{"id":3203,"date":"2019-11-19T09:36:45","date_gmt":"2019-11-19T09:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/whats-in-a-name\/"},"modified":"2025-01-15T06:31:12","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T06:31:12","slug":"whats-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/whats-name","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s in a name?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">EMCR. It stands for early- and mid-career researcher, and it\u2019s an acronym we often see floating around in academia. It\u2019s something we use to label ourselves, and something that I think helps to shape and define our identity as researchers. Over the past few years I have often found myself identifying as an early career researcher. But recently it\u2019s been suggested to me that I\u2019m not \u2013 that instead I should be talking about myself as a mid-career researcher. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Which left me wondering: where do I fit on the EMCR spectrum \u2013 and who gets to decide?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">I often see early-career researcher defined in grant and award guidelines as someone up to 5 years post-PhD. A common mid-career definition is somewhere between 5 and 15 years post-PhD. Sounds pretty clear cut.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">The thing is, rarely are any of our career paths so straightforward that we move straight from PhD into full time employment and follow this neat road from PhD to researcher. For example, I received my PhD six and a half years ago. So by common definition that would put me into the mid-career stage. However, for the first two years following that I focussed first on raising a baby, and then moved into part-time casual work. Now, for the last four and a half years, I have been a full time academic. Which would still slot me into being an early career academic if you just consider the time spent working. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">See, it\u2019s confusing! <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">So am I an early-career researcher, or a mid-career researcher? Right now, I\u2019m not sure that I\u2019m either. I think I\u2019m in a weird transition space between the two. Growing out of the early years, but not yet quite accepting of the mid-career label.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">I think, in some ways, I want to hold on to the title of early-career researcher for the sense of security. If I\u2019m early in my career, no one can expect too much of me, right? I\u2019m still finding my way, experimenting. I\u2019m not expected to have all the answers. But mid-career researcher \u2013 that sounds a little more scary! That sounds like I should really have it all together. That I should really know what I\u2019m doing, and where I\u2019m going. That I should have reached a certain level of maturity. Honestly, it makes me feel like I should have achieved a lot more than I have. And, quite frankly, the mid-career researcher title also makes me feel old \u2013 something my inner child is rebelling against!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0in 0in 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">On the other hand, maybe it\u2019s time for me to accept that I\u2019ve moved into the mid-career stage. After all, I have achieved many of the things I consider to be hallmarks of that career stage in my colleagues. I have a stable academic job, with an established research program. I supervise post-graduate students. I\u2019ve published a substantial number of papers. I mentor newer academic members of staff (the real ECRs?). Maybe I need to own my achievements more and embrace that label of mid-career researcher.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"font-size:11.0pt\" xml:lang=\"EN-AU\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:&quot;Calibri&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;\">At the end of the day, I think how we define ourselves comes down more to our own state of mind than to numbers. Some days I really do feel like I\u2019m still so new to this game. Other days I feel like an old hand. Maybe one day I\u2019ll be able to define myself for confidently. But in the meantime, I might just take a leaf out of Facebook&#8217;s book, and say \u201cit\u2019s complicated.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EMCR. It stands for early- and mid-career researcher, and it\u2019s an acronym we often see floating around in academia. It\u2019s something we use to label ourselves, and something that I think helps to shape and define our identity as researchers. Over the past few years I have often found myself identifying as an early career [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1765,"featured_media":33313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2414],"tags":[2666],"new_categories":[],"new_tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-3203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiring-researcher-stories","tag-phd-life"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What&#039;s in a name | Editage Insights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When do you call yourself an early-career researcher or a mid-career researcher?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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