March 5, 2025, by bbztlg
Embracing alternative academia
Dr Tania Cleaves is a Research Development Manager in the Faculty of Arts and continues to conduct research independently in her spare time. Her main message: you don’t have to choose between a non-academic career and your love of research. Both are possible, if you’re up for it.
My story
I’m in a role where I help academics develop and craft competitive external funding applications, and I love my job. It’s a great gig where I feel valued, and it works for my life. It wasn’t a path I had planned for or imagined for myself, however. When I completed my PhD in Art History here at University of Nottingham, back in 2008, I passed with no corrections and assumed the world was my oyster. I quickly learned that I was instead a little fish in a very big pond, and began scrambling for teaching contracts, postdoctoral opportunities, lectureships, and secondary school jobs – all while trying to publish from the thesis.
Career experiences
It took me three annual rounds of competition to secure my first postdoctoral fellowship, though I was lucky to get the second fellowship straight after the first. It was the latter fellowship, funded by the Wellcome, that led to my first monograph. But it didn’t result in what I had thought, for so long, was the main prize: a coveted permanent research + teaching contract. Instead I pivoted and went into research support, a growing profession that attracts many post-PhDs seeking a role that complements their research skills: critical analysis; absorbing large amounts of information with attention-to-detail; attending to processes and guidance; and hanging out with other academics.
The ‘return’
With a baby and a new job, I had little time to think about my research, and in many ways I felt ‘done’ after that first book, which truly felt like giving birth again – another labour of love. It wasn’t until my child reached the toddler years and I was settled at work that I noticed something new: an urge to take up a small tangent in the first book and explore it further. Motivated by a unique conference call that felt too good to pass up, for the first time in years I wrote an abstract. Writing the paper and conducting research again felt like I was dealing with unfinished business. I owed it to the subject, and to myself, to return to it. It felt amazing.
Alternative academia
Over the last few years, I have steadily – if slowly – been writing my second book in my spare time. It’s a very different beast to writing the first book, which is purely driven by perseverance (others might call this downright stubbornness). My time is exceedingly precious and I work with the natural ebbs and flows of the research and writing process, finding those moments ‘in between’ to read, take notes, plan and write. Conference calls work well as drivers because I use them as exploratory pieces of writing for early-stage research, and of course because they have a deadline! I love the idea of writing retreats but also short bursts of intense activity, balanced with quick searches for the next library book or small grant application to fund a research trip. (These do exist, even for independent scholars.)
Of course I don’t have to do it; I choose to do it. I’ve learned that it is worth it if you want to perform academic work in a different way. This is alternative academia: a ‘third space’ where you can embrace the space between what seems, on the surface, to be the polarised worlds of non-academic and academic work. I may not have a research component to my day job, but being a researcher enhances it immeasurably. It allows me to empathise with my main clientele, those academics who are equally finding key moments to conduct research and disseminate it.
Along with several colleagues from my former employer, the University of Birmingham, I am privileged to be part of an alternative academic HEI network in the UK. It is a supportive community for those in non-academic jobs within Higher Education who conduct research in their spare time. That sounds super specific, but you’d be surprised how many of us there are.
Modelling what is possible
I’ve had the opportunity to take up academic jobs in the past few years and decided not to, remaining within research support as my day job. A big reason for that is to model what is possible, that it doesn’t have to be ‘either/or’ but both. Two things can be true here: I can hold a non-academic job and still ‘be’ a valid researcher. I can continue to find joy in these two, complementary versions of myself – even as I struggle daily with the challenge of my other other identity as a parent. I invite you to consider what is possible for you as well.
If you’re coming to the end of your PhD journey or fixed-term contract and starting to freak out, I assure you that it’ll be okay. You have options, and ‘leaving’ academia isn’t failure. I myself see it as simply occupying an adjacent space.
Resources
If you’re starting to soul search and think about your next steps, there are lots of empathic experts out there who can help. My recommendation is to ensure you’re engaging with all the Researcher Academy has to offer when it comes to enhancing your skills. I also love Holly Prescott’s blog, especially on ‘academic adjacent careers’ if you’re keen to understand more. And if you identify with life as an alternative academic here at the University of Nottingham, I’d love to hear from you.
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