Dictionary domainTrack A
Mentorship, training, and career stages
Career-stage terms underpinning narrative CVs and mentorship recognition.
For implementers
Operational deployment checklist for Mentorship, training, and career stages: prerequisites, five deploy steps, integration notes for Pure, Symplectic Elements, Worktribe, DSpace, and more, plus the pitfalls that recur in the field.
Terms in this domain
58 terms
K01 (NIH Mentored Research Scientist Development Award)
A K01 is an NIH individual, mentored career-development activity code (Mentored Research Scientist Development Award) that funds a research-doctorate-holding investigator's three-to-five-year transition toward independent, NIH-fundable research through protected effort (at least 75% of full-time professional effort), a qualified mentor, and a formal career-development plan. What distinguishes a K01 from other individual mentored K mechanisms: it requires a research doctorate (PhD or equivalent) rather than a clinical doctorate, carries no fixed postdoctoral-experience ceiling the way K99/R00 does, and runs as a single mentored phase for its full duration with no automatic transition into a separate independent-phase award.
SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship)
SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship) is a category of institutionally administered summer research program that places undergraduates into a mentored, full-time research placement -- typically 8 to 11 weeks -- under a faculty or staff scientist, usually with a stipend and often modeled on the grant-seeking process: the student writes a short research proposal to be accepted, conducts the project over the summer, and closes the program with a written report and an oral or poster presentation at a culminating symposium. 'SURF' is not one single national program; it is a naming convention independently adopted by dozens of individual institutions for their own summer undergraduate research fellowship, most prominently the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), whose SURF program is the oldest and most widely cited namesake of the term. A program counts as a SURF in the operational sense used here if it (a) is undergraduate-only, (b) runs as a discrete summer term rather than during the academic year, (c) pairs each student with an individual faculty/research mentor rather than a classroom instructor, and (d) issues a stipend or fellowship award rather than treating the position as employment paid hourly.
SRA International (SRAI)
SRA International (formally the Society of Research Administrators International, founded 24 June 1967) is a professional membership association of roughly 5,000 research administrators across about 40 countries. It is not a regulator or exam-based credentialing body: its main output is a catalog of 11 completion-based certificate programs (e.g. Pre-Award, Financial Management, Clinical Trials Research Administration) earned through conference workshops and electives, distinct from RACC's proctored CRA/CPRA/CFRA credentials and from NCURA, the comparable US-focused membership association.
NRSA (National Research Service Award)
An award is an NRSA (National Research Service Award, formally the Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA) if it is made under the statutory authority created by Title I of the National Research Act of 1974 (Public Law 93-348) to support predoctoral or postdoctoral research training rather than to fund a specific research project directly. NRSA support is stipend-based (a training allowance to the trainee/fellow, set annually by NIH notice) rather than a PI salary drawn against direct research costs, and it comes in two structural forms: institutional awards (the 'T' series -- T32, T90, TL1, and related mechanisms -- where an institution or program holds the grant, is the grant's PD/PI of record, and nominates individual trainees into funded training slots) and individual fellowships (the 'F' series -- F30, F31, F32, and related mechanisms -- where the trainee or fellow themselves is the named PD/PI, applying with a specific faculty sponsor and research training plan). A postdoctoral NRSA recipient (T- or F-series) also incurs a service payback obligation for the first 12 months of postdoctoral NRSA support, discharged through subsequent NRSA-supported training, health-related research, health-related teaching, or a combination, averaging at least 20 hours per week; predoctoral NRSA recipients incur no payback obligation.
RTTP (Registered Technology Transfer Professional) and ATTP
RTTP (Registered Technology Transfer Professional) is an individual professional credential -- awarded in three tiers (Candidate RTTP, RTTP, and RTTP Fellow) -- that certifies a knowledge-exchange/technology-transfer (KE/TT) practitioner has met minimum thresholds of professional experience, continuing education, and demonstrated competency across six defined core competency areas. It is awarded exclusively by ATTP (the Alliance of Technology Transfer Professionals), a nonprofit standards body formed by a consortium of national and regional technology-transfer associations -- including AUTM in North America -- rather than by any single national association acting alone. An individual is RTTP-certified only after ATTP has reviewed and approved a formal application/portfolio; association membership, job title, or years of experience alone do not confer the designation.
