doctoral thesis stakeholder management

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Using stakeholder insights to enhance engagement in PhD professional development

Deepti Ramadoss

1 School of Medicine Office of Graduate Studies, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States of America

Amanda F. Bolgioni

2 Department of Medical Sciences & Education, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States of America

Rebekah L. Layton

3 Office of Graduate Education, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, United States of America

Janet Alder

4 Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology and School of Graduate Studies, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, United States of America

Natalie Lundsteen

5 Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States of America

C. Abigail Stayart

6 Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States of America

Jodi B. Yellin

7 Association of American Medical Colleges, Washington, D.C., United States of America

Conrad L. Smart

8 Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States of America

Susi S. Varvayanis

9 Graduate School, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States of America

Associated Data

De-identified data is made available in accordance to IRB approved protocols. These file are available from the Open Science Framework (OSF) database (DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/24SNV ).

There is increasing awareness of the need for pre- and post-doctoral professional development and career guidance, however many academic institutions are only beginning to build out these functional roles. As a graduate career educator, accessing vast silos and resources at a university and with industry-partners can be daunting, yet collaboration and network development are crucial to the success of any career and professional development office. To better inform and direct these efforts, forty-five stakeholders external and internal to academic institutions were identified and interviewed to gather perspectives on topics critical to career development offices. Using a stakeholder engagement visualization tool developed by the authors, strengths and weaknesses can be assessed. General themes from interviews with internal and external stakeholders are discussed to provide various stakeholder subgroup perspectives to help prepare for successful interactions. Benefits include increased engagement and opportunities to collaborate, and to build or expand graduate career development offices.

Introduction

Institutions of higher education hold myriad potential connections between pre- and post-doctoral researchers, faculty and administrators, internal university offices, industry partners, professional societies, and funding organizations. Internal university partnerships are vital, ranging from pre- and post-doctoral researchers and university faculty, to externally-facing communications and alumni development offices. University career and professional development (CPD) programs also develop and rely on external partnerships, particularly with programming and resources designed for pre- and post-doctoral researchers. While CPD programs understand that these partnerships improve the pre- and post-doctoral training experience, provide pipelines for entry of pre- and post-doctoral researchers into the workforce, and lead to synergies and collaboration, the full value of these relationships may not be completely understood to internal and external partners. Our work explores the foundational value of internal and external intersections and how to best leverage them to prepare pre- and post-doctoral researchers for the workforce. The aim is to more efficiently and successfully coordinate relationships that meet all stakeholders’ needs with a more thorough understanding of stakeholder objectives and the relative value of engagements.

This project is a spinoff of the National Institutes of Health Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training–NIH BEST [ 1 ] Consortium’s Annual Meeting, in 2018. The Consortium (funded 2013–2019) was comprised of programs at 17 higher education institutions challenged by the NIH to develop innovative approaches to prepare pre- and post-doctoral researchers for a wide range of careers in the biomedical research enterprise. The Consortium’s final Annual Conference (in 2018) explicitly invited collaborations, presentations, and conversations through joint programming with institutions beyond the Consortium–ranging from well-established pioneer pre- and post-doctoral professional development program institutions to newer and aspiring institutional programs interested in establishing professional development programs, as well as external private and non-profit collaborators. This research project emerged from the massively audacious goal identified by and adopted by the Blue Sky Visioning Mastermind Group that “all pre- and post-doctoral scholars have support and resources needed to explore and pursue all careers, and faculty and institutional leadership buy in to the importance of this mission.”

The goals of this publication are to bring awareness within the higher education community about various stakeholders that commonly engage with graduate CPD, shed light on stakeholder perceptions of career development and engagement, broaden the composition of engaged collaborations, and provide engagement tools. This information can help institutions and individuals quickly self-assess and visualize strengths/opportunities with stakeholders for the purposes of CPD at their institution, and, over the long-term, build stronger relationships and partnerships.

Defining stakeholders

The authors quickly realized that to attain their goal, a broad set of stakeholders would need to be consulted. Informed by the authors’ experience in industry relations and engaging with higher education, stakeholders were identified, classified, prioritized, and consolidated into a rapid tool for stakeholder engagement (see Methods ). Table 1 displays internal and external stakeholder classification groups and subgroups: internal stakeholders include pre- and post-doctoral researchers, faculty/administrators, and external-facing staff; external stakeholders include non-profit and society partners and industry employers. Each stakeholder subgroup was approached with a specific set of questions to explore their perceptions of graduate career education and professional development, as well as their motivations for engaging with any of the other stakeholder groups, ultimately seeking advice for how to best engage them in CPD programming. Descriptions of desirable and required skills, as well as resources to share with pre- and post-doctoral researchers were sought.

Internal stakeholders

The group that receives the most frequent focus from CPD professionals includes pre- and post-doctoral researchers. Fostering stakeholder engagement from pre- and post-doctoral researchers is critical for providing effective programming [ 2 ]. CPD programs less frequently look beyond pre- and post-doctoral researchers to engage a full spectrum of university stakeholders within their own ecosystem.

Foremost among them is the faculty. Data from the BEST Consortium indicated that a large majority of faculty are supportive of career training for various careers and have recognized that pre- and post-doctoral researchers participating in CPD activities were happier and making timely progress toward degree completion–a fact that can be used to recruit additional internal stakeholder engagement from faculty [ 3 – 5 ]. Faculty don’t always believe they have the knowledge or resources to assist pre- and post-doctoral researchers whose career interests lie outside academia, although they largely support their career pursuits [ 5 – 8 ]. Promoting transparency, encouraging the normalized need for career support, and recommending conversations to initiate CPD coaching will help bridge some knowledge and awareness gaps.

In addition to partnerships with internal communications, environmental health and safety, or research support offices for experiential opportunities, identifying internal collaborators with external-facing roles has the potential to reduce the need to develop de novo program components, to seed ideas that leverage each other’s networks and knowledge domains, and to overcome common roadblocks [ 9 ]. Cost-sharing on resources and events are an added benefit for engaging with internal partners (including student leaders) and opens doors for pre- and post-doctoral researchers to engage in on-campus job shadowing and internship opportunities for experiential learning [ 2 , 9 , 10 ]. Collaborations with alumni relations and development offices can dramatically expand the network of potential speakers and mentors [ 11 ]; it can also lead to coordinated fundraising campaigns for CPD initiatives. Moreover, establishing relations with other internal partners with external-facing roles in industry or federal relations, technology transfer, licensing, or research commercialization can amplify the skill sets of pre- and post-doctoral researchers seeking experiential learning opportunities in real-world settings [ 10 ].

External stakeholders

Efforts of career development professionals must simultaneously be internally and externally focused to fully understand the skills current pre- and post-doctoral researchers need to execute an informed transition into careers of their choice [ 12 ]. In addition, external focus identifies potential employers to build pipelines for these researchers, attract funding sources, access training opportunities to support their CPD, and increases visibility and accessibility of the resources offered by CPD programs. External stakeholders include partners and employers as seen in Table 1 . The categorizations in Table 1 are based on how CPD practitioners primarily interact with each group but can overlap with other categories, as many partners are also employers.

Stakeholders in external groups such as industry, non-profits and government agencies, including professional societies and associations, have long partnered with academia in disseminating research and technical training. They increasingly offer skill-building and career development opportunities via conferences and webinars to assist current pre- and post-doctoral researchers in the career selection process. Additionally, societies acknowledge multiple career options and wield positional influence to support culture change within academia.

A primary function of CPD programs is to strengthen the future workforce by preparing pre- and post-doctoral researchers for interaction with external stakeholders , ultimately, future employers. Therefore, the foci of these outward-facing efforts should be strategic to broaden networks and facilitate connections. Engaging external employer stakeholders in networking events, site visits, job shadowing, internships and panel discussions makes it possible for pre- and post-doctoral researchers to explore and test-drive various PhD careers [ 9 , 10 , 13 ]. This study provides what we hope are useful tools and insights to address all types of stakeholder engagement.

Stakeholder identification and engagement

Study design.

This study is intended as an exploration of a field, and an opportunity to observe emerging phenomena. The research team identified both internal and external stakeholder groups relevant to graduate CPD programs in order to further identify values that each stakeholder places upon bidirectional interactions to advance CPD for pre- and post-doctoral researchers. Common themes were identified through open-ended questions and unanticipated value propositions to develop potential approaches for improving interactions and methods of engagement between the university and potential partner organizations.

Data collection

Interviews offer a rich and robust capture of perspectives [ 14 ], providing in depth, open-ended responses and opportunity for dialogue between researcher and participant. Single-interaction, semi-structured interviews, conducted either in-person (before COVID-19), by phone, or online via Zoom, were used with standardized questions and optional probing follow-up questions as needed (see S1 File for complete interview question list). Once core questions were established, subsets of parallel but slightly amended questions relevant to each stakeholder group were developed. Due to privacy concerns, neither recording nor transcriptions were requested/approved for human subjects. Instead, interviewers took digital or manual live notes. In all interviews, verbal consent was sought from participants.

Recruiting/access to and selection of participants

Selection criteria for interview subjects were designed to be representative of identified stakeholder groups, with an initial goal of including 5–6 individual interview participants per stakeholder subgroup. External stakeholders initially included industry and non-profit/societies grouped together, but after the first few interviews, the research team discussed the difference in themes that arose from these interviews and arrived at the consensus to classify them as two distinct groups. Therefore, additional participants were recruited to ensure there were 5–6 participants for each of these subgroups.

Potential participants were identified by several means: by each interviewer independently, based on individuals known to the interviewers; referrals within and across the authors’ networks; or vetted Google searches. The invitation selection process considered a broad variety of types of organizations or groups based on stakeholder classification (see Table 1 ) and identified a sampling of individuals within a particular subgroup that included variety in perceived support for the premise, academic disciplinary background, education level, as well as across social identity categories including gender, race/ethnicity, and international status. Other factors considered included leadership/experience level, tenure in respective organizations, and any experience or interest in working at the interface of professional/career development for varying purposes. This background was not known for all and some were purposefully naïve or underexposed to CPD initiatives in higher education. A review of prospective participants’ general characteristics served to uncover similarities or duplications. Efforts were made to ensure that a variety of types of organizations were represented in each subgroup.

Conducting interviews

Once selected, prospective participants were invited by email to participate in a short 15-20-minute interview. The template invitation (see S2 File ) included a brief script of the study’s purpose and description, plus an overview of the questions to be asked. Interviewer and participant found a mutually convenient time and format (in-person, phone, or video conference call).

After identifying stakeholder groups and subgroups (see Table 1 and Discussion for the importance of flexibility and refinement), four interviewers conducted a total of 45 stakeholder interviews (of 55 invitations). Themes were collected separately for the groups that used the same sets of questions to differentiate responses (i.e. pre- and post-doctoral researchers versus faculty and administrators, external partners versus employers). Following the first round of interviews, one group had a higher sample size than the others, therefore, to keep group numbers roughly equal, target recruitment goals were updated to a minimum of eight interviews per subgroup (see S1 Table ).

Data analysis and interpretation/validity

A multi-stage process was used for data analysis and interpretation, including sorting of sensitizing concepts [ 15 ], and analysis and reduction of data through application of grounded theory [ 16 , 17 ], leading to the identification of emergent themes, hierarchical grouping, and concept categorization. One member of the research team who did not conduct any interviews was designated as coder. The coder and each individual interviewer reviewed and ’binned’ potential initial themes emerging from keywords and phrases, and separated text into categories using paraphrased concepts or the original words from each participant into each row of a spreadsheet with category column headings. This ongoing collaborative synthesis of data and collection of emergent themes contributed to the iterative data reduction and display process, including a process of contrast/comparison, and noting patterns and themes [ 18 ].

At the conclusion of coding of each interview, coder and interviewer reviewed the initial data-sorting and ’binning’ to ensure themes were appropriate and consistent with participant intent. With each subsequent interview within a stakeholder group ( internal , external ) and subgroup, themes were refined; new ’bins’ were created if the participant’s comments did not fit into an existing bin. If a response fit into two themes, then they were placed in both bins and coded as repeated. A second text review after all interviews were complete was conducted by the coder, with all authors working collaboratively in a process to establish inter-rater reliability. The team appraised the interviews in the larger context to make sure the original interview notes and emergent themes were not in conflict, still represented participant viewpoints, and to catch any themes missed in the first review. A final complete review by all authors prior to summation repeated this process through robust group discussion and collaborative decision-making [ 19 ]. All final themes and comments were reviewed and consolidated to assure researcher agreement on the accuracy of the themes and statements were selected to represent each theme.

Unique themes found in interview text were highlighted and reported as representative themes that arose when multiple instances of each theme occurred within a stakeholder subgroup.

Subjectivity/ethical issues/limitations

All interviews were conducted by researchers who are professionals in higher education (e.g., program directors, associate directors, assistant deans) strongly invested in CPD for pre- and post-doctoral researchers (within offices of graduate education, postdoctoral affairs, CPD programs, evaluation). All interviewers are professionally full-time employed women in the US, and the study team included US and international interviewers, both people of color, Asian, and White.

The possibility of selectivity bias exists, in opinions or stories shared by participants based on their roles, and in the selection of participants within individuals’ networks tending toward supporters of graduate CPD. To attain a balanced view of various stakeholder subgroup perspectives as well as in recruiting participants, three methods were used to avoid compounding selectivity bias: 1) a semi-structured interview style with pre-selected questions (see Recruiting). 2) explicit recruitment of “nay-sayers” as well as “supporters” of university/organizational partnerships and graduate career training. 3) Online searches to identify further participants beyond known networks (e.g. Google), as well as searches and requests to members of known networks (e.g. LinkedIn) to suggest individuals the authors had no previous connection to, who might not be interested in or knowledgeable specifically about graduate professional development, but were in positions related to industry-university engagement activities. Each interviewer conducted interviews with individuals they knew and those they had never met, from offices or organizations they were familiar with and those with which they had no prior knowledge. Specific inclusion of the question, “Do you follow the national conversation about career development and outcomes of PhD-trained scientists?” helped determine their level of awareness of the subject matter. Nonetheless, the authors recognize the need to interpret findings with caution and that they will not represent all possible viewpoints. The results should be viewed as pilot data to inform additional research.

All participants provided oral informed consent. Participant names are anonymized using pseudonyms and all data is de-identified prior to sharing in accordance with IRB approved protocols (Rutgers–FWA00003913 Study ID Pro2020222400; PittPRO STUDY19110306-I4; UNC IRB# - 19–3054; Boston University H-40210). Note that the pseudonyms were randomly assigned and their perceived ethnicity or gender is not intended to represent the individual participant. Any correlation with a theme and gender, race or ethnicity is purely coincidental. Demographics were gathered at the last step to fill in post-analysis to prevent unconscious bias or revealing of identity or demographics of any participant. In detailed results in S3 File , only pseudonyms are used, using the code in S2 Table .

Stakeholder engagement tool

The authors observed a gap between the perceived awareness of the variety of stakeholders and the ability to assess and capitalize on strengths of potential existing partnerships with internal and external stakeholders . To help rapidly assess the two, a tool was created. During the development of the stakeholder engagement tool, categories were refined based on discussion among the authors, their combined experiences working with various stakeholders, as well as a two-way influence of the interview process (the tool influencing the interviews, and the stakeholder perspectives from the interviews influencing refining the tool).

The authors first debuted the tool publicly during interactive workshops at sequential meetings of the 2020 international conference hosted by the Graduate Career Consortium. Input from conference attendees participating in that workshop helped question previous assumptions and helped to better describe how users would customize the tool.

Use of the stakeholder engagement tool

STEP 1: With your unit or collaborators, create a list of stakeholders—start with the suggested categories (see Table 2 below) and customize for your institution & geographic area by entering your own labels to tailor to your institution. Try to be specific (i.e. don’t say ’alumni office’ but rather, ’alumni association of Boston’). You can further break these down into lists of names and contact info. Note that engaging with naysayers/agnostics can be as valuable as engaging with your supporters to identify blind spots and valuable alternative perspectives.

STEP 2: Based on your institutional knowledge, take one or two minutes with your team to quickly rank your perceived level of engagement with the stakeholder groups in the first column. The authors encourage users to define their own Likert scale to calibrate the level of engagement or use the suggested Likert scale in Table 3 .

For analysis and interpretation of the stakeholder engagement tool, see the Results section.

A total of 45 individuals were interviewed by four interviewers ( S1 Table ). Consenting participants consisted of both men (42.2%) and women (57.8%). Participant demographics included US (71.1%) and international (28.9%); African American (15.6%), Asian (17.8%), White (62.2%), and Hispanic (4.4%). Participants were geographically diverse across the US, with interviewers accessing their own networks primarily across the Northeast, Southeast, and Midwest United States, but also extending geographic representation via national organization contacts and referrals.

Stakeholder organizations included public, private, and public-private hybrid institutions of higher education (some with medical schools); large and small companies in or serving the biotech, medtech or pharma industries; as well as foundations, non-profit organizations or business associations serving STEM fields. Major themes arising from each set of stakeholders are presented, with details available in S3 File .

