible departments, offices, or networks that we recommend exploring within your ecosystem:
Technology transfer or intellectual property right office
These offices within a research organization are responsible for encouraging, facilitating, advising, and assisting researchers within organizations in exploiting their research results into commercial products. Because of their liaison nature between academic research and industry, they have connections with industry that could be useful when implementing activities for researchers.
Areas of innovation and technology and research parks
These places and organizations are designed to enhance the innovative activity of a specific area. They are also in charge of fuelling knowledge transfer between academic institutions and companies. They foster innovative-based companies and support spin-off processes. They many times support or allocate incubators and accelerators. They create innovation ecosystems, including the primary agents of business, government, academic research organizations, and society.
Check for areas of innovation in your region here
Sectoral associations or networks
It is worth engaging with a local or regional subsection of these networks to signpost your activities and recruit companies or individuals for your activities.
Due to the structure of the academic research system, many of your PhD alumni pursue careers outside academia. Connecting with them and fostering a sense of community around a common theme can be a valuable way to engage with other sectors.
One effective approach to building an alumni community is through social media. Partners of the EURAXESS Research Beyond Academia Hub have created an online alumni network—"Researchers Beyond Academia by EURAXESS: A Journey Towards Research Careers Outside Universities"—dedicated to alumni researchers considering career opportunities beyond academic institutions. The platform aims to promote the exchange of best practices and experiences among researchers who have already transitioned or are interested in transitioning to careers outside academia.
A guide has been developed to support your research organization in implementing this initiative.
As a research organization, you can follow up on the career paths of your alumni researchers. Doing so not only helps map intersectoral collaboration opportunities but also enables the design of targeted career development programmes. In longitudinal studies, such tracking systems can be valuable tools for measuring impact and ensuring accountability.
If you want to learn more about career tracking systems, check out this report from the European University Association: Tracking the Career Paths of PhD Holders
Support services to researchers
Supporting researchers through career transitions is essential for fostering a dynamic and adaptable research environment. Research organizations can play a key role by implementing a range of activities that help researchers make informed career decisions and, if desired, successfully transition to new roles—within or beyond academia.
These activities can be offered individually or integrated into comprehensive career development programmes, depending on the organization’s capacity and resources. They address multiple aspects of career management and support, including:
- Career information
- Career awareness and motivation
- Career exploration
- Career management skills
- Career adaptability
- Career planning and implementation
- Transferable skills
- Job hunting and application processes
- Commercial and business acumen
- Networking
By offering support across these dimensions, research organizations can empower researchers to navigate their career journeys with confidence and clarity. These activities can be implemented based on the specific career development areas your organization chooses to focus on, ideally, based on the needs of your researchers.
Activities to support career transition
Several key aspects should be considered when implementing training
Pedagogical methodology: There are various methods for facilitating learning, ranging from traditional lectures to interactive workshops. Approaches may emphasize peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, expert-led instruction, gamification, or hands-on learning. Choosing the right mix can enhance engagement and learning outcomes.
Quality assurance: As a research organization, it is advisable to establish a quality assurance process for the training you offer. This can include a system for evaluation, certification, or formal recognition of participation. You can find relevant recommendations from the EU Council.
Engagement and Promotion. Researchers are often deeply focused on their work and may not prioritize career development activities, especially if they perceive training sessions as potentially irrelevant or time-consuming. Therefore, it's essential to invest in strategies that boost researcher engagement, along with effective promotion and clear communication of upcoming training opportunities. Using programme ambassadors, centralizing your training offerings (at least in terms of promotion), and maintaining clear, accessible training calendars can help raise career awareness—particularly among early-stage researchers. This enables them to plan their training activities more strategically, aligning them with their long-term career goals.
Dimensions of career transition that are suitable for training are:
Career management Skills (Reference to ResearchComp: Manage personal professional development) Training focused on developing career management skills helps early-stage researchers learn how to self-assess, understand labour market information (LMI), and use tools to independently manage their career development. These sessions aim to increase participants’ awareness of their career choices and openness to opportunities for further learning and career advancement.
