The ABC of research across career stages - Introduction

First of four posts on navigating the sometimes choppy waters of research (and academia) across career stages

Anne-Wil Harzing - Wed 26 Mar 2025 10:48 (updated Sat 10 May 2025 07:36)

We are all aware that research is a crucial element of our academic careers. But what we are often less clear about is how this plays out across the various career stages. So, in this series, I will take a bird’s eye view on what mindsets are needed to navigate research in different academic career stages. As such, I will not be focusing on detailed tips and tricks. However, below I have included further guidance for a wide range of topics related to research in the form of blogposts, videos and books.

Connections matter across all career stages

The above image gives you a quick overview of what we will be discussing in this series. The design is no coincidence: Connections, networks, and collaborations matter. These could be:

research collaborations,
being part of a team of PhD supervisors,
meeting other academics at conferences,
joining a special interest group, research cluster, or networks central to your demographic identity such as gender or ethnicity,
building your network of mentors,
or simply building up your network on social media.

Even though in academia we spend much of our time working on our own, the best research outcomes are usually achieved by interacting with others.

A marathon – not a sprint

Before I go through the various career stages, it is important to remember this: Academia is a marathon – not a sprint. This is especially important at ECR/MCR stage, but also at a late career stage. Your race isn’t run once you have reached a full professorship. It is just a different part of the marathon. First, research careers can span 4-5 decades. So just like with a marathon, the key is endurance and pacing yourself. Not everything needs to happen right now. Moreover, just like in a marathon different stages require different mindsets.

Second, everyone has a different reason for running a marathon. This may include personal growth and pushing yourself to overcome obstacles. Very few participants run a marathon to win. It is about realising your potential, there is no “one best model”. The same is true for academic careers. Marathon runners also have different starting points and abilities. Again, this is true in academia too: Even apart from demographic differences, those who – like me – were the first in their family to go to university have a different start than those growing up with family members who are academics. Likewise, those who – like me – grew up in a country where education was not only high-quality, but also largely free have a different starting point than those who had to work two jobs to go to university.

Third, persistence is key, both in marathons and as an academic. Yes, in academia, like elsewhere, it sure helps to be intelligent and lucky. But most of all being successful in research simply involves bloody hard work, as well as being persistent and resilient in the face of constant rejections. So, I would suggest you don’t scatter yourself too thin and focus on quality not volume.

Specific guidance

If you’d like to know more about navigating academic careers, my blog includes more than 450 postings on a very wide range of academic topics, including writing and publishing, impact and funding. You can find a structured overview of all postings here: Harzing.com blog posts by theme.

Moreover, my YouTube channel has more than 200 videos on different aspects of academic careers. Here are just a few examples.

Publishing: publishing in top journals, choosing your target journal, writing boot-camp series on how to avoid a desk-reject
Research impact: how to get cited, measuring research impact, Q&A on research impact, seven steps to impact, creating impact in little time
Research profiles: LinkedIn, ResearchGate and Twitter, Google Scholar Profiles, blogging, engaging with social media
Research skills: doing a literature review, research strategies & trade-offs, using the publish or perish software, publish or perish for literature reviews
Academic life: navigate academia as a PhD student, the UK REF, building a sustainable academic career, Q&A on working in academia and preparing effective promotion applications.
Improve your research profile: 8-part series on how to improve your research profile
WAIB interview, seven questions on my early work, publishing, and creating impact
Frontline IB interview, all sections of the interview: personal, scholar and mentor
Academic Woman interview, dealing with my career history, research interests, research culture and research mentorship.
Irish academy of management interview in two sections: inclusive academia and proactive academia.

Finally, I recently published five academic career guides that draw on my white papers and blogposts. This series is a collection of books dealing with various aspects of crafting your career in academia. You can find more information about each of them here:

These books are reasonably priced to make them accessible for individual academics, as well as universities who would like to bulk-buy books for their staff members. Here is a flyer with details for all five of the books that you can send to your Research Deans or University librarian.

All posts in this series

Related blogposts

academia behind the scenes positive academia research focus research interests publications research funding societal impact

Anne-Wil Harzing is Emerita Professor of International Management at Middlesex University, London. She is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business, a select group of distinguished AIB members who are recognized for their outstanding contributions to the scholarly development of the field of international business. In addition to her academic duties, she also maintains the Journal Quality List and is the driving force behind the popular Publish or Perish software program.

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