Stakeholder 1 –Internal pre-doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers

Interviews ( S1 File ) probed attitudes towards devoting time to CPD. Responses from ‘frequent users’, ‘occasional users’, or ‘non-users’ of CPD programming were separated. Responses broadly had two flavors: support for CPD programs and their perceived benefits, or opportunities to improve ( Fig 1 ).

(a) Sankey diagram and (b) stacked bar graph representing the same data of the number of mentions for each theme representing benefits and challenges/opportunities to improve mentioned by frequent users, occasional users and non-users.

Support for and perceived benefits of CPD programs identified by pre- and post-doctoral researchers

Pre- and post-doctoral researchers find CPD affects productivity in a positive way and allows for CPD programming users to get a broad overview of resources (12 mentions or 12 M). Community-building advantages of professional development activities, e.g. bridging researchers across labs was discussed (11 M), highlighting confidence-building, cultural, and gender-based inclusivity that these programs can provide via intentional conversations and making role models prominent. This aligns with findings of a sense of community among those attending CPD training, especially in cohort or mandatory participation models [ 2 ]. The benefit of networking activities with hiring managers and recruiters outside academia was underscored. Advantages such as exposure to different career paths, allowing for informed decision-making (6 M), embedded/required CPD training providing consistent support and messaging (6 M), and prestige for recruitment (4 M) were raised.

Challenges or opportunities to improve identified by pre- and post-doctoral researchers

Pre- and post-doctoral researchers communicated their desire for consistent exposure to CPD activities throughout training (18 M). Centralized programming to equalize access to resources and institutionalize the concept of career development to facilitate faculty acceptance was viewed as necessary (5 M). Challenges around personal growth (4 M), and the express need for faculty permission (4 M) were identified.

For details, including representative comments for individual themes, see S3 File .

Stakeholder 2–Internal faculty and administrators

Participants answered the same questions as the pre- and post-doctoral researchers subgroup above ( S1 File ) focused on probing attitudes towards devoting time to CPD, and opinions of existing or hypothetical CPD opportunities. Themes that arose naturally divided participant responses into categories that were later identified as ‘enthusiastic supporter’, ‘cautious supporter’, and ‘non-supporter’ responses ( Fig 2 ).

(a) Sankey diagram and (b) stacked bar graph representing the same data of the number of mentions for each theme representing benefits and challenges/opportunities to improve mentioned by enthusiastic supporters, cautious supporters and non-supporters.

Perceived ‘benefits’ of CPD identified by faculty/administrators

The benefits of CPD activities identified by faculty and administrators acknowledged evolving training requirements and climate (12 M), with comments ranging from requirements for training grant applications to how participation in these activities can improve mental health. Faculty and administrators acknowledged institutional peer pressure nationally among top tier universities to provide these opportunities, and that as educators, they believe there is an obligation to provide these experiences.

Enthusiastic supporters acknowledged the limited availability of faculty positions, and the value of transparency of workforce outcomes of alumni (9 M). Less supportive respondents believe that professional development is not related to graduate education, that it de-emphasizes academia as a career path, and that individuals who leave academia cannot return. Enthusiastic and cautious supporters noted valuable effects of CPD programming, such as promoting career planning and gaining professional skill sets (6 M), and improved reputation of graduate programs (3 M).

Challenges or opportunities to improve identified by faculty/administrators

Multiple comments arose regarding early exposure to options, and the need for experiences tailored to each individual’s stage and priorities (17 M). Some faculty raised concerns and perceptions (13 M) such as the belief that CPD could be a distraction, and lengthen time-to-degree completion. Narrow definitions of professional development revolving only around academic skills (6 M) are among challenges observed by interviewees.

Stakeholder 3: External-facing staff (industry relations, tech transfer, communications, alumni relations and development)

Interviews with external-facing staff were guided by a different set of questions ( S1 File ). The goals of these questions were to identify with whom external-facing offices at institutions typically interacted, and around what topic(s) the majority of their interactions centered. While these offices are open to all institution affiliates, it is not known if the external contacts have an interest in STEM pre- and post-doctoral researchers.

Respondents in external-facing offices interact with small and large businesses and foundations (8 individuals), investors (4 individuals), alumni (3 individuals), inventors (2 individuals), and innovation centers (2 individuals). These respondents often wear several hats, and interact with many other affiliates and identities including experts, educators, presenters, business development and intellectual property professionals, an institution’s business school (e.g. on consulting projects), grateful patients, hospital systems, government, and professional organizations. It is of note that the themes below do not include a federal relations point of view ( Fig 3 ).

Bar graph representing the number of mentions of each theme.

Reasons to engage with industry identified by external-facing offices

Bringing the voice of the market to academic research is a strong motivation for interactions between industry and academia (16 M). Building partnerships between the two (11 M) has several benefits such as fundraising, increasing awareness of internship programs, and co-creation of curriculum content, and furthermore, provides long-term relationships and resources. External-facing staff are motivated by the possibility of fundraising or financial support (10 M) for the institution, as well as the perceived benefit to pre- and post-doctoral researchers (4 M).

Reasons external stakeholders engage with academia identified by external-facing staff

A recurring theme that emerged was the perceived interest of external stakeholders in early access to emerging technologies and innovations (18 M). External stakeholders are believed to be keen to assist in developing an entrepreneurial mindset (11 M), such as instilling skills to better serve both researchers and the workforce more broadly, with an external-facing staff member referring to a joint research brief on entrepreneurial mindset, Ernst & Young & Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship [ 20 ], and to reports published by the EU Commission [ 21 ] and World Economic Forum [ 22 ]. External-facing staff also identified external stakeholders’ keen desire to create connections to faculty expertise (8 M), to have a venue for talent identification (6 M), an interest in providing scholarships/grants, or to fund programs (5 M), and paying it forward by means of creating opportunities (3 M).

External stakeholders’ interest in STEM pre- and post-doctoral researchers identified by external-facing staff

While STEM knowledge was discussed as important, business acumen and experience were deemed as the distinguishing features of a successful industry applicant (10 M). Creating an expertise or talent pipeline (10 M) motivates external companies to interact with external-facing offices at institutions. The mutual benefit to multiple stakeholders (10 M) and the desire to support student needs (4 M) are perceived to be the sustaining power of these relationships.

External-facing staff’s additional thoughts

External-facing staff were eager to share suggestions for researchers to better prepare for their careers (11 M), such as being prepared to learn on the job independently, trusting critical thinking, and relying upon other transferrable skills developed in training. Based on their experience, external-facing staff provided suggestions regarding CPD programming, such as the need for new perspectives on training (6 M), ensuring one point of contact (4 M), and including an alumni engagement role (3 M).

Stakeholder 4: External partners–societies, foundations, non-profits

Interviews with societies, foundations, and non-profits indicated that there were many partnerships and exchanges of service through which they interact with academia including: networking and community building, providing resources for honing career skills, generating scholarship and publications, facilitating advocacy, providing feedback and advice, and creating funding opportunities.

Discussion with the stakeholders from societies, foundations and non-profits brought new themes to light. These highlight many available resources that are not always accessed by institutions. The most common reason societies, foundations, and non-profits provided for wanting to engage with academia was to build relationships to connect academics with the mission of their organization ( Fig 4 ).

Bar graph representing the number of mentions of each theme for themes mentioned 3 or more times.

External partner organizations’ engagement with academia

Building relationships (16 M) was a large motivator for societies, foundations and non-profits to interact with academia, as is the prestige, recognition, and public visibility (8 M) that comes with interacting with prestigious academic institutions. This engagement is also seen as a catalyst for connections and knowledge (5 M).

Societies, foundations, and non-profits resources to offer

Societies and foundations have several scientists on staff possessing a wide range of expertise and perspectives as a resource to offer (6 M), as well as varied online resources and guides (4 M), experiential learning opportunities (4 M), and self-exploration tools (2 M).

A few challenges faced by external partner organizations mentioned included limited funding (4 M), connecting with target audiences (3 M), and creating flexible, creative models along with the need for culture change (3 M).

External partner organizations’ view of career preparedness improvements

The need for pre- and post-doctoral researchers to develop and broaden their skills and learning approach (11 M) was discussed frequently. Advice such as taking early initiative (8 M), improving self-efficacy and growth mindset (6 M), learning to listen with humanity and broaden diversity (4 M), making use of networking opportunities (2 M), and getting involved in professional societies (1 M) were provided, alongside the idea of defining one’s own success (1 M).

External partners’ view of engaging with academic institutions

Non-profit and society stakeholders are keen to engage and disseminate their resources, and encourage institutions to coordinate on-campus visits (5 M), or organize for researchers to engage with them off campus (2 M). Some challenges discussed included the difficulty to integrate their offerings into training (2 M), their ability to engage at all levels with academic institutions (2 M), the perception that the wrong people make decisions regarding these partnerships (1 M), and the need for more industry mentors (1 M).

Stakeholder 5 –External employers–small and large companies, intellectual property firms, consultancies, accelerators

External employers interviewed for this study include representatives of large pharmaceutical, biotech, government or national labs, consulting firms, intellectual property firms, policy or communication organizations as well as small business/start-ups, accelerators and boutique consulting agencies.

Types of engagement already in place with universities include: recruiting events, career fairs, tours/site visits, case studies/workshops, serving on advisory boards for curriculum development, and internships. A key goal for this kind of engagement is to maintain relationships.

This representative sampling of interviews with external employer stakeholders revealed additional themes and underscored themes already brought to light in the previous interviews ( Fig 5 ).

Reasons why industry external stakeholders engage with academia

Companies desire being involved in professional development programs, as it helps recruit and broaden their reach (8 M), and are keen to build long-term relationships (5M), often facilitated by an alumna/us acting as the liaison. There appears to be a need for bidirectional partnerships (4 M), and advisory and feedback roles (3 M).

Training and collaboration industry-academia partnership benefits

The modes of interaction between industry and academia include alumni working with their alma mater (8 M). Increasing awareness of industry’s resources to develop academia’s complementary skills was discussed (6 M), as well as advice to pre-doctoral and post-doctoral researchers to learn industry-relevant skills (4 M), recalibrate what is considered important in job functions (3 M), and make use of grants and academic collaborations (3 M).

An important aside arose that if a company’s needs are already met, they admitted to not seeking out interactions with academia.

Differing priorities and organizational complexities–Challenges with industry

Challenges to industry interactions with academia include distrust due to perceived differing values (5 M), as well as a lack of a single point of contact at academic institutions (3 M).

External industry employers’ views on challenges with pre- and post-doctoral researcher preparedness

Understanding career options, industry culture, and priorities (8 M) are considered critical to being a successful industry applicant. The need for pre- and post-doctoral researchers to develop skills such as good communication (8 M), present experience and motivation appropriately to employers (7 M), and increase focus on relationship building and collaborations (5 M) are seen as crucial skills for success in industry. The need for faculty culture change (4 M) to improve CPD relationships with industry was also discussed.

How to encourage industry professionals to interact and visit campus

Several companies are glad to visit or interact with academic institutions upon receiving invitations, ideally by pre-doctoral or post-doctoral researchers (6 M), while some prefer attending high-impact events (3 M), match-ups (3 M), or hosting site visits at the company (1 M). Industry representatives advise academic leaders to be open-minded to industry (3 M), and mention the challenge of limited time and resources to engage with academia (1 M).

The vast majority of large and small external employers interviewed were unaware of the national conversation about career development and outcomes of PhD-trained scientists.

Stakeholder engagement tool purpose, use, and opportunities for action

A stakeholder engagement tool was created for practitioners to rapidly assess and identify with which stakeholder group they are primed to interact most efficiently. The tool can help practitioners quickly focus on existing strengths at their institution on which they can rely, as well as on areas of improvement and possible links to approach stakeholders strategically. Coupled with the themes found in the interview data, a targeted approach can be developed to improve stakeholder engagement.

The stakeholder engagement tool is fully customizable to reflect local organizations with whom to partner and those that already might have existing relationships. A 360-degree view of perceived stakeholder engagement can be quickly determined by encouraging colleagues around campus to fill out the tool. The resulting scores will inform discussion across offices to see where perceptions align and where there might be differences in scores. Since the tool is quick and easy to use and automatically creates a visual output by summing scores in each quadrant of the ensuing graph (representing internal pre- and post-doctoral researchers, faculty/administrators; external-facing staff; external partners; and external employers) practitioners gain a quick, holistic view of their engagement.

To interpret the output of the stakeholder engagement tool, use the Excel file ( S5 File ; Note: Please download the Excel file to view proper format) which automatically sums each quadrant. The scores toward the left or right of the plot indicate areas of focus externally (right, blue and grey) or internally (left, orange and red). The top half of the plot reveals information on internal/external users (in orange and blue), the lower half on internal/external partners (in red and grey). The sums in each quadrant indicate the relative strength in each stakeholder group (top left: internal stakeholders such as graduate students or faculty; top right: external stakeholders such as employers; bottom left: internal partners such as licensing office; and bottom right: external partners such as professional societies).

This is a self-reflection tool to identify areas of individual network engagement and areas for potential development. The more the sectors are filled to the outside of the circle, the more perceived relative engagement there is. Based on how you define your Likert scale (see suggested scale in Methods ), the score for the relative engagement may reflect representation of stakeholders belonging to each group, as well as frequency and quality of interactions between stakeholders. For example, the CPD office may only have one or two stakeholders in a given stakeholder group, but you might meet with them often and they might be extremely influential and enthusiastic about supporting CPD programs for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. Moreover, it is important to engage with and address the concerns of naysayers, as this will add value to overall CPD operations and help to launch more successful programming.

In the example ( Fig 6 ), the internal stakeholders are visually a strength, especially graduate students, and there appears to be room for increased engagement with certain external stakeholders such as intellectual property firms.

A rapid assessment tool for internal and external stakeholders to evaluate competencies and determine strengths for engagement in career and professional development programming. Detailed instructions for entering values are in Methods, and interpretation can be found in Results. [see S5 File to download and use the stakeholder engagement tool and view proper format: https://osf.io/fc27x/?view_only=b166987514234b718d8457778651534f ].

There are three basic approaches to action as a result of filling out the stakeholder engagement tool.

• Evaluate competencies. Using this stakeholder engagement tool, start conversations in your group to identify a shared framework to address areas of strength and growth. Choose 1–3 areas to connect with stakeholders (some might be linked or be in one quadrant). Identify the decisions to be made and develop an action plan based on these linked competencies; for example, local companies and an accelerator/incubator might provide more opportunities around entrepreneurial career paths for postdocs.
• Identify challenge areas. Look at the chart to identify three barriers to potential growth in stakeholder engagement (lowest scores, to the inside of the circle). Low scoring areas should be evaluated for feasibility and potential actions to take (or non-relevancy). These areas might form the basis for discussion of methods to overcome challenges. Pay attention to challenges pertaining to diversity among stakeholder networks, and reflection of stakeholder diversity as it pertains to the trainee population, such as international/domestic participants, gender or gender identities, and race/ethnicity. For example, conversations with your industry relations office, national labs and a trade organization might spark ideas; perhaps there are no business/tech parks nearby so a virtual site visit might increase interactions.
• Map your strengths. In looking at the chart, identify three strengths (points reaching most to the outside of the circles). Look for strengths in each quadrant of users, internal/external partners, and employers. Identify key individuals in these areas and bring them together with your team to discuss next steps for engagement; for example, pre-doctoral researchers, career services and professional society representatives might meet to brainstorm ideas.

Common themes

When considering the diverse stakeholder groups, common themes emerged across the different internal and external groups. Themes that reappeared across the various stakeholders suggest that these topics should be priorities for CPD practitioners when attempting to engage broadly.

Individuals from all interviewed stakeholder groups recognized the value of CPD activities for pre- and post-doctoral researchers, despite different perspectives on similar concepts, with individual participants varying in levels of enthusiasm and commitment. For instance, there is a distinct need for CPD programs across stakeholder groups, who engage for varying reasons. Among internal stakeholders , most pre- and post-doctoral researchers believe these activities benefit their career growth, many faculty and administrators believe the programs strengthen researcher career development and benefit their mental health, and all external-facing offices are keenly aware of both the value to pre- and post-doctoral researchers and how these activities generate interest among external stakeholders . External partners and employers desire that researchers are well-prepared when entering the workforce, and encourage CPD programs to partner with them on program development. Notably, external partners develop many resources to aid CPD activities for pre- and post-doctoral researchers and encourage them to be involved and to use these resources.

Networking, making connections, partnering, and collaborating are seen as crucial aspects of CPD across all stakeholder groups. Pre- and post-doctoral researchers are interested in opportunities to build and grow their networks to help form their future careers, and faculty/administrators understand this to be critical to researcher development. Non-profits and foundations encourage non-prescriptive models for graduate learning, which could open the doors for more engagement across stakeholders, and industry partners offer assistance in developing programming and internship opportunities. Financial arrangements can be mutually beneficial: universities can benefit financially from industry interactions to support their research, and collaborative commercialization of research benefits industry. Additionally, external stakeholders are interested in connecting with academic institutions to have early access to emerging science and technology, develop partnerships to grow their own priorities, and build a talent pipeline. External employers also showed keen interest in collaborating with faculty, and recommend that academics engage with industry partners on joint publications to help highlight these partnerships in the media [ 23 ], and facilitate culture change regarding opinions on industry collaborations.