Commercial and business accumbent (Reference to Research Comp: Show entrepreneural spirit, Manage intellectual property rights, Promote the transfer of knowledge, Promote open innovation). This type of training focuses on business, innovation, and intellectual property (IP) concepts. It introduces researchers to result exploitation, entrepreneurial thinking, and how business environments function.A strong example of such training is the MR2YR - Mentoring Routes: Unleashing Innovative Careers for Young Researchers programme, implemented under the third-party funding call of the ERA Talent Project by Fondazione Edmund Mach.
Highly transferable skills (Skills in demand by non-academic employers). Many in-demand skills can be developed through training, ranging from soft skills such as effective communication (ResearchComp: Communicate to the broad public) and active listening (ResearchComp: Interact professionally) to technical competencies like data management (ResearchComp: Manage research data) and programming. It is advisable to provide a clear list of available training offers. However, participants will benefit most from this type of training if they already have a basic level of career management skills.
The purpose of providing LMI to early stage researchers is to facilitate:
- Their market knowledge and expand their career perspectives
- Their reflection on their interest and extrapolation into world beyond academia
- Their planning to fill the gaps of skills and expertise
Labour national or regional administration provides LMI; however, this information is very broad for researchers, and it is advisable to gather reliable and relevant information, curate it and present it in a meaningful way to researchers. Here there are some examples.
- https://www.prospects.ac.uk/jobs-and-work-experience/job-sectors
- https://www.imaginephd.com/job-families
If you want to know more about how to present LMI, please check this toolkit of CEDEFOP
Career testimonials and stories showcase the career paths of former academic researchers who have transitioned into roles outside of academia. These narratives serve as a form of labour market information (LMI), offering insights into job profiles, working conditions, required skills, and entry routes. Beyond factual information, they also provide emotional and contextual elements that can resonate more deeply with the audience—making them engaging, inspiring, and effective in motivating researchers to explore careers beyond academia.
These stories can be delivered in various formats, such as:
Individual stories: Shared through podcasts, blog posts, videos, or animated cartoons.
Shared stories: Involving multiple narrators exchanging experiences and impressions during career panels, roundtables, or group discussions.
They can be structured in different ways:
Facilitated: Guided by interviewers using structured questions.
Non-facilitated: Self-narrated stories, where individuals reflect on and share their own journeys.
You can present these testimonials through multiple channels, including roundtable events, written materials, and podcasts. Here are some good examples:
Networking events/Career Fairs is a format meant to provide researchers with a possibility to explore employment and collaboration opportunities beyond academia and get insight into what is it like to work for a non-academic employer. At the same time, it should provide employers with a possibility to present their activities within the researchers’ community and gain access to research talent pool. The format combines panel discussion, and companies’ presentations and one-to-one meetings if the R2B matchmaking component wants to be added.
Here it is an example of Career Fair with R2B matchmaking events piloted by the Research Careers Beyond Academia EURAXESS Hub.
Why Organize a Career Fair with or without an R2B (Research-to-Business) Matchmaking Event?
Organizing a career fair, with or without an R2B matchmaking component, brings numerous benefits to both researchers and institutions. Here’s why:
- It’s a Highly Valued Activity among Researchers
Researchers increasingly recognize the importance of exploring career options beyond academia, but they often lack direct access to non-academic employers. Career fairs provide an excellent opportunity for them to:- Discover a wide range of career paths outside academia
- Meet multiple employers and stakeholders in one place
- Engage in direct conversations about real job opportunities
- Mobile Researchers Benefit the Most
International (mobile) researchers are often less familiar with the local job market and have limited networks in their host countries. Career fairs offer:- Access to local labour market insights and employment opportunities
- A chance to build connections that support their decision to stay after their PhD or postdoc
- If organized in cross-border collaboration, access to opportunities across Europe—supporting the creation of a unified European labour market for researchers
- Brings Non-Academic Employers Closer to Talent Pool
These events help bridge the gap between research institutions and the non-academic sector. Through career fairs, EURAXESS can:- Offer employers access to a pool of highly skilled researchers
- Help employers understand the value of hiring PhDs
- Build long-term partnerships for future collaboration
- Gain insight into different organizational cultures and how to effectively engage with them—knowledge that can be shared with researchers
- Access to talent to SMEs and startups.