Researcher Development Concordat
The Researcher Development Concordat (formally the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers) is a UK sector-wide agreement, first launched in 2008 and substantially revised in 2019, that sets out reciprocal commitments among research funders, research organizations (universities and institutes), and researchers themselves for improving the environment, employment conditions, and career development of researchers. An organization is treated as implementing the Concordat when it is a formal signatory, has published a public action plan addressing the Concordat's three principles, and reports progress against that plan on a defined cycle -- not merely by stating general support for researcher development.
T32 (NIH Institutional Research Training Grant)
A T32 is an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA institutional research training grant: NIH funds a university department or program (not an individual) to run a structured predoctoral and/or postdoctoral research training program, and the program's PD/PI selects and appoints trainees into the grant's funded slots. It is distinct from an individual fellowship (F31/F32), where the trainee themselves applies and holds the award.
Coercive Authorship
Coercive authorship occurs when a person with evaluative or supervisory authority over a researcher — typically a principal investigator, department chair, or thesis supervisor — uses that power imbalance to compel the inclusion of an undeserving author (often themselves) or the exclusion of a deserving one, rather than authorship being negotiated on the basis of ICMJE/CRediT contribution criteria. The defining feature is not the resulting byline, which can look identical to a gift-authorship byline, but the mechanism: the junior researcher's assent is not freely given, because dissent carries real, foreseeable career risk the senior party controls — a weaker reference, delayed degree progress, or reduced access to resources or future collaboration.
MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship
An MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship is an individually held European Union research grant, funded under Horizon Europe's Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), awarded jointly to a researcher who already holds a doctoral degree (or has defended a thesis, not yet formally awarded) and a host organisation that will supervise and train them. It is not a consortium grant: unlike MSCA Doctoral Networks, which fund multi-partner training partnerships for pre-PhD doctoral candidates, a Postdoctoral Fellowship is competed for and held by one named researcher at one host institution (with optional short secondments elsewhere). Eligibility is capped at a maximum of eight years of full-time-equivalent research experience since the award of the PhD, excluding documented career breaks, and subject to MSCA's standard mobility rule (the researcher must not have resided or carried out their main activity in the host country for more than 12 of the 36 months immediately before the call deadline). The action comes in two tracks -- European Postdoctoral Fellowships (1-2 years, host in an EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country, open to researchers of any nationality) and Global Postdoctoral Fellowships (2-3 years total: an outgoing phase of 1-2 years at a host in a non-associated Third Country, followed by a mandatory 1-year return phase at a European host, restricted to nationals or long-term residents of an EU Member State or Associated Country). Funding is paid as EU-wide unit costs -- a living allowance, mobility allowance, and, where applicable, family, long-term leave, and special needs allowances, plus separate research/training/networking and management/indirect-cost contributions to the host -- rather than as an institution-set salary. “MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships” is the Horizon Europe (2021-2027) name for what was called “Individual Fellowships (IF)” under Horizon 2020; the underlying individually-held, PhD-holder-only mechanism carried over largely unchanged through the rename.