The timing and content of CPD activities was another important focal point with multiple subgroups (pre- and post-doctoral researchers, external-facing staff, external partners and employers) suggesting the need for integrated, persistent, embedded, and flexible access to these activities. In particular, pre- and post-doctoral researchers suggest that there is a need for consistent exposure to CPD throughout training, including by some infrequent users who believe that this programming should be woven into the curriculum for maximal benefit, as is common in professional schools. Historically, the common opinion was that pre- and post-doctoral researchers should focus on their careers after they complete their training, but this is not ideal as it delays the workforce pipeline [ 9 ]. In addition, some faculty stakeholders do not see the value of CPD activities and expressed some concern about the time their pre- and post-doctoral researchers dedicate to these activities. However, recent evidence-based research has shown that participation in internships, career development programming, K-12 outreach programs or IRACDA programs does not lead to increased time to degree or decreased productivity [ 3 , 24 – 26 ]. Pre- and post-doctoral researchers, faculty/administrators and external partners all noted the value of flexible programming to encourage pre- and post-doctoral researcher engagement. All stakeholders pointed to the need to remain informed about the needs of both researchers and the workforce when planning, designing, and executing CPD activities.

An important challenge identified by pre- and post-doctoral researchers, external-facing partners, and external stakeholders was the need to expand the purview of scientific training to include skill development for a variety of careers. Alongside this, these stakeholders comment on the challenge of normalizing CPD activities in the larger context of training, and the need to help academic leaders (e.g. faculty and administrators) understand that academic career preparation is only a part of CPD, and that other types of skill development are necessary, as they are complementary and important to the success of their pre- and post-doctoral researchers. For example, developing self-efficacy is extremely beneficial to researchers when approaching their CPD [ 2 , 27 ]. Relatedly, requiring faculty approval to participate in professional development activities can present a barrier to participation and reinforces the cultural stereotype that professional development is outside of the normal expected activities of a pre- and post-doctoral researcher. Despite federal agencies [ 28 ], clarifying that pre- and post-doctoral researchers’ skill development is critical, the concept of career exploration has not permeated to all faculty and administrators–it is evident that for successful CPD implementation, practitioners need to be active in outreach and engagement with internal faculty [ 5 , 9 ] and administrators. CPD offices should work to identify new strategies for conveying their services and value to develop faculty/administrator buy-in, e.g. more evidence-based research to convey the program’s benefits. Knowing the culture of local faculty and their attitudes toward CPD can help strategically design programs that will yield the highest number of participants [ 9 ].

Among other challenges discussed, one key challenge noted was the identification and implementation of streamlined methods to access or connect with the right resources or people. Pre- and post-doctoral researchers report struggling to identify resources at their institutions, suggesting the need for a centralized institutional CPD hub, while external-facing staff commented on not knowing the appropriate people within academic institutions with whom to connect their external contacts. External stakeholders recommend universities have a visible “one-stop shop”, to encourage external partners or employers to connect with them. Additionally, external stakeholders note that it is critical for a graduate career office to have strong engagement between past and present CPD practitioners, to ensure continuity of relationships with the various stakeholders.

A disconnect was revealed specifically for external stakeholders who are unaware of the national conversation about CPD activities, suggesting that practitioners at academic institutions should more frequently intermingle in industry settings and more broadly disseminate their findings to external stakeholders , perhaps at industry conferences.

The authors’ knowledge of internal stakeholders allowed them to engage with a spectrum of users of CPD services including frequent users, occasional users and non-users, as well as a range of faculty/administrators showing enthusiastic, cautious or no support for CPD activities. The variety of internal stakeholders interviewed resulted in valuable conversations to identify where CPD practitioners can improve. For example, pre- and post-doctoral respondent interviews cited requiring an increased awareness of their needs and purpose for engagement to better align existing CPD opportunities and guide new ones, while faculty/administrator interviews highlighted perceptions of CPD offices, identified concerns, collected suggestions on tailored experiences and exposures, and identified the need for clearly defined CPD. It appears valuable for CPD practitioners to have a clear understanding of internal stakeholders ’ needs and concerns to create effective programming. Simultaneously, university staff who engage with external stakeholders share similar interests to CPD offices that include supporting and giving advice to pre- and post-doctoral researchers. Hence collaborations with these partners can provide valuable external stakeholder perspectives.

In summary, common themes across all stakeholders are shown in S6 File . Many emerging common themes centered on a tailored approach to CPD programs. For example, while most stakeholders acknowledged the need for CPD, the desired timing and content of programming aligned with individual specific needs. This further accentuates the need for creating streamlined access, discussed by most stakeholders.

Stakeholder engagement

The stakeholder engagement tool was debuted at an international meeting of CPD practitioners to demonstrate how to evaluate and plot to extend their networks in a targeted and structured way. Feedback from university-based users included surprise to learn the number of partners that could be leveraged by sometimes small, understaffed offices tasked with serving large populations of graduate students and postdocs. Subsequently, the tool’s value was expanded to address diversifying not only the roles, sectors, and stakeholder groups existing within one’s network, but also who and which social identities or wide varieties of lived experiences were represented among those contacts. Newly identified partnerships across campus as well as in the local community were seen as options not previously considered, including (but not limited to; see S4 File for more examples) partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), as well as Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), Latinx and other groups, serving those who have been historically excluded and underrepresented in science (e.g., persons excluded due to ethnicity or race [ 29 ]). Benefits cited by meeting attendees included the rapid ability to identify a wide variety of stakeholders with whom to work and partners to increase opportunities for their pre- and post-doctoral scholars.

An added value identified by participants was the quick analysis of potential barriers to growth in stakeholder engagement that could guide future discussions to overcome challenges. The tool was also cited as useful because it was designed for customization to each institutional setting, e.g. whether appropriate for recruiting industry partners in the local area if high density of contacts is available regionally, or fitting to explore ways to connect across a university that is a large, decentralized behemoth. Templates for how to reach out to potential partners were also reported to be useful. Of course, the tool is intended only as a first step in engaging stakeholders. More research and time investment is needed to determine the exact person to reach out to at various organizations if no existing partnerships exist, but the process is intentionally step-wise so that over time more stakeholders can be involved in CPD to benefit all parties. The tool serves as a way to focus on strengths of existing relationships, hone in on partners to include in discussions, or optimize outreach to spark new collaborations across stakeholders, rather than to identify specific challenge areas or strengths within a stakeholder group. We would advocate to first use the tool as a preliminary screen to identify which stakeholder categories to focus on. Informed by these themes identified through our interviews, CPD offices can then follow up with stakeholders to develop strong partnerships. Should the stakeholder engagement tool indicate that increased interactions with faculty or university administrators is warranted, that might stimulate conversations among CPD offices, department chairs and deans, to better inform faculty of the advantage of transferrable skills for all careers. These actions will help promote culture change in academia and reinforce awareness of the range of career options beyond academia available to PhDs.

CPD practitioners should consider engaging with both alumni and future employers as key stakeholders. Alumni are one of the most accessible external stakeholders for graduate career development work. The personal experience of alumni in the workforce provides critical input for assessing skills required by employers and to inform curriculum changes [ 2 , 9 , 12 ]. Furthermore, alumni connections are valuable for establishing external partnerships. Individual institutions vary in their ability to cultivate and engage alumni, influenced greatly by the existence of an alumni relations office with active engagement strategies, for example, social media sites and accessible directories [ 10 , 11 ].

Finally, the process of identifying external employer stakeholders as well as engagement opportunities should include strategic consideration of the location of the institution. For example, universities located in urban areas with a high concentration of biopharma companies might develop mechanisms to promote pre- and post-doctoral researchers’ biomedical expertise, valuable to local external stakeholders [ 10 , 30 ]. More isolated universities might organize a conference or trek to a more biotech-rich area [ 10 , 23 ].

Limitations and future directions

Faculty and administrators were sampled from a wide variety of roles, ranging from rank-and-file faculty; through departmental leadership such as Chairs, Associate Deans, and other leaders; through leaders in graduate and postdoctoral education such as Deans of Students. Nonetheless, we acknowledge the importance of identifying unique themes and perspectives that may arise for Provosts, Presidents, Chancellors, and other high-level university-wide leadership roles which are crucial to setting strategic aims, funding, and program priorities. The current sample did not include a large enough subset of high-level leaders to analyze the data separately, and future directions of research could include examining this group of administrators specifically.

External stakeholders were sampled from a variety of roles in industry and non-profit employers including small and large companies, intellectual property firms, consultancies, and accelerators. While this study did not specifically sample alumni as a stand-alone stakeholder group, some external stakeholder individuals (e.g., For-Profit, Non-Profit/Society) were incidentally alumni of the institutions represented. Still, we realize it is important to include the voice of recent PhD and postdoctoral alumni for their understanding of how their training affected their employability, how their industry sector views PhDs, and their retrospective views of their careers. This is especially of interest since they are role models for our current students and postdoctoral researchers, and are now potentially in hiring positions. Alumni are a very strong stakeholder group to engage with, as they are eager to give back to their institution, are invested in the institution, and directly experienced programs and the various stakeholders involved in the programs. Hence, investigating this stakeholder group would be extremely useful as a future research topic.

Further analyses that merit additional attention include examining unique themes arising through intersectional identity groups (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity, international/domestic status, among others). Unfortunately, sample sizes within each stakeholder group were not large enough to examine these important differences; however, this is an important topic for additional work to consider.

Another useful future analysis would be to ask stakeholders to rank which challenges represent the biggest barriers, a function that was not queried in this study’s interviews. Such a ranking would assist CPD offices to prioritize resources to overcome challenges.

Though our research interviewed only people currently residing in the U.S., the importance of CPD globally should not be understated. A recent report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) representing a coalition of 38 nations also emphasized the need for tracking PhD alumni career outcomes to help understand where the programs can increase their CPD, as postdoctoral researchers are outgrowing the number of tenured or permanently employed academic positions in many countries [ 31 ]. The importance of CPD and culture change around CPD is critical not only for the U.S. but also globally, and future research could garner more insights from a global perspective, although we recognize that the one-size fits all approach wouldn’t apply to all countries.

Conclusions

This study brings to light fundamental career and professional development (CPD) concepts that span the various internal and external stakeholder groups interviewed. Learning from these opinions is valuable, and can help form recommendations in the creation, design, and sustenance of effective CPD activities at individual institutions.

This study also presents the stakeholder engagement tool, which can be used for rapid self-analysis of practitioners’ networks to assess strong stakeholder relationships and areas where the practitioner can strengthen their network. Coupled with the various themes from interviews with 45 internal and external stakeholders across the country in various roles, graduate career practitioners can use the themes presented as discussion points to interact with their own stakeholders to prepare for potential meetings with new contacts. Meaningful and targeted engagement with various stakeholders is key to create and sustain successful graduate and postdoctoral CPD programs.

Supporting information

Funding statement.

This work was supported by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Guidance for Trainees [CGT025] ( https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bwfund.org%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cdeepti.ramadoss%40pitt.edu%7C70f047ae361445cf2e1b08d9c5d2fb33%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C0%7C637758333513545052%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=LCoaETVuHImoupB%2FEQCCp%2BTS%2BZaReZm9FBmcRHfkSTU%3D&reserved=0 ) (DR), National Institutes of Health [DP7OD020322] ( https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nih.gov%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cdeepti.ramadoss%40pitt.edu%7C70f047ae361445cf2e1b08d9c5d2fb33%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C0%7C637758333513545052%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=zijFvu9h2EVOjSfrvYuZqWGM47CaHA1rE7P%2BVc4Pah0%3D&reserved=0 ) and Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Career Guidance for Trainees [1018849] ( https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bwfund.org%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cdeepti.ramadoss%40pitt.edu%7C70f047ae361445cf2e1b08d9c5d2fb33%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C0%7C637758333513545052%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=LCoaETVuHImoupB%2FEQCCp%2BTS%2BZaReZm9FBmcRHfkSTU%3D&reserved=0 ) (AFB); National Institutes of Health [DP7OD020317] https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nih.gov%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cdeepti.ramadoss%40pitt.edu%7C70f047ae361445cf2e1b08d9c5d2fb33%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C0%7C637758333513545052%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=zijFvu9h2EVOjSfrvYuZqWGM47CaHA1rE7P%2BVc4Pah0%3D&reserved=0 ) and National Institute of General Medical Sciences [1-R01GM140282-01] ( https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nigms.nih.gov%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cdeepti.ramadoss%40pitt.edu%7C70f047ae361445cf2e1b08d9c5d2fb33%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C0%7C637758333513545052%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=Ov7fbmaQgul6IdBM3NMR8ucsBwBkBCOHjkcqqbt6LLs%3D&reserved=0 ) (RLL); National Institutes of Health [1DP7OD020314] ( https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nih.gov%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cdeepti.ramadoss%40pitt.edu%7C70f047ae361445cf2e1b08d9c5d2fb33%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C0%7C637758333513545052%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=zijFvu9h2EVOjSfrvYuZqWGM47CaHA1rE7P%2BVc4Pah0%3D&reserved=0 ) (JA); University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences ( https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/education/graduate-school/ ) (NL); National Institutes of Health [DP7OD020316] ( https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nih.gov%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cdeepti.ramadoss%40pitt.edu%7C70f047ae361445cf2e1b08d9c5d2fb33%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C0%7C637758333513545052%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=zijFvu9h2EVOjSfrvYuZqWGM47CaHA1rE7P%2BVc4Pah0%3D&reserved=0 ) (CAS); National Institutes of Health [DP7OD18425] ( https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nih.gov%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cdeepti.ramadoss%40pitt.edu%7C70f047ae361445cf2e1b08d9c5d2fb33%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C0%7C637758333513545052%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=zijFvu9h2EVOjSfrvYuZqWGM47CaHA1rE7P%2BVc4Pah0%3D&reserved=0 ) (SSV) The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Data Availability

• PLoS One. 2022; 17(1): e0262191.

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PONE-D-21-26337Using Stakeholder Insights to Enhance Engagement in PhD Professional DevelopmentPLOS ONE

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Reviewer #1: Congratulations to the authors on an important and timely paper. This research was very well designed and written, and the paper was a pleasure to read. The figures were well developed and informative and the interpretation of data was meaningful.

While not material to accepting this article I do have a couple of questions and comments which I think would strengthen your data or should be considered:

1. The inclusion of PhD graduates 5-10 years out as a stakeholder group (i.e. not postdocs) from different career paths would have been a valuable data source. Those working in industry could have provided some interesting responses regarding the value of CPD in their workplace, how their training affected their employability, the view of their colleagues/ industry on PhDs and the choices they would have made in retrospect. Those still in academia, similarly would have had interesting responses that perhaps would be slightly different to the senior academics interviewed regarding career needs and training.

2. Despite the pandemic, global mobility of research graduates is an expectation and as such it would have been good to see more of a recognition of the "international" conversations about career development and outcomes of PhD and the international competitiveness of universities globally which are offering well developed CPD in their programs. The implementation of CPD into PhD programs has global momentum and this is beginning to influence student recruitment and industry partners wishing to employ graduates; so it is important to recognise this.

3. As the data suggests, there is still a need for both education and culture change in faculties for academic advisors to understand the idea that career paths are very different from their graduate days, that the concept of leaving academia forever is no longer as binary and that CPD in career and transferable is essential for both academic and industry careers It would have been great to touch on this more about how this could also be addressed by universities (and is it being done already?) so that the use of your tool could be better implemented by these stakeholders.

Overall, a lovely paper, thank you for your submission.

Reviewer #2: PONE-D-21-26337, titled "Using Stakeholder Insights to Enhance Engagement in PhD Professional Development" by Ramadoss et al., outlines the benefits of identifying and engaging different groups of internal and external stakeholders in developing, institutionalizing and communicating value of career and professional development (CPD) for STEM pre-doc and postdoc scholars. In this article, authors develop and utilize a stakeholder engagement visualization tool to inform strategy, priorities and approaches to action for CPD practitioners. As highlighted by the authors, identifying different stakeholders, understanding incentives of engagement and priorities of each is important especially for practitioners in small offices with fewer resources. Also, the attention given to perspectives of stakeholders from diverse demographic backgrounds, who may belong to underrepresented and historically excluded groups is noteworthy. The article is valuable for CPD practitioners in a field that’s growing fast and would benefit from consistent approaches and best practices. I recommend approval with following suggestions and considerations for revisions and improvement.

Major comments

1. Narrative: The authors primary audience are CPD practitioners and their internal stakeholders. According to me, the narrative needs to balance two primary goals: 1. communicating importance of stakeholder engagement to inform and direct CPD efforts, and 2. benefits of utilizing the stakeholder engagement visualization tool. The authors need to better outline the second goal. The result section communicates the importance of stakeholder engagement to inform and direct CPD efforts through text analysis of interview responses. However, the visualization tool itself needs more introduction and context within the text (either in methods or results). Figure 6 was confusing for me. I wish the instructions within the figure 6 were embedded in the text of the article for the reader. The output of the visual seems to corelate to number of stakeholders in each groups and level of engagement. However, I was confused by mention of topics and quadrants. When I hovered on parts of the visual, I could see “A” or “S” but didn’t know what topics “A or S” indicate.