Startups and small companies often lack the resources and visibility to recruit top research talent. By participating in EURAXESS-organized events, they gain:- Direct access to the researcher community
- Increased visibility and potential to attract high-quality candidates
- Support in developing recruitment channels tailored to their needs
- Builds Collaboration with Other Stakeholders.
Unless your institution already has strong networks outside academia, you’ll need to collaborate with other actors to reach your target groups. These might include:- Internal units (e.g., technology transfer offices, career development centres)
- External networks (e.g., Enterprise Europe Network)
- Other stakeholders (e.g., innovation agencies, chambers of commerce)
- These collaborations not only support event promotion and planning but can also lay the foundation for sustainable, long-term partnerships.
- Benefits of Adding a Matchmaking Component to your Careers Events
Including one-on-one matchmaking sessions significantly increases engagement. Here's why:- Scheduled meetings allow researchers to prepare in advance and approach conversations strategically
- Discussions are deeper and more targeted compared to random interactions at booths
- Researchers can practice professional communication with employers and refine their approach to networking outside academia
- The likelihood of building lasting, meaningful connections increases
How to Organize a Career Fair with an R2B Matchmaking Event
If you're interested in learning how to plan and execute a Career Fair with an R2B matchmaking component, please consult our:
In an intersectoral mentoring programme, early-stage researchers are paired with researchers (or professionals close to research) who are currently not working in academic research activities.
Why run an intersectoral mentoring programme?
An intersectoral mentoring programme not only connects people and provides labour market intelligence (LMI) to early-stage researchers but also excels in fostering career awareness and career management skills. Mentors serve as role models, offering valuable information, professional development, support, and preparation for future opportunities.
Researcher Careers Beyond Academia Hub members run an intersectoral mentoring programme: REBECA by EURAXESS mentoring programme, and you can explore the details of the programme and results.
How to organize a career fair with an intersectoral mentoring programme?
If you’re interested in learning how to organize an intersectoral mentoring programme, please refer to this.
A peer mentoring programme is a collaborative model where individuals at similar stages in their careers come together to support each other’s personal and professional development. Unlike traditional mentoring, which typically involves a more experienced mentor guiding a less experienced mentee, peer mentoring is built on partnerships between equals. Each participant takes on a dual role—acting as both mentor and mentee—creating a dynamic, co-mentoring environment where everyone learns from and supports one another.
This approach is grounded in mutual respect, shared experiences, and a deep understanding of each other’s challenges and aspirations. Group-based peer mentoring model highlights the psychosocial support function of mentoring. It fosters a sense of collective commitment among participants, who help each other strengthen their career management skills and navigate their professional paths.
Researcher Career Beyond Academia Hub has tested a group-based peer mentoring: REBECA EXPLORER, where participants reflect on their career values, explore opportunities, define goals, and plan actionable steps. More details about the programme can be found here.
Real-world experience in a private company or across different departments of public administration can be an excellent opportunity for early-career researchers (R1 and R2) to explore new professional roles, discover personal career preferences, understand the ways of working in business and public administration, and build meaningful networks. Research Performing Organizations and Universities can offer placements and internships, whether or not they are linked to PhD or postdoctoral programmes. To implement such actions, strong collaboration with companies and a substantial budget are required.
Examples of such programmes include:
- Career Service Internship Programme run by Karolinska Institute
- Non-academic MSCA Placement Scheme
- EURAXESS Internship Programme for Refugee and Displaced Researchers in Europe, a joint initiative by Researcher Career Beyond Academia members and Refugee Hub members