ARMA, EARMA, and INORMS: International Research Management Associations
<p><strong>ARMA</strong> (the Association of Research Managers and Administrators), <strong>EARMA</strong> (the European Association of Research Managers and Administrators), and <strong>INORMS</strong> (the International Network of Research Management Societies) are three related but distinct professional bodies serving people who manage and administer research rather than conduct it. ARMA is the national professional association for research management in the UK, incorporated in 2006, with roughly 3,800 members. EARMA is the regional professional association for the same profession across Europe, formed in 1994, open to research managers and administrators working in academia, industry, and the public and private sectors. INORMS is not a membership body for individuals at all -- it is an <em>umbrella federation of national and regional research-management societies</em>, founded in 2001, whose own members are organizations such as ARMA, EARMA, and the US-based <a href='/guides/what-a-research-administrator-does'>National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) and Society of Research Administrators International (SRAI)</a>, alongside other national societies around the world. An individual research administrator typically joins their applicable national or regional body directly (ARMA if UK-based, EARMA if Europe-based, NCURA or SRAI if US-based, and so on); they do not join INORMS directly, because INORMS's own members are the societies themselves, not individual practitioners.</p>
CIHR Postdoctoral Fellowship
The CIHR Postdoctoral Fellowship was the Canadian Institutes of Health Research's individually held, individually competed award funding up to two years of mentored postdoctoral research in a health-research field within CIHR's mandate, providing the fellow with a stipend (most recently harmonized at $70,000 per year) portable to an eligible Canadian or international host institution. CIHR has discontinued this standalone program: it has been folded, together with NSERC's and SSHRC's equivalent individual postdoctoral fellowship programs, into the jointly administered Canada Postdoctoral Research Award (CPRA) -- part of the Tri-Agency's Canada Research Training Awards Suite (CRTAS), which also replaces the three councils' separate master's and doctoral scholarship programs. A researcher researching 'CIHR Postdoctoral Fellowship' or 'CIHR Fellowship' today needs the CPRA application process, applied for through CIHR for health-research proposals.
NSF GRFP (Graduate Research Fellowship Program)
The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is a competitively awarded, individually-held fellowship funding three years of graduate study and research (within a five-year eligibility window) for early-career graduate students -- and eligible undergraduate seniors applying in advance -- pursuing full-time, research-based STEM or STEM-education master's or doctoral study. It provides a $37,000 annual stipend to the fellow plus a separate $16,000 Cost of Education allowance paid to the fellow's institution. Eligibility is restricted to U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, and U.S. permanent residents; applicants must not already hold a doctoral or equivalent terminal degree.
Research Administrator Day
Research Administrator Day is an annual U.S. professional-recognition observance held on September 25, established in 2015 by the National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) and formally proclaimed through National Day Calendar. It is dedicated to recognizing the staff who manage the pre-award and post-award work of securing and administering sponsored research funding -- grants specialists, sponsored-programs officers, compliance staff, and departmental research administrators. The Society of Research Administrators International (SRAI) also promotes the day to its own membership under the same September 25 date, so in practice it functions as a shared, sector-wide observance rather than one sponsored by a single body. It is not a federal holiday and carries no legal or regulatory status; observance is voluntary and institution-by-institution.
ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship
An ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship is a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) award, funded through the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) but applied for and administered through an ESRC-recognised Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP), not directly through ESRC or UKRI's central funding service. It supports a single named early-career researcher for up to nine months full-time (or up to 18 months part-time, pro-rated) immediately after completing a UK-based PhD, covering the fellow's salary plus additional funds for research and training costs. Eligibility is tightly bounded: the applicant's PhD must have been undertaken at a research organisation inside the ESRC doctoral training network, and no more than 15 months of active postdoctoral experience (full-time equivalent, measured from the viva to the competition closing date) can have elapsed. Fellowship activity must sit at least 50% within the social sciences even where the underlying research is genuinely interdisciplinary, and an applicant may submit to only one DTP per competition round.
UKRI PhD Stipend
The UKRI minimum doctoral stipend is the annual, tax-free subsistence allowance UK Research and Innovation sets each year as the floor payment for students on a UKRI-funded PhD studentship, applied uniformly across all seven research councils, with a fixed £2,000/year supplement for London-based host institutions; it is set centrally by UKRI, reviewed roughly annually, and takes effect each 1 October.
SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship
The SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship was the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada's individually held, individually competed award funding mentored postdoctoral research in the social sciences and humanities. Like its counterparts at Canada's other two federal research funders, SSHRC has discontinued this standalone program: it has been folded, together with the equivalent individual postdoctoral fellowship programs previously run separately by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), into the jointly administered Canada Postdoctoral Research Award (CPRA) -- part of the Tri-Agency's new Canada Research Training Awards Suite (CRTAS), which also replaces the three councils' separate master's and doctoral scholarship programs. A researcher researching 'SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship' today needs the CPRA application process, applied for through whichever of the three agencies best matches the proposed research area -- SSHRC for the social sciences and humanities.
NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship
There is no single 'NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship' program at the U.S. National Science Foundation. NSF funds postdoctoral researchers through a family of separately named, directorate- or division-specific fellowship competitions -- each with its own NSF publication number, solicitation, eligibility rules, term length, and stipend -- rather than one central award a researcher applies to directly. Current examples include the Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biology (PRFB, NSF 26-504), the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Ascending Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (MPS-Ascend), the Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (MSPRF), the SBE Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF), the NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowships (AAPF), the Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (AGS-PF), an Engineering Directorate postdoctoral fellowship, and the Innovative Postdoctoral Entrepreneurial Research Fellowship (I-PERF). All are individually held, individually competed awards -- the fellow, not their host institution, is the recipient -- which is the trait that distinguishes any of them from a postdoctoral researcher paid as staff out of a principal investigator's NSF research grant.
NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship
The NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship was the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada's individually held, individually competed award funding two years of mentored postdoctoral research in the natural sciences and engineering, providing the fellow with a stipend (most recently $70,000 per year) portable to an eligible Canadian or international host institution. NSERC has discontinued this standalone program: it has been folded, together with CIHR's and SSHRC's equivalent individual postdoctoral fellowship programs, into the jointly administered Canada Postdoctoral Research Award (CPRA) -- part of the Tri-Agency's new Canada Research Training Awards Suite (CRTAS), which also replaces the three councils' separate master's and doctoral scholarship programs. A researcher researching 'NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship' today needs the CPRA application process, applied for through whichever of the three agencies best matches the proposed research area.
Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
An ongoing, documented pattern of continuing education a research-administration or clinical-research professional completes after entering the field, used either to maintain an active professional credential (via a certifying body's mandatory continuing-education requirement) or, more generally, to keep current with an evolving regulatory and operational landscape. To count operationally, the activity must be tracked (hours/points logged against a reporting period), applied (submitted as evidence toward a recertification cycle, for credential holders), and relevant to the professional's field of practice.
NSF REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates)
An NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) award is either an REU Site — an independently proposed, competitively awarded institutional program (under NSF solicitation 23-601) that brings a cohort of undergraduates, typically 8–10 per year, to conduct mentored research over a defined period, most often an 8–10 week summer program — or an REU Supplement — additional funding added to a new, renewal, or already-active NSF research grant or cooperative agreement specifically to support undergraduate participants in that project's existing research. Eligible student participants must be U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, or U.S. permanent residents; each Site or Supplement runs its own application and selection process independently of NSF.
NRSA Stipend Levels
NRSA stipend levels are the fixed, NIH-mandated annual stipend amounts published (roughly annually, via a Notice in the NIH Guide) for individuals supported on a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award -- whether held as an individual fellowship (F30/F31/F32) or an institutional training grant slot (T32/T90/TL1). What determines the applicable level: career stage (predoctoral vs. postdoctoral) and, for postdoctoral trainees/fellows only, full years of relevant prior postdoctoral research experience at the time the award is issued. Predoctoral levels are a single flat rate regardless of year in the doctoral program; postdoctoral levels step up across eight tiers (Level 0 through Level 7+) by experience year. The published level is a floor the federal award must provide, not a ceiling institutions are barred from supplementing under NIH's own rules.