2. Perspectives of institutional leaders as key internal stakeholders: Authors mention graduate deans and provosts are potential stakeholders for consideration. The study would benefit from including graduate deans’ perspective. This is especially important as equitable access and institutionalizing CPD comes up multiple times as a theme. While faculty chairs perspective is important, graduate deans have the agency to develop structures and policies, as well as allocate resources to make CPD more accessible and embedded within graduate programs. Their perspective of CPD is a key piece of this puzzle. Similarly, perspectives of representatives from Vice President for Research and/ or Provost division is important for institutionalizing CPD for postdoctoral training for equitable access beyond training grant recepients.

3. Approaches to action: In the discussion section, authors highlight the benefits of this engagement resource and utilizing and customizing the tool to create approaches to action. They also summarize some shared themes and incentives across stakeholder groups. To strengthen that point, I would recommend creating a figure with graphic representation of shared themes and ranked barriers or challenges.

Minor comments

4. Specific guidance and considerations for URM perspectives: Authors indicate percent of interviewees who belong to different racial-ethnic demographic and international population. Given the intersectional identities, could authors draw how many of the interview participants would identify as “under-represented” in their field of study or employment and how their perspectives may provide dimensions to strengths and challenges of CPD? I bring this up as authors provide a good list of identities to consider in each stakeholder group. However, how should CPD practitioners utilize those perspectives to examine nuances to balance with broad priorities. E.g. one interview participant highlights importance of CPD in recruitment of talented graduate students. Studies indicate that CPD is particularly important in recruitment, retention, success and wellbeing of early career scientists from under-represented and historically excluded groups. I wonder whether there’s a scope to analyze the data from this lens after aggregation and making specific recommendations and considerations in ‘approaches to action’. Offering specific guidance on approaching overlapping and distinct themes emerging from perspectives of under-represented and historically excluded stakeholder groups will further highlight the importance of this approach and tool for diverse stakeholders in graduate education, beyond CPD practitioners.

5. How are alums positioned within internal and external stakeholder populations? Authors focused on distinct sets of interview questions for internal and external stakeholders. However, alumni are an interesting population and may provide key perspectives for both sets of questions. Authors could recommend a customized hybrid interview questionnaire for alumni which draws from both internal and external stakeholder interviews. In fact, the alumni survey questions in CGS PhD Career Pathways Project presents a similar hybrid scenario spanning retrospective reflection as a PhD graduate and perspective as a professional.

Reviewer #3: This paper details a sound methodology for engaging with stakeholders in researcher career development that aims to assist graduate career educators to navigate relevant networks internal and external to their academic institution. By engaging internal-facing networks the methodology allows possible supporters and non-supporters of the career and professional development of researchers within an academic setting to be identified and challenges and opportunities to be identified. The external facing internal stakeholders and external stakeholders all provided feedback on the need for CPD in order to facilitate the future career development of pre- and postdoctoral researchers outside of academia.

In contrast with the very complete description of the stakeholder engagement methodology, the stakeholder visual engagement visualization tool is very scantily described. The authors claim that the tool "is quick and easy to use" without revealing exactly how the visualized data is collected. For example, it is not clear if the scores relate to the number of stakeholder belonging to each group or the quality of their comments or the quality of their support for CPD or of the ease that graduate career educators can access stakeholders from the relevant groups. In Figure 6 "Faculty agnostics/nay-sayers" have a score higher than "faculty supporters", which seems unlikely for quality based responses. Also it appears that "Faculty supporters" is given the color for the wrong quadrant "Employers". Without a description of what the scores represent, it is not clear how the rapid tool can be used to identify challenge areas and strengths. As only stakeholder groups are scored, and not specific challenges and strengths, it is hard to see how this stakeholder visual engagement visualization tool can compete with the time-intensive process described in the rest of the paper that delivers exactly those results. I recommend that the authors resubmit the paper with an improved description of the visualization tool.

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Author response to Decision Letter 0

19 Nov 2021

Editor’s Comments:

E1. Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Your manuscript addresses an important yet underserved topic in higher education. Overall, the manuscript is very well written, and methods and limitations are appropriately described. However, and as mentioned by reviewers, minor revisions, particularly in describing the tools/graphs, need to be made to improve this submission. We look forward to receiving your resubmission.

EA1. We thank you for your feedback, and have addressed the revisions requested, described below.

E1.1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and

EA1.1. Thank you for these templates; we have formatted the manuscript as per PLOS ONE style templates.

E1.2. In your Data Availability statement, you have not specified where the minimal data set underlying the results described in your manuscript can be found. PLOS defines a study's minimal data set as the underlying data used to reach the conclusions drawn in the manuscript and any additional data required to replicate the reported study findings in their entirety. All PLOS journals require that the minimal data set be made fully available. For more information about our data policy, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability .

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http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories . Any potentially identifying patient information must be fully anonymized.

EA1.2. Thank you for pointing this out. Relevant underlying data are available in our OSF folder. We have clarified this in our updated Data Availability statement below.

Minimal underlying de-identified data is presented in the results and figures. Additional clarifying de-identified data, in accordance with IRB approved protocols and in accordance with PLOS guidelines for qualitative data, is available as Supplemental Information (S3 File, S6 File) available from the Open Science Framework (OSF) database ( https://osf.io/fc27x/?view_only=b166987514234b718d8457778651534f )

E1.3. Please ensure that you refer to Figure 1-6 in your text as, if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the figure.

EA1.3. Thank you for this instruction: we have now included references to Figures 1-6 in the text.

E1.4. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

EA1.4. Thank you. As far as we are aware, none of the references in our reference list have been retracted. However, per review, we have included one new reference, and edited citations of two references.

The new reference was included to address a comment raised by Reviewer#1 in R1.2: OECD. Reducing the precarity of academic research careers. OECD Science, Technology and Industry Policy Papers. 2021.

Two edited references include:

[3] Brandt et al. 2021 – we had originally cited the preprint paper, which has subsequently been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

[15] Blumer 1954 – as the citation was not appropriately formatted.

Reviewer #1:

R1. Congratulations to the authors on an important and timely paper. This research was very well designed and written, and the paper was a pleasure to read. The figures were well developed and informative and the interpretation of data was meaningful.

RA1. Thank you very much. We are glad to hear that our research topic resonates with you, and that the figures and interpretation were valuable.

R1.1. While not material to accepting this article I do have a couple of questions and comments which I think would strengthen your data or should be considered:

RA1.1. Thank you for your insightful comments. Though some of the external stakeholder group members were alumni of the authors’ respective universities we did not intentionally approach the group of alumni PhD graduates who are 5-10 years out for their insights. Reaching out to this population for their insights on how their training affected their employability, the view of their colleagues/industry on PhDs, and the choices they would have made in retrospect would be extremely insightful for our next paper! We have added your suggestion into our newly added “Limitations and Future Directions'' section of the Discussion:

“External stakeholders were sampled from a variety of roles in industry and non-profit employers including small and large companies, intellectual property firms, consultancies, and accelerators. While this study did not specifically sample alumni as a stand-alone stakeholder group, some external stakeholder individuals (e.g., For-Profit, Non-Profit/Society) were incidentally alumni of the institutions represented. Still, we realize it is important to include the voice of recent PhD and postdoctoral alumni for their understanding of how their training affected their employability, how their industry sector views PhDs, and their retrospective views of their careers. This is especially of interest since they are role models for our current students and postdoctoral researchers, and are now potentially in hiring positions. Alumni are a very strong stakeholder group to engage with, as they are eager to give back to their institution, are invested in the institution, and directly experienced programs and the various stakeholders involved in the programs. Hence, investigating this stakeholder group would be extremely useful as a future research topic.”

R1.2. Despite the pandemic, global mobility of research graduates is an expectation and as such it would have been good to see more of a recognition of the "international" conversations about career development and outcomes of PhD and the international competitiveness of universities globally which are offering well developed CPD in their programs. The implementation of CPD into PhD programs has global momentum and this is beginning to influence student recruitment and industry partners wishing to employ graduates; so it is important to recognise this.

RA1.2. We appreciate your insights on the inclusion of international career and professional development into this manuscript. Though all of our interviewees currently reside within the U.S., a number of them received their PhDs from outside of the U.S. and some mentioned the career and professional development programs in countries where they received their PhD training. We recognize the importance of including international PhD CPD within the manuscript and have added your insights into our newly added “Limitations and Future Directions'' section of the discussion:

“Though our research interviewed only people currently residing in the U.S., the importance of CPD globally should not be understated. A recent report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) representing a coalition of 38 nations also emphasized the need for tracking PhD alumni career outcomes to help understand where the programs can increase their CPD, as postdoctoral researchers are outgrowing the number of tenured or permanently employed academic positions in many countries [31]. The importance of CPD and culture change around CPD is critical not only for the U.S. but also globally, and future research could garner more insights from a global perspective, although we recognize that the one-size fits all approach wouldn’t apply to all countries.”

[31] OECD (2021), OECD Science, Technology and Industry Policy Papers: Reducing the precarity of academic research careers, OECD Publishing, Paris, #113, doi, (accessed on 18 October 2021).

R1.3. As the data suggests, there is still a need for both education and culture change in faculties for academic advisors to understand the idea that career paths are very different from their graduate days, that the concept of leaving academia forever is no longer as binary and that CPD in career and transferable is essential for both academic and industry careers It would have been great to touch on this more about how this could also be addressed by universities (and is it being done already?) so that the use of your tool could be better implemented by these stakeholders. Overall, a lovely paper, thank you for your submission.

RA1.3. Thank you for bringing up this important point that an increasing number of universities are embracing. We agree that, if after using the tool to identify weaknesses it is determined that a focus on certain stakeholders such as faculty or university administrators is warranted, we hope it might stimulate conversations among CPD offices and department chairs and deans to better inform faculty of the advantage of transferrable skills for all careers. To address these points in the manuscript we have improved the description of the tool use in the Methods and Results as described below for Reviewers 2 and 3 and added the following specific to this point to the Discussion:

“Should the stakeholder engagement tool indicate that increased interactions with faculty or university administrators is warranted, that might stimulate conversations among CPD offices, department chairs and deans, to better inform faculty of the advantage of transferrable skills for all careers. These actions will help promote culture change in academia and reinforce awareness of the range of career options beyond academia available to PhDs.”

Reviewer #2:

R2. PONE-D-21-26337, titled "Using Stakeholder Insights to Enhance Engagement in PhD Professional Development" by Ramadoss et al., outlines the benefits of identifying and engaging different groups of internal and external stakeholders in developing, institutionalizing and communicating value of career and professional development (CPD) for STEM pre-doc and postdoc scholars. In this article, authors develop and utilize a stakeholder engagement visualization tool to inform strategy, priorities and approaches to action for CPD practitioners. As highlighted by the authors, identifying different stakeholders, understanding incentives of engagement and priorities of each is important especially for practitioners in small offices with fewer resources. Also, the attention given to perspectives of stakeholders from diverse demographic backgrounds, who may belong to underrepresented and historically excluded groups is noteworthy. The article is valuable for CPD practitioners in a field that’s growing fast and would benefit from consistent approaches and best practices. I recommend approval with following suggestions and considerations for revisions and improvement.

RA2. We thank the reviewer for these insightful comments and welcome these suggestions for improvement to add value and make the article clearer. We have addressed the need for clarification in the manuscript as noted below each comment.

R2.1. Narrative: The authors primary audience are CPD practitioners and their internal stakeholders. According to me, the narrative needs to balance two primary goals: 1. communicating importance of stakeholder engagement to inform and direct CPD efforts, and 2. benefits of utilizing the stakeholder engagement visualization tool. The authors need to better outline the second goal. The result section communicates the importance of stakeholder engagement to inform and direct CPD efforts through text analysis of interview responses. However, the visualization tool itself needs more introduction and context within the text (either in methods or results). Figure 6 was confusing for me. I wish the instructions within the figure 6 were embedded in the text of the article for the reader. The output of the visual seems to corelate to number of stakeholders in each groups and level of engagement. However, I was confused by mention of topics and quadrants. When I hovered on parts of the visual, I could see “A” or “S” but didn’t know what topics “A or S” indicate.

RA2.1. Thank you for helping prompt us to better outline the benefits of using the stakeholder engagement visualization tool and to clarify the interpretation method. As a result, we have made significant additions to both the Methods and Results sections to better clarify the steps to use the stakeholder engagement tool and its interpretation respectively. We could not replicate what the reviewer saw when hovering on the visual, but we have replaced the interactive Excel stakeholder tool file which should hopefully fix that situation. Also, a note has been added to download the file in Excel in order to view and use the tool properly.

“Note: Please download the Excel file to view proper format.”

The following has been added to the Methods:

“Use of the stakeholder engagement tool

STEP 1: With your unit or collaborators, create a list of stakeholders--start with the suggested categories (see Table 2 below) and customize for your institution & geographic area by entering your own labels to tailor to your institution. Try to be specific (i.e. don't say 'alumni office' but rather, 'alumni association of Boston'). You can further break these down into lists of names and contact info. Note that engaging with naysayers/agnostics can be as valuable as engaging with your supporters to identify blind spots and valuable alternative perspectives.

STEP 2: Based on your institutional knowledge, take one or two minutes with your team to quickly rank your perceived level of engagement with the stakeholder groups in the first column. The authors encourage users to define their own Likert scale to calibrate the level of engagement or use the suggested Likert scale in Table 3.

Table 2: Suggested stakeholders

Internal stakeholders/users faculty supporters, faculty agnostics/nay-sayers, admin staff, graduate

students, postdocs

Internal partners career services, industry relations, licensing office, communications

office, alumni office

External partners economic development, chamber of commerce, trade organizations,

professional societies, funders

Employers foundations/non-profits, local companies, accelerators/incubators,

intellectual property firms, biopharma

Table 3. Suggested Likert scale

0 No interaction, little/no idea whom to contact

1 Have a short list of contacts, need to reach out, little/no personal connection

2 Reached out to one or more stakeholders, a few productive discussions

3 Know of and work with groups/people to engage, occasional activities together

4 Our offices/institutions/companies engage on a semi-regular basis

5 Well established, regular two-way engagement

For analysis and interpretation of the stakeholder engagement tool, see the Results section.”

Additionally, the following has been added to the Results:

“To interpret the output of the stakeholder engagement tool, use the Excel file (S5 File; Note: Please download the Excel file to view proper format) which automatically sums each quadrant. The scores toward the left or right of the plot indicate areas of focus externally (right, blue and grey) or internally (left, orange and red). The top half of the plot reveals information on internal/external users (in orange and blue), the lower half on internal/external partners (in red and grey). The sums in each quadrant indicate the relative strength in each stakeholder group (top left: internal stakeholders such as graduate students or faculty; top right: external stakeholders such as employers; bottom left: internal partners such as licensing office; and bottom right: external partners such as professional societies).

This is a self-reflection tool to identify areas of individual network engagement and areas for potential development. The more the sectors are filled to the outside of the circle, the more perceived relative engagement there is. Based on how you define your Likert scale (see suggested scale in Methods), the score for the relative engagement may reflect representation of stakeholders belonging to each group, as well as frequency and quality of interactions between stakeholders. For example, the CPD office may only have one or two stakeholders in a given stakeholder group, but you might meet with them often and they might be extremely influential and enthusiastic about supporting CPD programs for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. Moreover, it is important to engage with and address the concerns of naysayers, as this will add value to overall CPD operations and help to launch more successful programming.

In the example (Fig 6), the internal stakeholders are visually a strength, especially graduate students, and there appears to be room for increased engagement with certain external stakeholders such as intellectual property firms.”

Figure 6 legend has been adjusted to read:

“Fig 6: Stakeholder engagement tool. A rapid assessment tool for internal and external stakeholders to evaluate competencies and determine strengths for engagement in career and professional development programming. Detailed instructions for entering values are in Methods, and interpretation can be found in Results. [see S5 File to download and use the stakeholder engagement tool and view proper format: https://osf.io/fc27x/?view_only=b166987514234b718d8457778651534f ]”

R2.2. Perspectives of institutional leaders as key internal stakeholders: Authors mention graduate deans and provosts are potential stakeholders for consideration. The study would benefit from including graduate deans’ perspective. This is especially important as equitable access and institutionalizing CPD comes up multiple times as a theme. While faculty chairs perspective is important, graduate deans have the agency to develop structures and policies, as well as allocate resources to make CPD more accessible and embedded within graduate programs. Their perspective of CPD is a key piece of this puzzle. Similarly, perspectives of representatives from Vice President for Research and/ or Provost division is important for institutionalizing CPD for postdoctoral training for equitable access beyond training grant recipients.

