In September 2023, Prosper launched its postdoc career development model. Since then, we’ve been working with over 50 higher education institutions (HEIs) to enhance career mobility for postdocs and foster collaboration between researcher developers Prosper is an approach to career development designed specifically for postdocs, with the intention of supporting them to thrive across multiple career pathways – both within and beyond academia.
Following the success of the development phase and its launch to the sector in September 2023, Prosper was given UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funding to support adoption of the model by institutions across the UK.
As UKRI’s Director of Talent and Skills Frances Burstow put it in her excellently-argued blog on the topic:
More people switching between academia, business and government is key to the UK’s position as a world-class research and innovation nation. We believe Prosper can play a key role in supporting this objective.
The Prosper Portal
One of the main outputs of our development phase was the an online hub for all things related to postdoc career development, that’s completely free to access and use.
It contains all the materials and resources from our pilots and is packed with tools and information to enable postdocs to develop themselves and take control of their careers.
The portal’s Explore section contains a wealth of information about roles and career opportunities open to postdocs across 12 ‘career clusters’, including interviews with a wide range of employers offering insight into their roles, organisations, and what they look for in hires.
The portal now has over 1,200 active registered users from over 90 higher education institutions (HEIs) and continues to grow.
The importance of employer voices
We’ve worked with over 100 employers beyond academia across a range of sectors to better help postdocs understand the sheer range of opportunities open to them in the modern economic landscape, and how the skills they’ve acquired as researchers can be translated into a wide variety of roles.
In addition to the employer content on our portal, in December we ran an open-to-all question and answer webinar with expert recruiters, to try and help demystify recruitment processes and practices. This year we’ll be running an additional series of employer ‘fireside chats’ similarly free and open to postdocs across the UK.
As the old adage goes, ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’, postdocs can’t always immediately see themselves in roles beyond academia, especially if they’ve no experience beyond it. To counter this, we bring back former postdocs we’ve worked with who have made the transition beyond academia, to talk about their experiences, journey, and their new roles.
To quote Alex James, one of the postdocs we worked with:
I was unsure of what I wanted to do when my contract was up. My thinking was that I would inevitably end up as an academic fully committed to the researcher life. And why wouldn’t I? I had spent my adult life working my way up the academic ladder. We aren’t told any different and are surrounded by people daily who have done the same.
Alex participated in a Prosper cohort, which inspired him to transition beyond academia. He now works as Product Development Scientist at Puraffinity, an innovative new start up based at Scale Space, part of the Imperial College London innovation hub in London, which is working to develop new materials to remove chemicals from waste water.
Creating a community of practice
Bringing in external voices from beyond academia is only half the puzzle. The big focus of Prosper’s rollout has been to tackle the ‘internal’ side, meaning enabling HEIs across the UK to adopt Prosper’s model.
Over the last year, we’ve been working with over 50 HEIs across the UK to embed Prosper within institutions.
What this looks like varies depending on different HEIs’ needs. In some cases, it’s a case of incorporating selected Prosper resources into sessions, according to where there’s demand or gaps in existing provision. Heriot-Watt University’s use of Prosper is a good example of this.
To quote Dr Gabriele Matilionyte, Researcher Development Consultant, HeriotWatt University:
Prosper was so useful. We were able to put together an engaging and wellstructured series that research staff and PGRs really benefited from, with minimal time and cost, thanks to all the readymade materials already available.
In other cases, HEIs are running full Prosper cohorts, where a specifically recruited group of postdocs work on their career development together. What this looks like also varies – different institutions are adapting the cohort model to fit their particular institutional needs.
Cohorts bring with them the myriad benefits of community– enabling postdocs to connect with peers from other disciplines, share their career hopes, experiences and concerns, and develop together.
Similarly, through our work with other HEIs we’re looking to create a community of practice between researcher developers and accelerate sector collaboration in this space. One of the initiatives we’re creating in partnership with an early adopters focus group is our which will allow for the mutual sharing of resources, information and events.
In addition to researcher developers, managers of researchers have a vital role to play – one survey conducted by Nature found that 67% of postdocs turn to their principal investigators (PI) for career advice.
In response to this, Prosper established the PI Network as a cross-institutional forum with regular sessions that are free and open to anyone in the UK who manages researchers – enabling them to enhance their own leadership skills, and better support their postdocs’ career development.
Prosper adoption across the UK
A map of Prosper adoption across the UK. Credit: Prosper
Description of the map of Prosper adoption across the UK
A map of Prosper adoption across the UK which shows green dots representing HEIs that are actively implementing Prosper via one of the modes of delivery (some dots represent multiple institutions in the same locale).
“Prosper was so useful. We were able to put together an engaging and well-structured series that research staff and PGRs really benefited from, with minimal time and cost”. Dr Gabriele Matilionyte, Heriot-Watt University.
Newcastle University ran a Prosper cohort in 2024, Durham University is planning a Prosper cohort for 2025.
The White Rose University Consortium (comprising the Universities of York, Sheffield and Leeds) to run the first cross-institutional Prosper cohort in 2025.
The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the Universities of Liverpool and Manchester have all run Prosper cohorts.
The University of Southampton led a PI Network session and is running a Prosper cohort in 2025.
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Top image: Prosper held its first Practice Exchange in February 2025, bringing staff from HEIs across the UK to collaborate on implementing Prosper and enhancing postdoc career development. Credit: Prosper
Fiona holds a doctorate in Chemistry (specialising in investigating the structure of water at metal interfaces). She has played a key role in Prosper from its very beginnings in 2019, coordinating its pilot cohorts and leading the development and co-creation of the Prosper model and resources.