ABRF (Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities)
ABRF (Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities) is the U.S.-based, membership professional association for people who operate, direct, staff, or support shared research core facilities and other biotechnology resource laboratories -- it is not a facility, funder, or accrediting body itself. Organized in 1988 and formally incorporated in Delaware in 1989, growing out of a 1986 gathering of protein-sequencing core operators, ABRF today counts more than 4,000 members representing 400+ member laboratories and administrative offices across government, academic, industrial, and commercial settings. Membership and participation in ABRF's Research Groups, annual meeting, and journal is what distinguishes 'the ABRF community' from the broader population of core-facility staff generally -- someone who runs a core facility without ever engaging with ABRF is still a core-facility professional, just not part of this specific association.
Research fellowship
A research fellowship is a competitively awarded, individually held package of support for a defined program of research -- distinguished from staff pay on a principal investigator's grant, an institutionally-held training slot, or a titled faculty position by who holds the award and why, not by career stage or seniority. It funds a fixed period (commonly one to five years, depending on stage) of research, structured as a stipend, salary-replacement, or salary-plus-allowance package tied to the research itself rather than wages for institutional duties. The same test applies across career stages -- graduate/doctoral fellowships (e.g. NSF's GRFP), postdoctoral fellowships (e.g. NIH F32, NSF postdoctoral programs, MSCA), and senior/faculty fellowships (e.g. Guggenheim, ACLS, Fulbright Scholar) -- though the specific mechanics differ: predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowships are typically portable to a funder-approved host institution, while senior-stage fellowships more often fund a period of leave from an existing faculty position rather than a portable appointment.
F32 (NIH Postdoctoral Individual NRSA Fellowship)
An F32 is an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) individual fellowship that funds a postdoctoral researcher's own mentored training plan under a named faculty sponsor, typically at an institution other than the one that granted their doctorate. What makes an award an F32 rather than another NRSA/career-development mechanism: the applicant already holds a qualifying doctoral degree and applies directly for their own mentored postdoctoral training support -- as opposed to a predoctoral F31, an institution-held T32 training-grant slot, or a K99/R00 bridge-to-independence award that funds independent research once a faculty position is secured.
Letter of Reference (Academic and Research Careers)
A formal, signed endorsement of a specific researcher's qualifications, scholarly record, and professional character, written by someone with direct first-hand knowledge of that researcher's work and submitted at the request of a tenure and promotion committee, fellowship or award nominating body, or hiring committee -- distinguished from a letter of support, which endorses a proposed project rather than a person.
Postdoctoral fellowship
A postdoctoral fellowship is an award of research-training support that is individually competed for and held in the name of the doctorate-holder themselves -- typically with a named faculty sponsor or mentor -- rather than paid to them as staff out of a principal investigator's grant or held by their department as an institutional training-grant slot. It funds a fixed, time-limited period (commonly two to three years) of mentored postdoctoral research, usually via a stipend or salary plus a separate research/travel/relocation allowance, and because the award belongs to the individual rather than the institution, it is typically portable to a different funder-approved host institution. Examples include NIH's F32, NSF's family of directorate-specific postdoctoral fellowship programs, foundation fellowships (e.g. HFSP, EMBO, Damon Runyon), and the EU's MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships.
F31 (NIH Predoctoral Individual NRSA Fellowship)
An F31 is an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) individual fellowship that funds a doctoral student's own dissertation research training under a named faculty sponsor. What makes an award an F31 rather than another NRSA/career-development mechanism: the applicant is an individual predoctoral student (not a department), enrolled in a research doctoral program and at the dissertation-research stage, applying directly for their own mentored training support -- as opposed to a slot inside an institution-held T32 training grant, a postdoctoral F32/F30, or a career-development K award.
Canada Research Chair (CRC)
A Canada Research Chair (CRC) is a Tier 1 or Tier 2 professorship funded through the Government of Canada's Tri-Agency Canada Research Chairs Program (CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC) and held at an eligible Canadian postsecondary institution; only the institution, not the individual researcher, nominates a candidate for a chair, against a fixed allocation of chairs assigned to that institution.