RA2.2. Thank you for this excellent point. While our sample did include graduate deans, we did not include university-wide leaders such as Provosts, Presidents, or Chancellors. We fully agree that a larger and more robust sample of institutional leadership would likely yield unique themes, and we agree that this is a limitation of our sample. Hence in the newly added “Limitations and Future Directions” section of the discussion, we have added the following:

“Faculty and administrators were sampled from a wide variety of roles, ranging from rank-and-file faculty; through departmental leadership such as Chairs, Associate Deans, and other leaders; through leaders in graduate and postdoctoral education such as Deans of Students. Nonetheless, we acknowledge the importance of identifying unique themes and perspectives that may arise for Provosts, Presidents, Chancellors, and other high-level university-wide leadership roles which are crucial to setting strategic aims, funding, and program priorities. The current sample did not include a large enough subset of high-level leaders to analyze the data separately, and future directions of research could include examining this group of administrators specifically.”

R2.3. Approaches to action: In the discussion section, authors highlight the benefits of this engagement resource and utilizing and customizing the tool to create approaches to action. They also summarize some shared themes and incentives across stakeholder groups. To strengthen that point, I would recommend creating a figure with graphic representation of shared themes and ranked barriers or challenges.

RA2.3. Thank you for this suggestion. We have added as a supplemental file a summative list of themes that spanned stakeholders and referenced it in the discussion. This document of shared themes was collated based on the number of mentions of each theme across stakeholders. Therefore, we have added the following text to the discussion and added S6 File:

“In summary, common themes across all stakeholders are shown in S6 File. Many emerging common themes centered on a tailored approach to CPD programs. For example, while most stakeholders acknowledged the need for CPD, the desired timing and content of programming aligned with individual specific needs. This further accentuates the need for creating streamlined access, discussed by most stakeholders.”

Regarding the ranked barriers or challenges, our interviewing process did not determine a priority of each stakeholder’s input, but this is an excellent idea for future work to include in interviews as a feature to the questionnaire. We therefore have added the following text to the “limitations and future research” section:

“Another useful future analysis would be to ask stakeholders to rank which challenges represent the biggest barriers, a function that was not queried in this study’s interviews. Such a ranking would assist CPD offices to prioritize resources to overcome challenges.”

R2.4. Specific guidance and considerations for URM perspectives: Authors indicate percent of interviewees who belong to different racial-ethnic demographic and international population. Given the intersectional identities, could authors draw how many of the interview participants would identify as “under-represented” in their field of study or employment and how their perspectives may provide dimensions to strengths and challenges of CPD? I bring this up as authors provide a good list of identities to consider in each stakeholder group. However, how should CPD practitioners utilize those perspectives to examine nuances to balance with broad priorities. E.g. one interview participant highlights importance of CPD in recruitment of talented graduate students. Studies indicate that CPD is particularly important in recruitment, retention, success and wellbeing of early career scientists from under-represented and historically excluded groups. I wonder whether there’s a scope to analyze the data from this lens after aggregation and making specific recommendations and considerations in ‘approaches to action’. Offering specific guidance on approaching overlapping and distinct themes emerging from perspectives of under-represented and historically excluded stakeholder groups will further highlight the importance of this approach and tool for diverse stakeholders in graduate education, beyond CPD practitioners.

RA2.4. We agree that this is an important issue for future directions of research in this area. Sample sizes of subgroups in any particular intersectional category of race/gender ethnicity with a given stakeholder group were too small to allow for additional analyses. We have added the following in the newly added “Limitations and Future Directions” section:

“Further analyses that merit additional attention include examining unique themes arising through intersectional identity groups (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity, international/domestic status, among others). Unfortunately, sample sizes within each stakeholder group were not large enough to examine these important differences; however this is an important topic for additional work to consider.”

R2.5. How are alums positioned within internal and external stakeholder populations? Authors focused on distinct sets of interview questions for internal and external stakeholders. However, alumni are an interesting population and may provide key perspectives for both sets of questions. Authors could recommend a customized hybrid interview questionnaire for alumni which draws from both internal and external stakeholder interviews. In fact, the alumni survey questions in CGS PhD Career Pathways Project presents a similar hybrid scenario spanning retrospective reflection as a PhD graduate and perspective as a professional.

RA2.5. We agree that alumni perspectives would provide a rich strata of additional data, and while some alumni of author institutions were incidentally included in the sample, doctoral alumni status was not probed separately. This would be an excellent inclusion for future work – and may even merit additional questions beyond either current trainees or the stakeholder group that their later sector of employment falls into – or perhaps a combination of both sets of questions could be illuminating. Accordingly, we have added the following into the newly created “Limitations and Future Directions” section:

Reviewer #3:

R3. This paper details a sound methodology for engaging with stakeholders in researcher career development that aims to assist graduate career educators to navigate relevant networks internal and external to their academic institution. By engaging internal-facing networks the methodology allows possible supporters and non-supporters of the career and professional development of researchers within an academic setting to be identified and challenges and opportunities to be identified. The external facing internal stakeholders and external stakeholders all provided feedback on the need for CPD in order to facilitate the future career development of pre- and postdoctoral researchers outside of academia.

RA3. Thank you for this comment, we are glad you found these strengths of the paper to be valuable.

R3.1. In contrast with the very complete description of the stakeholder engagement methodology, the stakeholder visual engagement visualization tool is very scantily described. The authors claim that the tool "is quick and easy to use" without revealing exactly how the visualized data is collected. For example, it is not clear if the scores relate to the number of stakeholder belonging to each group or the quality of their comments or the quality of their support for CPD or of the ease that graduate career educators can access stakeholders from the relevant groups. In Figure 6 "Faculty agnostics/nay-sayers" have a score higher than "faculty supporters", which seems unlikely for quality based responses. Also it appears that "Faculty supporters" is given the color for the wrong quadrant "Employers". Without a description of what the scores represent, it is not clear how the rapid tool can be used to identify challenge areas and strengths. As only stakeholder groups are scored, and not specific challenges and strengths, it is hard to see how this stakeholder visual engagement visualization tool can compete with the time-intensive process described in the rest of the paper that delivers exactly those results. I recommend that the authors resubmit the paper with an improved description of the visualization tool.

RA3.1. We agree that the description of the Stakeholder Tool could be expanded. First, we now better describe usage of the tool and clarify that indeed the tool identifies the level of perceived interactions with stakeholders in different groups and included a suggested Likert scale; further, we have described how strengths and challenges can be identified to expand networks in areas that are found to be proportionally less represented in one’s network. We apologize for the lack of instructions regarding the tool – we could not replicate the color error, but we have replaced the file with the stakeholder tool which should hopefully fix that situation. Also, a note has been added to download and view the file in Excel in order to view the figure properly. As a result of these helpful comments we have accordingly added to the methods, results and discussion clarifying text (as also noted under reviewer #2). In addition, we clarify what the scores relate to with the following text in the Results:

We thank our reviewer for indicating that the interviews and stakeholder engagement tool are not mutually exclusive. The tool is not meant to identify challenge areas or strengths within a stakeholder group, but rather serves as a way to focus on strengths of existing relationships, hone in on partners to include in discussions, or optimize outreach to spark new collaborations across stakeholders.

We would advocate to first use the tool as a preliminary screen to focus on particular stakeholder categories and follow up to develop strong partnerships with stakeholders informed by the themes we have identified through our interviews. To address this very helpful suggestion, we have included the following text in the Discussion:

“The tool serves as a way to focus on strengths of existing relationships, hone in on partners to include in discussions, or optimize outreach to spark new collaborations across stakeholders, rather than to identify specific challenge areas or strengths within a stakeholder group. We would advocate to first use the tool as a preliminary screen to identify which stakeholder categories to focus on. Informed by these themes identified through our interviews, CPD offices can then follow up with stakeholders to develop strong partnerships.”

We thank you for your consideration of our revised manuscript, and look forward to hearing from you regarding your decision.

Sincerely yours,

Deepti Ramadoss, PhD

Assistant Director for Training, Assessment, and Career Exploration

Email: [email protected] ● Phone: (412) 383-5246

Submitted filename: Response to reviewers.docx

Decision Letter 1

20 Dec 2021

Using Stakeholder Insights to Enhance Engagement in PhD Professional Development

PONE-D-21-26337R1

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Stakeholder engagement for sustainability : a mixed method study of corporate strategies and engagement outcomes

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Stakeholder Management in International Projects

Kirsi aaltonen ( née eloranta).

Doctoral dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Science in Technology to be presented with due permission of the Faculty of Information and Natural Sciences for public examination and debate in Auditorium TU1 at the Aalto University School of Science and Technology (Espoo, Finland) on the 23 rd of October 2010 at 12 noon.

Overview in PDF format (ISBN 978-952-60-3344-0)   [648 KB] Dissertation is also available in print (ISBN 978-952-60-3343-3)

Today's international projects are implemented in institutionally demanding environments and executed by coalitions of stakeholders that have differing interests, objectives and socio-cultural backgrounds. Consequently, international projects are subject to the demands and pressures presented by external stakeholders such as community groups, local residents, landowners, environmentalists, regulatory agencies, and local and national governments. Despite the acknowledged importance of stakeholder management, project research still lacks both theoretical knowledge and empirical evidence concerning various project stakeholder related phenomena. The objective of this thesis is to contribute to project research by increasing the understanding of external project stakeholder behavior and a focal project's stakeholder management activities in international projects. The primary theoretical perspective used in this thesis is stakeholder theory, which is applied in the context of project stakeholder research.

The thesis comprises of a summary and five publications that are based on five separate case study research settings. Publications I and II adopt the perspective of project stakeholders. Their empirical results are based on an in-depth study of a pulp mill project in Uruguay that faced extreme stakeholder related challenges. The key contribution of publication I is that it identifies and describes empirically eight different influence strategies that external project stakeholders may use to shape their salience. In publication II eight propositions concerning external project stakeholders' potential to take action and influence the project management's decision making during the different phases of the project lifecycle are developed. Publications III, IV and V adopt the perspective of a focal project and examine its activities with respect to external stakeholder influences. The key contribution of publication III is that it identifies and describes different response strategies that a focal project may enact as a response to external stakeholder pressures. By adopting an environmental interpretation perspective, publication IV describes the practices through which project management teams analyze and interpret the project's external stakeholder environment in four international case projects. Publication V adopts a stakeholder network perspective and illustrates how a focal project's local stakeholder relationships are associated with the emergence and management of unexpected events in three international case projects.

The findings of this thesis highlight the importance of external stakeholder management in international projects. Through the application of the ideas of stakeholder theory, the results of this thesis provide new theoretical and empirical understanding of how external project stakeholders may influence the project management's decision making during the project lifecycle. The results of this thesis demonstrate how a focal project may analyze its external stakeholder environment and respond to external stakeholder pressures and unexpected events in the context of international projects. Ultimately, the new knowledge of external stakeholders' influence strategies and better understanding of how a focal project can deal with stakeholder influences, supports project managers in the development of effective project stakeholder management approaches.

This thesis consists of an overview and of the following 5 publications:

• Kirsi Aaltonen, Jaakko Kujala, and Tuomas Oijala. 2008. Stakeholder salience in global projects. International Journal of Project Management, volume 26, number 5, pages 509-516.
• Kirsi Aaltonen and Jaakko Kujala. A project lifecycle perspective on stakeholder influence strategies in global projects. Scandinavian Journal of Management. Accepted for publication.
• Kirsi Aaltonen and Risto Sivonen. 2009. Response strategies to stakeholder pressures in global projects. International Journal of Project Management, volume 27, number 2, pages 131-141.
• Kirsi Aaltonen. Project stakeholder analysis as an environmental interpretation process. International Journal of Project Management. In press.
• Kirsi Aaltonen, Jaakko Kujala, Päivi Lehtonen, and Inkeri Ruuska. 2010. A stakeholder network perspective on unexpected events and their management in international projects. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, volume 3, number 4, pages 564-588.

Keywords: project stakeholder management, external project stakeholders, international projects, stakeholder theory

This publication is copyrighted. You may download, display and print it for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.

© 2010 Aalto University School of Science and Technology

Management of project stakeholders: facilitating project success in public sector projects in Nigeria

--> Dakas, Audu Isa Ibrahim (2014) Management of project stakeholders: facilitating project success in public sector projects in Nigeria. PhD thesis, University of Leeds.

This research is based on evidences which show that project success in public sector construction projects in Nigeria is hindered by, among other issues, poor stakeholder management. As a result, the study involved the development of a conceptual model for effective stakeholder management. Using the conceptual model, empirical studies to establish the practice of stakeholder management in Nigerian public sector projects in four public universities as case studies were carried out. The resulting data were analysed, which revealed significant weaknesses in the practice of stakeholder management. These include lack of wide and deep knowledge/understanding of the concepts of project and stakeholder management by the clients’ project management teams (or research participants); non-existence of formal/systematic process of project stakeholder management; and poor system of project information/data management. Consequently, an integrated framework to ensure effective stakeholder management that would facilitate project success was developed. The integrated framework involves a seven-step stakeholder management process model, considering participants and their qualifications, techniques and outputs of the stakeholder management process and a system for project information/data management, across three-phase project life cycle. To ensure that the framework is practically applicable, it was evaluated by the expected beneficiaries of the framework and other experts familiar and involved with project and stakeholder management in the case studies, using questionnaire survey. The results of the evaluation show acceptability of the framework to effectively manage stakeholders and improve project success. However, while the framework may have been developed using data from selected universities, its principles may be applicable with prudence to other universities and other public sector projects. Further similar empirical studies using this approach or other suitable approaches in other universities and/or public sectors are required to generalise the findings and improve project success.

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STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE: EVIDENCE FROM THE NIGERIAN OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY

WARITIMI, EKPOBOMENE (2012) STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT IN PRACTICE: EVIDENCE FROM THE NIGERIAN OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY. Doctoral thesis, Durham University.

Stakeholder management relates to how business organisations manage their relationships not only with their market stakeholders, but also with their nonmarket stakeholders. It requires firms and business managers to identify and develop effective strategies to balance the interests of many diverse groups or constituents. This requirement has of course been judged to be impractical by those who uphold narrow traditional views about how a firm operates; and is unsupported by those who believe that asking managers to focus on the interests or concerns of groups of constituents that do not directly contribute to the economic achievements or strategic objectives of a firm, is a distraction and an attempt to derail corporate objectives. However, in spite of the criticisms levelled against the notion of stakeholder management, firms can no longer ignore the fact that there are constituents who can affect, and are affected by their business objectives. The aim of this research is to illustrate the practical implications of stakeholder management by exploring how multinational oil corporations operating in the Nigerian oil and gas industry manage their relationships with nonmarket stakeholders; such as the local communities who are affected by their operations. In order to achieve the aims of this research, a case study approach has been adopted; the case study companies include Shell Petroleum Development Company (Shell), Total Exploration and Production (Total), and the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (AGIP). Furthermore, to achieve a balanced perspective regarding the stakeholder management practices of the oil companies, the research incorporates the views of stakeholders from local communities, and those from non-governmental organisations (NGOs). A mixed methods research strategy is employed in the data collection and analysis process to achieve not just triangulation, but also to assist in the comprehension of the research findings. The research established that each of the companies being studied has employed different stakeholder management strategies in order to manage their relationships with the local communities. The strategies employed by the companies, however, appear not to address the issue of environmental impact; the concern which triggered the breakdown in the relationship between the oil companies and the local stakeholders in the first place. They have instead mostly focused on ameliorating the socio-economic issues resulting from oil exploration and production activities, in part as a consequence of pressure from the local communities themselves. Additionally, the findings indicate that the companies have employed hostile and controlling engagement strategies such as intimidation, appeasement, and manipulation, when dealing with local community stakeholders. These strategies are believed to have undermined the quality of their relationship with the local communities. The most notable consequence of these engagement practices is damaged trust amongst community members, as well as between the communities and the oil companies. The findings of this research have strong implications for stakeholder theory, as well as future research into stakeholder management practices, particularly in relation to non-contractual or nonmarket stakeholders; they also shed light on several important practical issues in business management.

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Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, project relationship management and the stakeholder circle™.

International Journal of Managing Projects in Business

ISSN : 1753-8378

Article publication date: 25 January 2008

The aim of this paper is to summarise a successfully completed doctoral thesis. The main purpose of the paper is to provide a summary that indicates the scope of, and main issues raised by, the thesis so that readers that are undertaking research in this area may be aware of current cutting edge research that could be relevant to them. A second key aim of the paper is to place this in context with doctoral study and further research that could take place to extend knowledge in this area.

Design/methodology/approach

Research reported in this paper was based upon action learning from a series of case studies where a project management tool for managing stakeholder relationships was tested and refined.

The tool is useful in helping the project delivery team identify major influencing stakeholders and visualise their potential impact. This tool then helped the studied project delivery teams to develop stakeholder engagement strategies. While it was initially tested as a planning tool to be used at the early stages of a project it can be used through the whole implementation phase of a project as the flow of major stakeholders and their influence changes during a project.

Practical implications

The tool was further improved during 2006 and commercialised in 2007 and is currently being used by numerous organisations. In observing how it is being used and can be used, it is suggested that over time a useful data base of stakeholder behaviours is being established that can be mined and used to better predict stakeholder types and their likely actions.

