Postdoctoral Researcher

Postdoctoral Researcher

A postdoctoral researcher is one that has recently completed their PhD and now is need for a research area that he/she might associate with. Their PhD usually lasts between 3 to 5 years depending on the time it takes to complete a particular project by the student and the time to write the thesis.
A postdoctoral position is often referred to as research assistant, research associate or simply as "Postdoc". A postdoc is often loosely referred to as "Postdocing". A person who has been postdocing has been on a fixed term temporary post at a university or a research institute on a contract. It is expected that once the contact is over the researcher will either continue to research at the institute by obtaining their own funding which can be from charities such as "Cancer Research" or from local council/government grants.
However, during the fixed term contract, the postdoc is expected to complete a set of research goals in the form of experiments or investigations as set out in the grant application. In addition, the postdoc is expected to look after PhD students, design experiments for them in the absence of the group leader, read their reports, take care of other visiting students. Other roles include helping the group leader also known as the "Principal Investigator" in further grant applications even though they may not be a co-applicant. In most cases they do not feature on the application and are therefore not credited. The postdocs usually have to complete their research in the time specified on the grant application and publish their results in relevant journals.
Postdocing is not an easy role to do. It requires hard work, sleepless nights, hours of careful planning, thinking, mentoring students, writing and helping prepare grant applications and publications.

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