Clinical Research Coordinator (CRC)
A Clinical Research Coordinator (CRC) is the site-based professional who manages the day-to-day conduct of a clinical trial at a single investigational site under the delegation and direction of the Principal Investigator (PI) -- screening and consenting participants, scheduling and conducting study visits, entering data into case report forms, and maintaining source documents and regulatory files in compliance with the protocol, Good Clinical Practice (GCP), and applicable regulations. A CRC is employed by the investigational site itself (a hospital, academic medical center, or dedicated trial site), not by the trial sponsor or a contract research organization (CRO) -- this employer/authority distinction is what separates a CRC from a Clinical Research Associate (CRA), who is sponsor/CRO-employed and independently monitors a portfolio of sites, including verifying the CRC's own source data, rather than executing day-to-day site operations.
Clinical Research Assistant
An entry- to early-career, site-based clinical trial support role that assists study staff with participant scheduling, data entry, specimen handling, and documentation under supervision -- without independent authority to monitor site compliance, review regulatory documents, or verify source data, which distinguishes it from a Clinical Research Associate (CRA).
Research fellow
A "research fellow" is a job title used inconsistently across academic systems for a doctorate-holder in a research-focused role -- and the two dominant conventions genuinely disagree. In UK/Commonwealth usage, it commonly names a distinct, more senior career grade on a research-only pathway that sits above the entry-level postdoctoral stage (research associate), may be fixed-term or open-ended depending on institution, and can carry a moderate amount of teaching and/or postgraduate supervision. In US usage, it is applied inconsistently: sometimes as a direct synonym for "postdoc" (especially for fellowship-funded, as opposed to grant-funded, positions), and sometimes for a more senior non-tenure-track research faculty rank distinct from the postdoc stage. The title alone does not reliably signal seniority across borders -- contract type, funding mechanism, and years post-PhD have to be checked directly.
Mentoring agreement
A documented (often written) understanding between mentor and mentee setting out the goals, frequency of meetings, mode of communication, scope of mentoring, expectations on both parties, confidentiality boundaries, and review schedule for the relationship.
Sponsorship relationship
A career-development relationship in which a senior researcher (sponsor) uses their social and political capital actively on behalf of a more junior researcher's career advancement — through nomination, recommendation, public advocacy, or introductions — going beyond the advisory dyad of mentorship.
Two-page narrative
A common page-limited narrative-CV format in which a researcher describes their contributions to research, people, and the wider community within a strict two-page limit, used in UKRI R4RI and several European national funder applications.
Diversity statement
A document — typically 1-2 pages — in which a researcher articulates their contributions to and plans for promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in research and teaching, increasingly required in US faculty job applications and some research-funding contexts.
Teaching statement
A document — typically 1-3 pages — in which a researcher articulates their philosophy of teaching, summary of teaching experience and approach, and evidence of teaching effectiveness, used in academic job applications and tenure cases.
Research statement
A document — typically 2-5 pages — in which a researcher describes their research programme: past contributions, current projects, and planned trajectory, written for academic job applications, fellowship applications, or research-evaluation exercises.
Personal statement
A short narrative section in a researcher's CV, biosketch, or grant application in which the researcher articulates in their own voice why they are qualified to undertake the proposed work, their career trajectory, and any contextual factors relevant to the assessment.
Biosketch
A short, structured biographical document used in US federal research grant applications (most notably NIH and NSF) summarising a researcher's qualifications, positions, contributions, and a curated subset of their outputs, in a tightly page-limited format.
Narrative CV
A researcher curriculum vitae format that uses prose narrative descriptions of contributions, career trajectory, and impact in place of (or alongside) traditional structured lists of publications, grants, and metrics, intended to give context to outputs and recognise broader research contributions.
Resume for Researchers (R4RI)
A structured narrative-CV format developed by the Royal Society (UK) which asks researchers to describe their contributions under four headings: contributions to knowledge generation; contributions to development of individuals; contributions to the wider research community; and contributions to broader society.