Originality/value

This paper provides a summary of cutting‐edge research work and a link to the published thesis (see URL www.mosaicprojects.com.au/Resources_Papers_021.html for a pdf (7meg)) that researchers can use to help them understand how the research methodology was applied as well as how it can be extended.

• Stakeholder analysis
• Project management
• Action learning

Bourne, L. and Walker, D.H.T. (2008), "Project relationship management and the Stakeholder Circle™", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business , Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 125-130. https://doi.org/10.1108/17538370810846450

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Copyright © 2008, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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Research Article

Using stakeholder insights to enhance engagement in PhD professional development

Contributed equally to this work with: Deepti Ramadoss, Amanda F. Bolgioni

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation School of Medicine Office of Graduate Studies, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Medical Sciences & Education, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Office of Graduate Education, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Resources, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology and School of Graduate Studies, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, Validation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Validation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Association of American Medical Colleges, Washington, D.C., United States of America

Roles Software, Visualization, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Software, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Graduate School, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States of America

• Deepti Ramadoss, 
• Amanda F. Bolgioni, 
• Rebekah L. Layton, 
• Janet Alder, 
• Natalie Lundsteen, 
• C. Abigail Stayart, 
• Jodi B. Yellin, 
• Conrad L. Smart, 
• Susi S. Varvayanis

• Published: January 27, 2022
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262191
• See the preprint
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There is increasing awareness of the need for pre- and post-doctoral professional development and career guidance, however many academic institutions are only beginning to build out these functional roles. As a graduate career educator, accessing vast silos and resources at a university and with industry-partners can be daunting, yet collaboration and network development are crucial to the success of any career and professional development office. To better inform and direct these efforts, forty-five stakeholders external and internal to academic institutions were identified and interviewed to gather perspectives on topics critical to career development offices. Using a stakeholder engagement visualization tool developed by the authors, strengths and weaknesses can be assessed. General themes from interviews with internal and external stakeholders are discussed to provide various stakeholder subgroup perspectives to help prepare for successful interactions. Benefits include increased engagement and opportunities to collaborate, and to build or expand graduate career development offices.

Citation: Ramadoss D, Bolgioni AF, Layton RL, Alder J, Lundsteen N, Stayart CA, et al. (2022) Using stakeholder insights to enhance engagement in PhD professional development. PLoS ONE 17(1): e0262191. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262191

Editor: Sina Safayi, Rush University Medical Center, UNITED STATES

Received: August 14, 2021; Accepted: December 20, 2021; Published: January 27, 2022

Copyright: © 2022 Ramadoss et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: De-identified data is made available in accordance to IRB approved protocols. These file are available from the Open Science Framework (OSF) database (DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/24SNV ).

Funding: This work was supported by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Guidance for Trainees [CGT025] ( https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bwfund.org%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cdeepti.ramadoss%40pitt.edu%7C70f047ae361445cf2e1b08d9c5d2fb33%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C0%7C637758333513545052%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=LCoaETVuHImoupB%2FEQCCp%2BTS%2BZaReZm9FBmcRHfkSTU%3D&reserved=0 ) (DR), National Institutes of Health [DP7OD020322] ( https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nih.gov%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cdeepti.ramadoss%40pitt.edu%7C70f047ae361445cf2e1b08d9c5d2fb33%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C0%7C637758333513545052%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=zijFvu9h2EVOjSfrvYuZqWGM47CaHA1rE7P%2BVc4Pah0%3D&reserved=0 ) and Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Career Guidance for Trainees [1018849] ( https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bwfund.org%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cdeepti.ramadoss%40pitt.edu%7C70f047ae361445cf2e1b08d9c5d2fb33%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C0%7C637758333513545052%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=LCoaETVuHImoupB%2FEQCCp%2BTS%2BZaReZm9FBmcRHfkSTU%3D&reserved=0 ) (AFB); National Institutes of Health [DP7OD020317] https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nih.gov%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cdeepti.ramadoss%40pitt.edu%7C70f047ae361445cf2e1b08d9c5d2fb33%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C0%7C637758333513545052%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=zijFvu9h2EVOjSfrvYuZqWGM47CaHA1rE7P%2BVc4Pah0%3D&reserved=0 ) and National Institute of General Medical Sciences [1-R01GM140282-01] ( https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nigms.nih.gov%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cdeepti.ramadoss%40pitt.edu%7C70f047ae361445cf2e1b08d9c5d2fb33%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C0%7C637758333513545052%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=Ov7fbmaQgul6IdBM3NMR8ucsBwBkBCOHjkcqqbt6LLs%3D&reserved=0 ) (RLL); National Institutes of Health [1DP7OD020314] ( https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nih.gov%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cdeepti.ramadoss%40pitt.edu%7C70f047ae361445cf2e1b08d9c5d2fb33%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C0%7C637758333513545052%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=zijFvu9h2EVOjSfrvYuZqWGM47CaHA1rE7P%2BVc4Pah0%3D&reserved=0 ) (JA); University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences ( https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/education/graduate-school/ ) (NL); National Institutes of Health [DP7OD020316] ( https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nih.gov%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cdeepti.ramadoss%40pitt.edu%7C70f047ae361445cf2e1b08d9c5d2fb33%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C0%7C637758333513545052%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=zijFvu9h2EVOjSfrvYuZqWGM47CaHA1rE7P%2BVc4Pah0%3D&reserved=0 ) (CAS); National Institutes of Health [DP7OD18425] ( https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nih.gov%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cdeepti.ramadoss%40pitt.edu%7C70f047ae361445cf2e1b08d9c5d2fb33%7C9ef9f489e0a04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C0%7C637758333513545052%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=zijFvu9h2EVOjSfrvYuZqWGM47CaHA1rE7P%2BVc4Pah0%3D&reserved=0 ) (SSV) The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Institutions of higher education hold myriad potential connections between pre- and post-doctoral researchers, faculty and administrators, internal university offices, industry partners, professional societies, and funding organizations. Internal university partnerships are vital, ranging from pre- and post-doctoral researchers and university faculty, to externally-facing communications and alumni development offices. University career and professional development (CPD) programs also develop and rely on external partnerships, particularly with programming and resources designed for pre- and post-doctoral researchers. While CPD programs understand that these partnerships improve the pre- and post-doctoral training experience, provide pipelines for entry of pre- and post-doctoral researchers into the workforce, and lead to synergies and collaboration, the full value of these relationships may not be completely understood to internal and external partners. Our work explores the foundational value of internal and external intersections and how to best leverage them to prepare pre- and post-doctoral researchers for the workforce. The aim is to more efficiently and successfully coordinate relationships that meet all stakeholders’ needs with a more thorough understanding of stakeholder objectives and the relative value of engagements.

This project is a spinoff of the National Institutes of Health Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training–NIH BEST [ 1 ] Consortium’s Annual Meeting, in 2018. The Consortium (funded 2013–2019) was comprised of programs at 17 higher education institutions challenged by the NIH to develop innovative approaches to prepare pre- and post-doctoral researchers for a wide range of careers in the biomedical research enterprise. The Consortium’s final Annual Conference (in 2018) explicitly invited collaborations, presentations, and conversations through joint programming with institutions beyond the Consortium–ranging from well-established pioneer pre- and post-doctoral professional development program institutions to newer and aspiring institutional programs interested in establishing professional development programs, as well as external private and non-profit collaborators. This research project emerged from the massively audacious goal identified by and adopted by the Blue Sky Visioning Mastermind Group that “all pre- and post-doctoral scholars have support and resources needed to explore and pursue all careers, and faculty and institutional leadership buy in to the importance of this mission.”

The goals of this publication are to bring awareness within the higher education community about various stakeholders that commonly engage with graduate CPD, shed light on stakeholder perceptions of career development and engagement, broaden the composition of engaged collaborations, and provide engagement tools. This information can help institutions and individuals quickly self-assess and visualize strengths/opportunities with stakeholders for the purposes of CPD at their institution, and, over the long-term, build stronger relationships and partnerships.

Defining stakeholders

The authors quickly realized that to attain their goal, a broad set of stakeholders would need to be consulted. Informed by the authors’ experience in industry relations and engaging with higher education, stakeholders were identified, classified, prioritized, and consolidated into a rapid tool for stakeholder engagement (see Methods ). Table 1 displays internal and external stakeholder classification groups and subgroups: internal stakeholders include pre- and post-doctoral researchers, faculty/administrators, and external-facing staff; external stakeholders include non-profit and society partners and industry employers. Each stakeholder subgroup was approached with a specific set of questions to explore their perceptions of graduate career education and professional development, as well as their motivations for engaging with any of the other stakeholder groups, ultimately seeking advice for how to best engage them in CPD programming. Descriptions of desirable and required skills, as well as resources to share with pre- and post-doctoral researchers were sought.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262191.t001

Internal stakeholders.

The group that receives the most frequent focus from CPD professionals includes pre- and post-doctoral researchers. Fostering stakeholder engagement from pre- and post-doctoral researchers is critical for providing effective programming [ 2 ]. CPD programs less frequently look beyond pre- and post-doctoral researchers to engage a full spectrum of university stakeholders within their own ecosystem.

Foremost among them is the faculty. Data from the BEST Consortium indicated that a large majority of faculty are supportive of career training for various careers and have recognized that pre- and post-doctoral researchers participating in CPD activities were happier and making timely progress toward degree completion–a fact that can be used to recruit additional internal stakeholder engagement from faculty [ 3 – 5 ]. Faculty don’t always believe they have the knowledge or resources to assist pre- and post-doctoral researchers whose career interests lie outside academia, although they largely support their career pursuits [ 5 – 8 ]. Promoting transparency, encouraging the normalized need for career support, and recommending conversations to initiate CPD coaching will help bridge some knowledge and awareness gaps.

In addition to partnerships with internal communications, environmental health and safety, or research support offices for experiential opportunities, identifying internal collaborators with external-facing roles has the potential to reduce the need to develop de novo program components, to seed ideas that leverage each other’s networks and knowledge domains, and to overcome common roadblocks [ 9 ]. Cost-sharing on resources and events are an added benefit for engaging with internal partners (including student leaders) and opens doors for pre- and post-doctoral researchers to engage in on-campus job shadowing and internship opportunities for experiential learning [ 2 , 9 , 10 ]. Collaborations with alumni relations and development offices can dramatically expand the network of potential speakers and mentors [ 11 ]; it can also lead to coordinated fundraising campaigns for CPD initiatives. Moreover, establishing relations with other internal partners with external-facing roles in industry or federal relations, technology transfer, licensing, or research commercialization can amplify the skill sets of pre- and post-doctoral researchers seeking experiential learning opportunities in real-world settings [ 10 ].

External stakeholders.

Efforts of career development professionals must simultaneously be internally and externally focused to fully understand the skills current pre- and post-doctoral researchers need to execute an informed transition into careers of their choice [ 12 ]. In addition, external focus identifies potential employers to build pipelines for these researchers, attract funding sources, access training opportunities to support their CPD, and increases visibility and accessibility of the resources offered by CPD programs. External stakeholders include partners and employers as seen in Table 1 . The categorizations in Table 1 are based on how CPD practitioners primarily interact with each group but can overlap with other categories, as many partners are also employers.

Stakeholders in external groups such as industry, non-profits and government agencies, including professional societies and associations, have long partnered with academia in disseminating research and technical training. They increasingly offer skill-building and career development opportunities via conferences and webinars to assist current pre- and post-doctoral researchers in the career selection process. Additionally, societies acknowledge multiple career options and wield positional influence to support culture change within academia.

A primary function of CPD programs is to strengthen the future workforce by preparing pre- and post-doctoral researchers for interaction with external stakeholders , ultimately, future employers. Therefore, the foci of these outward-facing efforts should be strategic to broaden networks and facilitate connections. Engaging external employer stakeholders in networking events, site visits, job shadowing, internships and panel discussions makes it possible for pre- and post-doctoral researchers to explore and test-drive various PhD careers [ 9 , 10 , 13 ]. This study provides what we hope are useful tools and insights to address all types of stakeholder engagement.

Stakeholder identification and engagement

Study design..

This study is intended as an exploration of a field, and an opportunity to observe emerging phenomena. The research team identified both internal and external stakeholder groups relevant to graduate CPD programs in order to further identify values that each stakeholder places upon bidirectional interactions to advance CPD for pre- and post-doctoral researchers. Common themes were identified through open-ended questions and unanticipated value propositions to develop potential approaches for improving interactions and methods of engagement between the university and potential partner organizations.

Data collection.

Interviews offer a rich and robust capture of perspectives [ 14 ], providing in depth, open-ended responses and opportunity for dialogue between researcher and participant. Single-interaction, semi-structured interviews, conducted either in-person (before COVID-19), by phone, or online via Zoom, were used with standardized questions and optional probing follow-up questions as needed (see S1 File for complete interview question list). Once core questions were established, subsets of parallel but slightly amended questions relevant to each stakeholder group were developed. Due to privacy concerns, neither recording nor transcriptions were requested/approved for human subjects. Instead, interviewers took digital or manual live notes. In all interviews, verbal consent was sought from participants.

Recruiting/access to and selection of participants.

Selection criteria for interview subjects were designed to be representative of identified stakeholder groups, with an initial goal of including 5–6 individual interview participants per stakeholder subgroup. External stakeholders initially included industry and non-profit/societies grouped together, but after the first few interviews, the research team discussed the difference in themes that arose from these interviews and arrived at the consensus to classify them as two distinct groups. Therefore, additional participants were recruited to ensure there were 5–6 participants for each of these subgroups.

Potential participants were identified by several means: by each interviewer independently, based on individuals known to the interviewers; referrals within and across the authors’ networks; or vetted Google searches. The invitation selection process considered a broad variety of types of organizations or groups based on stakeholder classification (see Table 1 ) and identified a sampling of individuals within a particular subgroup that included variety in perceived support for the premise, academic disciplinary background, education level, as well as across social identity categories including gender, race/ethnicity, and international status. Other factors considered included leadership/experience level, tenure in respective organizations, and any experience or interest in working at the interface of professional/career development for varying purposes. This background was not known for all and some were purposefully naïve or underexposed to CPD initiatives in higher education. A review of prospective participants’ general characteristics served to uncover similarities or duplications. Efforts were made to ensure that a variety of types of organizations were represented in each subgroup.

Conducting interviews.

Once selected, prospective participants were invited by email to participate in a short 15-20-minute interview. The template invitation (see S2 File ) included a brief script of the study’s purpose and description, plus an overview of the questions to be asked. Interviewer and participant found a mutually convenient time and format (in-person, phone, or video conference call).

After identifying stakeholder groups and subgroups (see Table 1 and Discussion for the importance of flexibility and refinement), four interviewers conducted a total of 45 stakeholder interviews (of 55 invitations). Themes were collected separately for the groups that used the same sets of questions to differentiate responses (i.e. pre- and post-doctoral researchers versus faculty and administrators, external partners versus employers). Following the first round of interviews, one group had a higher sample size than the others, therefore, to keep group numbers roughly equal, target recruitment goals were updated to a minimum of eight interviews per subgroup (see S1 Table ).

Data analysis and interpretation/validity.

A multi-stage process was used for data analysis and interpretation, including sorting of sensitizing concepts [ 15 ], and analysis and reduction of data through application of grounded theory [ 16 , 17 ], leading to the identification of emergent themes, hierarchical grouping, and concept categorization. One member of the research team who did not conduct any interviews was designated as coder. The coder and each individual interviewer reviewed and ’binned’ potential initial themes emerging from keywords and phrases, and separated text into categories using paraphrased concepts or the original words from each participant into each row of a spreadsheet with category column headings. This ongoing collaborative synthesis of data and collection of emergent themes contributed to the iterative data reduction and display process, including a process of contrast/comparison, and noting patterns and themes [ 18 ].

At the conclusion of coding of each interview, coder and interviewer reviewed the initial data-sorting and ’binning’ to ensure themes were appropriate and consistent with participant intent. With each subsequent interview within a stakeholder group ( internal , external ) and subgroup, themes were refined; new ’bins’ were created if the participant’s comments did not fit into an existing bin. If a response fit into two themes, then they were placed in both bins and coded as repeated. A second text review after all interviews were complete was conducted by the coder, with all authors working collaboratively in a process to establish inter-rater reliability. The team appraised the interviews in the larger context to make sure the original interview notes and emergent themes were not in conflict, still represented participant viewpoints, and to catch any themes missed in the first review. A final complete review by all authors prior to summation repeated this process through robust group discussion and collaborative decision-making [ 19 ]. All final themes and comments were reviewed and consolidated to assure researcher agreement on the accuracy of the themes and statements were selected to represent each theme.

Unique themes found in interview text were highlighted and reported as representative themes that arose when multiple instances of each theme occurred within a stakeholder subgroup.

Subjectivity/ethical issues/limitations.

All interviews were conducted by researchers who are professionals in higher education (e.g., program directors, associate directors, assistant deans) strongly invested in CPD for pre- and post-doctoral researchers (within offices of graduate education, postdoctoral affairs, CPD programs, evaluation). All interviewers are professionally full-time employed women in the US, and the study team included US and international interviewers, both people of color, Asian, and White.

