my name is Peter Fisk and I am the
author of put your science to work a
takech charge career guide for
scientists and uh I'm also the CEO of
pax water Technologies which is a
startup company in the San Francisco Bay
area in the United States and um a lot
of people ask me why I wrote the book
put your science to work and frankly it
was because my own job search was such a
struggle and so I um in the course of
doing my own job search put down in
notes all the things I was learning and
that turned into my
book well first of all in the United
States and it's certainly true in Europe
as well there is a sort of still
pervasive belief that most people who
get their phds stay in Academia for the
rest of their lives in the United States
fewer than 20% are still in Academia
after 10 years so in the United States
most phds go on to non-academic career
paths so that might be industry research
or it might be a wide range of career
fields in Europe there's a higher
fraction of people who end up and stay
in Academia but I think that we can
expect to see a greater fraction of phds
and the Sciences in particular move on
to non-academic career paths in Europe
in the
future well when I wrote the article
enterprising science um what I was
trying to get early career scientist to
think about is more than just an
academic career because of course you
can have a very productive academic care
career but there are a lot of other
links you can make outside of Academia
so for example um if you're interested
in how your research May connect to the
outside world a very um helpful activity
is actually trying to engage in some
professional Consulting now I know most
young scientists think well that's what
professors do that uh I'm just a grad
student or I'm just a postto but in fact
grad students and postdocs actually know
a lot of very specific and valuable
information as as many of them know
you're actually at the front of the
scientific Enterprise much more than
your advisor sometimes so I suggest that
Consulting is one way for people to
explore in the United States our
universities have realized that the
amount of research that we do uh is is
large and thus can be uh exploited and
commercialized and so in the United
States we have technology transfer
offices at most major universities and
these offices work with researchers to
help patent their discoveries and then
try to find a um a commercial entity to
perhaps license or even take the
technology and start a company with it
now what I also find is that a lot of
young scientists are also interested in
starting companies themselves and in
fact um I think Young scientists are in
a great place to start a company because
whereas the professor um may be the head
of the laboratory they've got a job but
the young scientist the grad student or
the postto you know they need jobs and
so actually taking a piece of technology
outside the laboratory outside the
university and and trying to actually
start a company can be a very exciting
um Prospect for
them you know um an MBA is a big
investment in time and uh I think that
each each person has to come to that
question on their own I think in the
United States we don't do a very good
job of preparing our phds with just the
basics of business education so for
example I don't think it's necessary to
give phds an entire MBA program but I
think for in as little as three or four
weeks a lot of phds could be exposed to
the basics of marketing uh Finance um as
well as the legal aspects of tech
transfer and I think that early career
scientists would be much better
empowered if they had that experience so
for example um if you are at a
university that does have an MBA program
maybe you can just you know sneak across
campus and sit in on a few classes you
may not necessarily need to um you know
actually enroll in a program to start
getting the benefits the other thing I'm
seeing is that more PhD uh sorry more
MBA programs are actually looking for
phds to partner so for example in the
United States uh the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology MIT has an
active program in entrepreneurship where
they have MBA students team up with PhD
students and in fact a number of very
successful companies have come out of
that
Enterprise well that's a great question
for every Young young scientist to ask
is what is the sort of the Innovation uh
culture at my University some
universities in in Europe and in Belgium
probably have very strong Innovation
cultures and one one sign would be is
there a track record of people starting
companies or licensing technology from
the University it's an easy question to
ask a department chair or a Dean um
another question would be is there a
business school uh associated with the
university because if there's a business
school they're business school students
and many of the students would be
interested in seeing how there could be
some potential commercialization of the
technology going on in the University um
and then I think another thing is
universities that are situated in urban
centers with a lot of commercial
activity tend to have more of an
advantage simply because there are more
um people around there's more financing
available um and so that's a trade-off
that you can look at in the United
States we have some very strong schools
that are you know in in rural settings
but I think some of our strongest uh
schools for technology commercialization
MIT Berkeley Stanford those schools tend
to be in urban centers where you have a
lot of local business people there to
help well there two programs that I'm
involved with that are really exciting
one um is called the Berkeley postto
entrepreneurship program and this
program was actually started by the
postdocs themselves uh and they were
recruited they were recruited me and
other business people because they were
eager to learn about the Practical
issues of Entrepreneurship and
ironically you know um they couldn't go
to the business school the business
school is full of business school
students so the enterprising postto
decided to essentially create a mini MBA
program for themselves and that's what
bpep is uh and so we every month have
have workshops we have a dayong um
intensive for people who are actually
working on starting companies and in
fact as we've done the census we find
many um post dos at UC Berkeley are
working on directly commercializable
technology and a significant fraction of
them are interested in starting their
own comp companies the other program is
called pipe and that's called the postto
industry exploration project and
literally what it is is 40 um post dos
getting a bus every month and they drive
over to a local company so 40 post dos
from UC Berkeley go to Google or to
Apple or to Bayer and they spend a day
um meeting management
visiting the uh manufacturing floor and
just learning learning about what the
industrial industrial world is like and
the interesting thing about pipe is
while it was supposed to be just an
exploration program a number of posts
have actually found opportunities just
in their daylong interaction with people
at companies both those programs started
by the postto themselves and I think
that's a really good sign when you see
young scientists um starting things on
their own that's Sometimes the best
indication that you have a vibrant um
entrepreneurial environment on
campus well you know I was in exact of
that situation and in fact it's it's
where everybody is when you're in grad
school you're doing good work you're
working hard you've got a professor and
you have very little connection with the
outside world my advice for people is to
follow um what I call the 801010 rule
80% of your time do the best work that
you can in the lab really try to to get
through your research do the best
research you can 10% of your work week
you should spend focused on your own
development you should try to take
classes outside of your research topic
area you should try to expand your
horizons and the final 10% of your work
week you should try to build your
network get outside the laboratory meet
people in other departments or
preferably people in the private sector
just the encounters and interactions you
have the questions you ask will open up
a whole range of New Opportunities and
the sooner you get started doing that
the better