Career interruption
A near-synonym of career break used by some funders (notably the Royal Society and ERC) to denote a period of reduced or absent research activity due to defined personal circumstances; sometimes also used to include reduced-fraction working (less than full-time) rather than complete absence.
Career break
A documented absence from active research work of at least three months' duration arising from parental leave, caring responsibilities, illness, disability, military service, or other personal circumstances, recognised by funders as extending early-career-researcher eligibility windows pro-rata.
Supervisor (doctoral)
The academic appointed by an institution to guide a doctoral candidate's research, with formal responsibility for the academic quality of supervision, progress monitoring, ethical conduct of the research, and recommendation for examination, in accordance with the institution's doctoral regulations.
Sponsor (career)
A senior researcher or leader who actively advocates for a more junior researcher's career advancement — nominating them for opportunities, opening doors, vouching for them in evaluations — distinct from a mentor (who advises) by the action of using social and political capital on the mentee's behalf.
Mentee
A researcher (typically more junior) who receives career, intellectual, or professional guidance from a mentor in a defined or recognised mentoring relationship, distinct from a supervisee in that the relationship lacks formal evaluative authority.
Mentor
An experienced researcher who provides career, intellectual, or professional guidance to a less experienced researcher (the mentee), distinct from a formal supervisor in that the mentoring relationship is typically chosen rather than assigned, may cross institutional lines, and does not carry formal evaluative authority.
Co-investigator
A named investigator on a research grant, contract, or protocol other than the lead PI, who contributes substantive scientific expertise and shares responsibility for portions of the work, typically with a defined role in the proposal and a named budget allocation.
Principal investigator (PI)
The named individual on a research grant, contract, or protocol who is formally accountable for the scientific direction, ethical conduct, financial stewardship, and reporting of the research, typically holding a continuing academic or research-leader position at the host institution.
Research associate
A staff researcher (often post-doctoral, sometimes post-master's) employed in a role with substantive scientific contribution and a degree of intellectual independence, typically more senior than a research assistant but not yet an independent principal investigator.
Research assistant
A staff member employed to provide research support — data collection, literature search, analysis, administration — to a research project under the direction of a more senior researcher, typically without independent design authority over the project.
Master’s-level researcher
A researcher whose highest qualification is a master's degree (MSc, MA, MRes, MPhil, etc.) engaged in research work in a role appropriate to that qualification, distinct from doctoral candidates and from those with bachelor's-only qualifications.
Pre-doctoral researcher
A researcher engaged in research work prior to commencing a doctoral programme, typically in roles such as research assistant, lab technician, or research associate at the master's-equivalent level, where the position involves substantive research rather than only support tasks.
Doctoral candidate
A student enrolled in a doctoral degree programme (PhD, DPhil, EdD, EngD, MD, etc.) who is undertaking original research toward a thesis or equivalent capstone, under the supervision of one or more academic supervisors.
Postdoctoral researcher
A person who holds a doctoral degree (PhD or equivalent research/clinical doctorate) and is engaged in a temporary, full-time, mentored research or scholarly-training position -- commonly one to five years, most often two to four -- undertaken specifically to build an independent publication record, grant history, and research skillset before moving into a permanent faculty, industry, or other independent research role. What separates a postdoc from an ordinary staff researcher is this combination: doctorate already in hand, a defined non-permanent term, and an explicit developmental/mentored purpose rather than an open-ended production role.
Senior researcher
A researcher at an advanced career stage (typically 15+ years post-PhD) with a sustained record of independent research leadership, mentoring of multiple researchers to independence, substantial competitive funding history, and recognised disciplinary contribution.
Mid-career researcher
A researcher beyond the early-career window but not yet at senior leadership status — typically 8-20 years post-PhD with an established independent research programme, lab or group, and a track record of competitive funding and mentoring.
Early-career researcher (ECR)
A researcher within a defined number of years (typically 5-8) of their first doctoral degree, or — for researchers without a doctorate — within an equivalent period of full-time research practice, accounting for career breaks and part-time work.