The possibility of selectivity bias exists, in opinions or stories shared by participants based on their roles, and in the selection of participants within individuals’ networks tending toward supporters of graduate CPD. To attain a balanced view of various stakeholder subgroup perspectives as well as in recruiting participants, three methods were used to avoid compounding selectivity bias: 1) a semi-structured interview style with pre-selected questions (see Recruiting). 2) explicit recruitment of “nay-sayers” as well as “supporters” of university/organizational partnerships and graduate career training. 3) Online searches to identify further participants beyond known networks (e.g. Google), as well as searches and requests to members of known networks (e.g. LinkedIn) to suggest individuals the authors had no previous connection to, who might not be interested in or knowledgeable specifically about graduate professional development, but were in positions related to industry-university engagement activities. Each interviewer conducted interviews with individuals they knew and those they had never met, from offices or organizations they were familiar with and those with which they had no prior knowledge. Specific inclusion of the question, “Do you follow the national conversation about career development and outcomes of PhD-trained scientists?” helped determine their level of awareness of the subject matter. Nonetheless, the authors recognize the need to interpret findings with caution and that they will not represent all possible viewpoints. The results should be viewed as pilot data to inform additional research.

All participants provided oral informed consent. Participant names are anonymized using pseudonyms and all data is de-identified prior to sharing in accordance with IRB approved protocols (Rutgers–FWA00003913 Study ID Pro2020222400; PittPRO STUDY19110306-I4; UNC IRB# - 19–3054; Boston University H-40210). Note that the pseudonyms were randomly assigned and their perceived ethnicity or gender is not intended to represent the individual participant. Any correlation with a theme and gender, race or ethnicity is purely coincidental. Demographics were gathered at the last step to fill in post-analysis to prevent unconscious bias or revealing of identity or demographics of any participant. In detailed results in S3 File , only pseudonyms are used, using the code in S2 Table .

Stakeholder engagement tool

The authors observed a gap between the perceived awareness of the variety of stakeholders and the ability to assess and capitalize on strengths of potential existing partnerships with internal and external stakeholders . To help rapidly assess the two, a tool was created. During the development of the stakeholder engagement tool, categories were refined based on discussion among the authors, their combined experiences working with various stakeholders, as well as a two-way influence of the interview process (the tool influencing the interviews, and the stakeholder perspectives from the interviews influencing refining the tool).

The authors first debuted the tool publicly during interactive workshops at sequential meetings of the 2020 international conference hosted by the Graduate Career Consortium. Input from conference attendees participating in that workshop helped question previous assumptions and helped to better describe how users would customize the tool.

Use of the stakeholder engagement tool.

STEP 1: With your unit or collaborators, create a list of stakeholders—start with the suggested categories (see Table 2 below) and customize for your institution & geographic area by entering your own labels to tailor to your institution. Try to be specific (i.e. don’t say ’alumni office’ but rather, ’alumni association of Boston’). You can further break these down into lists of names and contact info. Note that engaging with naysayers/agnostics can be as valuable as engaging with your supporters to identify blind spots and valuable alternative perspectives.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262191.t002

STEP 2: Based on your institutional knowledge, take one or two minutes with your team to quickly rank your perceived level of engagement with the stakeholder groups in the first column. The authors encourage users to define their own Likert scale to calibrate the level of engagement or use the suggested Likert scale in Table 3 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262191.t003

For analysis and interpretation of the stakeholder engagement tool, see the Results section.

A total of 45 individuals were interviewed by four interviewers ( S1 Table ). Consenting participants consisted of both men (42.2%) and women (57.8%). Participant demographics included US (71.1%) and international (28.9%); African American (15.6%), Asian (17.8%), White (62.2%), and Hispanic (4.4%). Participants were geographically diverse across the US, with interviewers accessing their own networks primarily across the Northeast, Southeast, and Midwest United States, but also extending geographic representation via national organization contacts and referrals.

Stakeholder organizations included public, private, and public-private hybrid institutions of higher education (some with medical schools); large and small companies in or serving the biotech, medtech or pharma industries; as well as foundations, non-profit organizations or business associations serving STEM fields. Major themes arising from each set of stakeholders are presented, with details available in S3 File .

Stakeholder 1 –Internal pre-doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers

Interviews ( S1 File ) probed attitudes towards devoting time to CPD. Responses from ‘frequent users’, ‘occasional users’, or ‘non-users’ of CPD programming were separated. Responses broadly had two flavors: support for CPD programs and their perceived benefits, or opportunities to improve ( Fig 1 ).

(a) Sankey diagram and (b) stacked bar graph representing the same data of the number of mentions for each theme representing benefits and challenges/opportunities to improve mentioned by frequent users, occasional users and non-users.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262191.g001

Support for and perceived benefits of CPD programs identified by pre- and post-doctoral researchers.

Pre- and post-doctoral researchers find CPD affects productivity in a positive way and allows for CPD programming users to get a broad overview of resources (12 mentions or 12 M). Community-building advantages of professional development activities, e.g. bridging researchers across labs was discussed (11 M), highlighting confidence-building, cultural, and gender-based inclusivity that these programs can provide via intentional conversations and making role models prominent. This aligns with findings of a sense of community among those attending CPD training, especially in cohort or mandatory participation models [ 2 ]. The benefit of networking activities with hiring managers and recruiters outside academia was underscored. Advantages such as exposure to different career paths, allowing for informed decision-making (6 M), embedded/required CPD training providing consistent support and messaging (6 M), and prestige for recruitment (4 M) were raised.

Challenges or opportunities to improve identified by pre- and post-doctoral researchers.

Pre- and post-doctoral researchers communicated their desire for consistent exposure to CPD activities throughout training (18 M). Centralized programming to equalize access to resources and institutionalize the concept of career development to facilitate faculty acceptance was viewed as necessary (5 M). Challenges around personal growth (4 M), and the express need for faculty permission (4 M) were identified.

For details, including representative comments for individual themes, see S3 File .

Stakeholder 2–Internal faculty and administrators

Participants answered the same questions as the pre- and post-doctoral researchers subgroup above ( S1 File ) focused on probing attitudes towards devoting time to CPD, and opinions of existing or hypothetical CPD opportunities. Themes that arose naturally divided participant responses into categories that were later identified as ‘enthusiastic supporter’, ‘cautious supporter’, and ‘non-supporter’ responses ( Fig 2 ).

(a) Sankey diagram and (b) stacked bar graph representing the same data of the number of mentions for each theme representing benefits and challenges/opportunities to improve mentioned by enthusiastic supporters, cautious supporters and non-supporters.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262191.g002

Perceived ‘benefits’ of CPD identified by faculty/administrators.

The benefits of CPD activities identified by faculty and administrators acknowledged evolving training requirements and climate (12 M), with comments ranging from requirements for training grant applications to how participation in these activities can improve mental health. Faculty and administrators acknowledged institutional peer pressure nationally among top tier universities to provide these opportunities, and that as educators, they believe there is an obligation to provide these experiences.

Enthusiastic supporters acknowledged the limited availability of faculty positions, and the value of transparency of workforce outcomes of alumni (9 M). Less supportive respondents believe that professional development is not related to graduate education, that it de-emphasizes academia as a career path, and that individuals who leave academia cannot return. Enthusiastic and cautious supporters noted valuable effects of CPD programming, such as promoting career planning and gaining professional skill sets (6 M), and improved reputation of graduate programs (3 M).

Challenges or opportunities to improve identified by faculty/administrators.

Multiple comments arose regarding early exposure to options, and the need for experiences tailored to each individual’s stage and priorities (17 M). Some faculty raised concerns and perceptions (13 M) such as the belief that CPD could be a distraction, and lengthen time-to-degree completion. Narrow definitions of professional development revolving only around academic skills (6 M) are among challenges observed by interviewees.

Stakeholder 3: External-facing staff (industry relations, tech transfer, communications, alumni relations and development)

Interviews with external-facing staff were guided by a different set of questions ( S1 File ). The goals of these questions were to identify with whom external-facing offices at institutions typically interacted, and around what topic(s) the majority of their interactions centered. While these offices are open to all institution affiliates, it is not known if the external contacts have an interest in STEM pre- and post-doctoral researchers.

Respondents in external-facing offices interact with small and large businesses and foundations (8 individuals), investors (4 individuals), alumni (3 individuals), inventors (2 individuals), and innovation centers (2 individuals). These respondents often wear several hats, and interact with many other affiliates and identities including experts, educators, presenters, business development and intellectual property professionals, an institution’s business school (e.g. on consulting projects), grateful patients, hospital systems, government, and professional organizations. It is of note that the themes below do not include a federal relations point of view ( Fig 3 ).

Bar graph representing the number of mentions of each theme.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262191.g003

Reasons to engage with industry identified by external-facing offices.

Bringing the voice of the market to academic research is a strong motivation for interactions between industry and academia (16 M). Building partnerships between the two (11 M) has several benefits such as fundraising, increasing awareness of internship programs, and co-creation of curriculum content, and furthermore, provides long-term relationships and resources. External-facing staff are motivated by the possibility of fundraising or financial support (10 M) for the institution, as well as the perceived benefit to pre- and post-doctoral researchers (4 M).

Reasons external stakeholders engage with academia identified by external-facing staff.

A recurring theme that emerged was the perceived interest of external stakeholders in early access to emerging technologies and innovations (18 M). External stakeholders are believed to be keen to assist in developing an entrepreneurial mindset (11 M), such as instilling skills to better serve both researchers and the workforce more broadly, with an external-facing staff member referring to a joint research brief on entrepreneurial mindset, Ernst & Young & Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship [ 20 ], and to reports published by the EU Commission [ 21 ] and World Economic Forum [ 22 ]. External-facing staff also identified external stakeholders’ keen desire to create connections to faculty expertise (8 M), to have a venue for talent identification (6 M), an interest in providing scholarships/grants, or to fund programs (5 M), and paying it forward by means of creating opportunities (3 M).

External stakeholders’ interest in STEM pre- and post-doctoral researchers identified by external-facing staff.

While STEM knowledge was discussed as important, business acumen and experience were deemed as the distinguishing features of a successful industry applicant (10 M). Creating an expertise or talent pipeline (10 M) motivates external companies to interact with external-facing offices at institutions. The mutual benefit to multiple stakeholders (10 M) and the desire to support student needs (4 M) are perceived to be the sustaining power of these relationships.

External-facing staff’s additional thoughts.

External-facing staff were eager to share suggestions for researchers to better prepare for their careers (11 M), such as being prepared to learn on the job independently, trusting critical thinking, and relying upon other transferrable skills developed in training. Based on their experience, external-facing staff provided suggestions regarding CPD programming, such as the need for new perspectives on training (6 M), ensuring one point of contact (4 M), and including an alumni engagement role (3 M).

Stakeholder 4: External partners–societies, foundations, non-profits

Interviews with societies, foundations, and non-profits indicated that there were many partnerships and exchanges of service through which they interact with academia including: networking and community building, providing resources for honing career skills, generating scholarship and publications, facilitating advocacy, providing feedback and advice, and creating funding opportunities.

Discussion with the stakeholders from societies, foundations and non-profits brought new themes to light. These highlight many available resources that are not always accessed by institutions. The most common reason societies, foundations, and non-profits provided for wanting to engage with academia was to build relationships to connect academics with the mission of their organization ( Fig 4 ).

Bar graph representing the number of mentions of each theme for themes mentioned 3 or more times.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262191.g004

External partner organizations’ engagement with academia.

Building relationships (16 M) was a large motivator for societies, foundations and non-profits to interact with academia, as is the prestige, recognition, and public visibility (8 M) that comes with interacting with prestigious academic institutions. This engagement is also seen as a catalyst for connections and knowledge (5 M).

Societies, foundations, and non-profits resources to offer.

Societies and foundations have several scientists on staff possessing a wide range of expertise and perspectives as a resource to offer (6 M), as well as varied online resources and guides (4 M), experiential learning opportunities (4 M), and self-exploration tools (2 M).

A few challenges faced by external partner organizations mentioned included limited funding (4 M), connecting with target audiences (3 M), and creating flexible, creative models along with the need for culture change (3 M).

External partner organizations’ view of career preparedness improvements.

The need for pre- and post-doctoral researchers to develop and broaden their skills and learning approach (11 M) was discussed frequently. Advice such as taking early initiative (8 M), improving self-efficacy and growth mindset (6 M), learning to listen with humanity and broaden diversity (4 M), making use of networking opportunities (2 M), and getting involved in professional societies (1 M) were provided, alongside the idea of defining one’s own success (1 M).

External partners’ view of engaging with academic institutions.

Non-profit and society stakeholders are keen to engage and disseminate their resources, and encourage institutions to coordinate on-campus visits (5 M), or organize for researchers to engage with them off campus (2 M). Some challenges discussed included the difficulty to integrate their offerings into training (2 M), their ability to engage at all levels with academic institutions (2 M), the perception that the wrong people make decisions regarding these partnerships (1 M), and the need for more industry mentors (1 M).

Stakeholder 5 –External employers–small and large companies, intellectual property firms, consultancies, accelerators

External employers interviewed for this study include representatives of large pharmaceutical, biotech, government or national labs, consulting firms, intellectual property firms, policy or communication organizations as well as small business/start-ups, accelerators and boutique consulting agencies.

Types of engagement already in place with universities include: recruiting events, career fairs, tours/site visits, case studies/workshops, serving on advisory boards for curriculum development, and internships. A key goal for this kind of engagement is to maintain relationships.

This representative sampling of interviews with external employer stakeholders revealed additional themes and underscored themes already brought to light in the previous interviews ( Fig 5 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262191.g005

Reasons why industry external stakeholders engage with academia.

Companies desire being involved in professional development programs, as it helps recruit and broaden their reach (8 M), and are keen to build long-term relationships (5M), often facilitated by an alumna/us acting as the liaison. There appears to be a need for bidirectional partnerships (4 M), and advisory and feedback roles (3 M).

Training and collaboration industry-academia partnership benefits.

The modes of interaction between industry and academia include alumni working with their alma mater (8 M). Increasing awareness of industry’s resources to develop academia’s complementary skills was discussed (6 M), as well as advice to pre-doctoral and post-doctoral researchers to learn industry-relevant skills (4 M), recalibrate what is considered important in job functions (3 M), and make use of grants and academic collaborations (3 M).

An important aside arose that if a company’s needs are already met, they admitted to not seeking out interactions with academia.

Differing priorities and organizational complexities–Challenges with industry.

Challenges to industry interactions with academia include distrust due to perceived differing values (5 M), as well as a lack of a single point of contact at academic institutions (3 M).

External industry employers’ views on challenges with pre- and post-doctoral researcher preparedness.

Understanding career options, industry culture, and priorities (8 M) are considered critical to being a successful industry applicant. The need for pre- and post-doctoral researchers to develop skills such as good communication (8 M), present experience and motivation appropriately to employers (7 M), and increase focus on relationship building and collaborations (5 M) are seen as crucial skills for success in industry. The need for faculty culture change (4 M) to improve CPD relationships with industry was also discussed.

How to encourage industry professionals to interact and visit campus.

Several companies are glad to visit or interact with academic institutions upon receiving invitations, ideally by pre-doctoral or post-doctoral researchers (6 M), while some prefer attending high-impact events (3 M), match-ups (3 M), or hosting site visits at the company (1 M). Industry representatives advise academic leaders to be open-minded to industry (3 M), and mention the challenge of limited time and resources to engage with academia (1 M).

The vast majority of large and small external employers interviewed were unaware of the national conversation about career development and outcomes of PhD-trained scientists.

Stakeholder engagement tool purpose, use, and opportunities for action

A stakeholder engagement tool was created for practitioners to rapidly assess and identify with which stakeholder group they are primed to interact most efficiently. The tool can help practitioners quickly focus on existing strengths at their institution on which they can rely, as well as on areas of improvement and possible links to approach stakeholders strategically. Coupled with the themes found in the interview data, a targeted approach can be developed to improve stakeholder engagement.

The stakeholder engagement tool is fully customizable to reflect local organizations with whom to partner and those that already might have existing relationships. A 360-degree view of perceived stakeholder engagement can be quickly determined by encouraging colleagues around campus to fill out the tool. The resulting scores will inform discussion across offices to see where perceptions align and where there might be differences in scores. Since the tool is quick and easy to use and automatically creates a visual output by summing scores in each quadrant of the ensuing graph (representing internal pre- and post-doctoral researchers, faculty/administrators; external-facing staff; external partners; and external employers) practitioners gain a quick, holistic view of their engagement.

To interpret the output of the stakeholder engagement tool, use the Excel file ( S5 File ; Note: Please download the Excel file to view proper format) which automatically sums each quadrant. The scores toward the left or right of the plot indicate areas of focus externally (right, blue and grey) or internally (left, orange and red). The top half of the plot reveals information on internal/external users (in orange and blue), the lower half on internal/external partners (in red and grey). The sums in each quadrant indicate the relative strength in each stakeholder group (top left: internal stakeholders such as graduate students or faculty; top right: external stakeholders such as employers; bottom left: internal partners such as licensing office; and bottom right: external partners such as professional societies).

This is a self-reflection tool to identify areas of individual network engagement and areas for potential development. The more the sectors are filled to the outside of the circle, the more perceived relative engagement there is. Based on how you define your Likert scale (see suggested scale in Methods ), the score for the relative engagement may reflect representation of stakeholders belonging to each group, as well as frequency and quality of interactions between stakeholders. For example, the CPD office may only have one or two stakeholders in a given stakeholder group, but you might meet with them often and they might be extremely influential and enthusiastic about supporting CPD programs for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. Moreover, it is important to engage with and address the concerns of naysayers, as this will add value to overall CPD operations and help to launch more successful programming.

In the example ( Fig 6 ), the internal stakeholders are visually a strength, especially graduate students, and there appears to be room for increased engagement with certain external stakeholders such as intellectual property firms.

A rapid assessment tool for internal and external stakeholders to evaluate competencies and determine strengths for engagement in career and professional development programming. Detailed instructions for entering values are in Methods, and interpretation can be found in Results. [see S5 File to download and use the stakeholder engagement tool and view proper format: https://osf.io/fc27x/?view_only=b166987514234b718d8457778651534f ].

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262191.g006

There are three basic approaches to action as a result of filling out the stakeholder engagement tool.

• Evaluate competencies. Using this stakeholder engagement tool, start conversations in your group to identify a shared framework to address areas of strength and growth. Choose 1–3 areas to connect with stakeholders (some might be linked or be in one quadrant). Identify the decisions to be made and develop an action plan based on these linked competencies; for example, local companies and an accelerator/incubator might provide more opportunities around entrepreneurial career paths for postdocs.
• Identify challenge areas. Look at the chart to identify three barriers to potential growth in stakeholder engagement (lowest scores, to the inside of the circle). Low scoring areas should be evaluated for feasibility and potential actions to take (or non-relevancy). These areas might form the basis for discussion of methods to overcome challenges. Pay attention to challenges pertaining to diversity among stakeholder networks, and reflection of stakeholder diversity as it pertains to the trainee population, such as international/domestic participants, gender or gender identities, and race/ethnicity. For example, conversations with your industry relations office, national labs and a trade organization might spark ideas; perhaps there are no business/tech parks nearby so a virtual site visit might increase interactions.
• Map your strengths. In looking at the chart, identify three strengths (points reaching most to the outside of the circles). Look for strengths in each quadrant of users, internal/external partners, and employers. Identify key individuals in these areas and bring them together with your team to discuss next steps for engagement; for example, pre-doctoral researchers, career services and professional society representatives might meet to brainstorm ideas.

Common themes

When considering the diverse stakeholder groups, common themes emerged across the different internal and external groups. Themes that reappeared across the various stakeholders suggest that these topics should be priorities for CPD practitioners when attempting to engage broadly.

Individuals from all interviewed stakeholder groups recognized the value of CPD activities for pre- and post-doctoral researchers, despite different perspectives on similar concepts, with individual participants varying in levels of enthusiasm and commitment. For instance, there is a distinct need for CPD programs across stakeholder groups, who engage for varying reasons. Among internal stakeholders , most pre- and post-doctoral researchers believe these activities benefit their career growth, many faculty and administrators believe the programs strengthen researcher career development and benefit their mental health, and all external-facing offices are keenly aware of both the value to pre- and post-doctoral researchers and how these activities generate interest among external stakeholders . External partners and employers desire that researchers are well-prepared when entering the workforce, and encourage CPD programs to partner with them on program development. Notably, external partners develop many resources to aid CPD activities for pre- and post-doctoral researchers and encourage them to be involved and to use these resources.

Networking, making connections, partnering, and collaborating are seen as crucial aspects of CPD across all stakeholder groups. Pre- and post-doctoral researchers are interested in opportunities to build and grow their networks to help form their future careers, and faculty/administrators understand this to be critical to researcher development. Non-profits and foundations encourage non-prescriptive models for graduate learning, which could open the doors for more engagement across stakeholders, and industry partners offer assistance in developing programming and internship opportunities. Financial arrangements can be mutually beneficial: universities can benefit financially from industry interactions to support their research, and collaborative commercialization of research benefits industry. Additionally, external stakeholders are interested in connecting with academic institutions to have early access to emerging science and technology, develop partnerships to grow their own priorities, and build a talent pipeline. External employers also showed keen interest in collaborating with faculty, and recommend that academics engage with industry partners on joint publications to help highlight these partnerships in the media [ 23 ], and facilitate culture change regarding opinions on industry collaborations.

The timing and content of CPD activities was another important focal point with multiple subgroups (pre- and post-doctoral researchers, external-facing staff, external partners and employers) suggesting the need for integrated, persistent, embedded, and flexible access to these activities. In particular, pre- and post-doctoral researchers suggest that there is a need for consistent exposure to CPD throughout training, including by some infrequent users who believe that this programming should be woven into the curriculum for maximal benefit, as is common in professional schools. Historically, the common opinion was that pre- and post-doctoral researchers should focus on their careers after they complete their training, but this is not ideal as it delays the workforce pipeline [ 9 ]. In addition, some faculty stakeholders do not see the value of CPD activities and expressed some concern about the time their pre- and post-doctoral researchers dedicate to these activities. However, recent evidence-based research has shown that participation in internships, career development programming, K-12 outreach programs or IRACDA programs does not lead to increased time to degree or decreased productivity [ 3 , 24 – 26 ]. Pre- and post-doctoral researchers, faculty/administrators and external partners all noted the value of flexible programming to encourage pre- and post-doctoral researcher engagement. All stakeholders pointed to the need to remain informed about the needs of both researchers and the workforce when planning, designing, and executing CPD activities.

An important challenge identified by pre- and post-doctoral researchers, external-facing partners, and external stakeholders was the need to expand the purview of scientific training to include skill development for a variety of careers. Alongside this, these stakeholders comment on the challenge of normalizing CPD activities in the larger context of training, and the need to help academic leaders (e.g. faculty and administrators) understand that academic career preparation is only a part of CPD, and that other types of skill development are necessary, as they are complementary and important to the success of their pre- and post-doctoral researchers. For example, developing self-efficacy is extremely beneficial to researchers when approaching their CPD [ 2 , 27 ]. Relatedly, requiring faculty approval to participate in professional development activities can present a barrier to participation and reinforces the cultural stereotype that professional development is outside of the normal expected activities of a pre- and post-doctoral researcher. Despite federal agencies [ 28 ], clarifying that pre- and post-doctoral researchers’ skill development is critical, the concept of career exploration has not permeated to all faculty and administrators–it is evident that for successful CPD implementation, practitioners need to be active in outreach and engagement with internal faculty [ 5 , 9 ] and administrators. CPD offices should work to identify new strategies for conveying their services and value to develop faculty/administrator buy-in, e.g. more evidence-based research to convey the program’s benefits. Knowing the culture of local faculty and their attitudes toward CPD can help strategically design programs that will yield the highest number of participants [ 9 ].

Among other challenges discussed, one key challenge noted was the identification and implementation of streamlined methods to access or connect with the right resources or people. Pre- and post-doctoral researchers report struggling to identify resources at their institutions, suggesting the need for a centralized institutional CPD hub, while external-facing staff commented on not knowing the appropriate people within academic institutions with whom to connect their external contacts. External stakeholders recommend universities have a visible “one-stop shop”, to encourage external partners or employers to connect with them. Additionally, external stakeholders note that it is critical for a graduate career office to have strong engagement between past and present CPD practitioners, to ensure continuity of relationships with the various stakeholders.

A disconnect was revealed specifically for external stakeholders who are unaware of the national conversation about CPD activities, suggesting that practitioners at academic institutions should more frequently intermingle in industry settings and more broadly disseminate their findings to external stakeholders , perhaps at industry conferences.

The authors’ knowledge of internal stakeholders allowed them to engage with a spectrum of users of CPD services including frequent users, occasional users and non-users, as well as a range of faculty/administrators showing enthusiastic, cautious or no support for CPD activities. The variety of internal stakeholders interviewed resulted in valuable conversations to identify where CPD practitioners can improve. For example, pre- and post-doctoral respondent interviews cited requiring an increased awareness of their needs and purpose for engagement to better align existing CPD opportunities and guide new ones, while faculty/administrator interviews highlighted perceptions of CPD offices, identified concerns, collected suggestions on tailored experiences and exposures, and identified the need for clearly defined CPD. It appears valuable for CPD practitioners to have a clear understanding of internal stakeholders ’ needs and concerns to create effective programming. Simultaneously, university staff who engage with external stakeholders share similar interests to CPD offices that include supporting and giving advice to pre- and post-doctoral researchers. Hence collaborations with these partners can provide valuable external stakeholder perspectives.

In summary, common themes across all stakeholders are shown in S6 File . Many emerging common themes centered on a tailored approach to CPD programs. For example, while most stakeholders acknowledged the need for CPD, the desired timing and content of programming aligned with individual specific needs. This further accentuates the need for creating streamlined access, discussed by most stakeholders.

Stakeholder engagement

The stakeholder engagement tool was debuted at an international meeting of CPD practitioners to demonstrate how to evaluate and plot to extend their networks in a targeted and structured way. Feedback from university-based users included surprise to learn the number of partners that could be leveraged by sometimes small, understaffed offices tasked with serving large populations of graduate students and postdocs. Subsequently, the tool’s value was expanded to address diversifying not only the roles, sectors, and stakeholder groups existing within one’s network, but also who and which social identities or wide varieties of lived experiences were represented among those contacts. Newly identified partnerships across campus as well as in the local community were seen as options not previously considered, including (but not limited to; see S4 File for more examples) partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), as well as Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), Latinx and other groups, serving those who have been historically excluded and underrepresented in science (e.g., persons excluded due to ethnicity or race [ 29 ]). Benefits cited by meeting attendees included the rapid ability to identify a wide variety of stakeholders with whom to work and partners to increase opportunities for their pre- and post-doctoral scholars.

An added value identified by participants was the quick analysis of potential barriers to growth in stakeholder engagement that could guide future discussions to overcome challenges. The tool was also cited as useful because it was designed for customization to each institutional setting, e.g. whether appropriate for recruiting industry partners in the local area if high density of contacts is available regionally, or fitting to explore ways to connect across a university that is a large, decentralized behemoth. Templates for how to reach out to potential partners were also reported to be useful. Of course, the tool is intended only as a first step in engaging stakeholders. More research and time investment is needed to determine the exact person to reach out to at various organizations if no existing partnerships exist, but the process is intentionally step-wise so that over time more stakeholders can be involved in CPD to benefit all parties. The tool serves as a way to focus on strengths of existing relationships, hone in on partners to include in discussions, or optimize outreach to spark new collaborations across stakeholders, rather than to identify specific challenge areas or strengths within a stakeholder group. We would advocate to first use the tool as a preliminary screen to identify which stakeholder categories to focus on. Informed by these themes identified through our interviews, CPD offices can then follow up with stakeholders to develop strong partnerships. Should the stakeholder engagement tool indicate that increased interactions with faculty or university administrators is warranted, that might stimulate conversations among CPD offices, department chairs and deans, to better inform faculty of the advantage of transferrable skills for all careers. These actions will help promote culture change in academia and reinforce awareness of the range of career options beyond academia available to PhDs.

CPD practitioners should consider engaging with both alumni and future employers as key stakeholders. Alumni are one of the most accessible external stakeholders for graduate career development work. The personal experience of alumni in the workforce provides critical input for assessing skills required by employers and to inform curriculum changes [ 2 , 9 , 12 ]. Furthermore, alumni connections are valuable for establishing external partnerships. Individual institutions vary in their ability to cultivate and engage alumni, influenced greatly by the existence of an alumni relations office with active engagement strategies, for example, social media sites and accessible directories [ 10 , 11 ].

Finally, the process of identifying external employer stakeholders as well as engagement opportunities should include strategic consideration of the location of the institution. For example, universities located in urban areas with a high concentration of biopharma companies might develop mechanisms to promote pre- and post-doctoral researchers’ biomedical expertise, valuable to local external stakeholders [ 10 , 30 ]. More isolated universities might organize a conference or trek to a more biotech-rich area [ 10 , 23 ].

Limitations and future directions

Faculty and administrators were sampled from a wide variety of roles, ranging from rank-and-file faculty; through departmental leadership such as Chairs, Associate Deans, and other leaders; through leaders in graduate and postdoctoral education such as Deans of Students. Nonetheless, we acknowledge the importance of identifying unique themes and perspectives that may arise for Provosts, Presidents, Chancellors, and other high-level university-wide leadership roles which are crucial to setting strategic aims, funding, and program priorities. The current sample did not include a large enough subset of high-level leaders to analyze the data separately, and future directions of research could include examining this group of administrators specifically.

External stakeholders were sampled from a variety of roles in industry and non-profit employers including small and large companies, intellectual property firms, consultancies, and accelerators. While this study did not specifically sample alumni as a stand-alone stakeholder group, some external stakeholder individuals (e.g., For-Profit, Non-Profit/Society) were incidentally alumni of the institutions represented. Still, we realize it is important to include the voice of recent PhD and postdoctoral alumni for their understanding of how their training affected their employability, how their industry sector views PhDs, and their retrospective views of their careers. This is especially of interest since they are role models for our current students and postdoctoral researchers, and are now potentially in hiring positions. Alumni are a very strong stakeholder group to engage with, as they are eager to give back to their institution, are invested in the institution, and directly experienced programs and the various stakeholders involved in the programs. Hence, investigating this stakeholder group would be extremely useful as a future research topic.

Further analyses that merit additional attention include examining unique themes arising through intersectional identity groups (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity, international/domestic status, among others). Unfortunately, sample sizes within each stakeholder group were not large enough to examine these important differences; however, this is an important topic for additional work to consider.

Another useful future analysis would be to ask stakeholders to rank which challenges represent the biggest barriers, a function that was not queried in this study’s interviews. Such a ranking would assist CPD offices to prioritize resources to overcome challenges.

Though our research interviewed only people currently residing in the U.S., the importance of CPD globally should not be understated. A recent report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) representing a coalition of 38 nations also emphasized the need for tracking PhD alumni career outcomes to help understand where the programs can increase their CPD, as postdoctoral researchers are outgrowing the number of tenured or permanently employed academic positions in many countries [ 31 ]. The importance of CPD and culture change around CPD is critical not only for the U.S. but also globally, and future research could garner more insights from a global perspective, although we recognize that the one-size fits all approach wouldn’t apply to all countries.

Conclusions

This study brings to light fundamental career and professional development (CPD) concepts that span the various internal and external stakeholder groups interviewed. Learning from these opinions is valuable, and can help form recommendations in the creation, design, and sustenance of effective CPD activities at individual institutions.

This study also presents the stakeholder engagement tool, which can be used for rapid self-analysis of practitioners’ networks to assess strong stakeholder relationships and areas where the practitioner can strengthen their network. Coupled with the various themes from interviews with 45 internal and external stakeholders across the country in various roles, graduate career practitioners can use the themes presented as discussion points to interact with their own stakeholders to prepare for potential meetings with new contacts. Meaningful and targeted engagement with various stakeholders is key to create and sustain successful graduate and postdoctoral CPD programs.

Supporting information

S1 table. number of interviews conducted per stakeholder subgroup, by interviewer..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262191.s001

S2 Table. Pseudonym assignments for stakeholder interviews.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262191.s002

S1 File. Rationale and sample questions for stakeholders.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262191.s003

S2 File. Sample wording for invitation to participate.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262191.s004

S3 File. Detailed results, including example comments.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262191.s005

S4 File. Examples for diversifying networks.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262191.s006

S5 File. Stakeholder engagement tool.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262191.s007

S6 File. Common themes across stakeholders.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262191.s008

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Chair of Logistics Management

Since starting his doctorate at the Department of Management, Technology, and Economics in 2020, Max has collaborated with various nonprofit partners, particularly through the HumOSCM Lab at the Chair of Logistics Management. These longstanding relationships have significantly informed his research. Furthermore, Max built new connections by exchanging with nonprofits and providing insights from the research.

Max’s dissertation contributes to a deeper understanding of nonprofit dynamics, providing insights for scholars and practitioners alike. By unraveling the intricacies of nonprofit management, it offers a roadmap for navigating the complexities of the contemporary nonprofit sector.

From the entirety of the Chair of Logistics Management: We want to congratulate you on your successful defense, Dr. Löffel!

• Victor Mukhin

Victor M. Mukhin was born in 1946 in the town of Orsk, Russia. In 1970 he graduated the Technological Institute in Leningrad. Victor M. Mukhin was directed to work to the scientific-industrial organization "Neorganika" (Elektrostal, Moscow region) where he is working during 47 years, at present as the head of the laboratory of carbon sorbents.     Victor M. Mukhin defended a Ph. D. thesis and a doctoral thesis at the Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia (in 1979 and 1997 accordingly). Professor of Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia. Scientific interests: production, investigation and application of active carbons, technological and ecological carbon-adsorptive processes, environmental protection, production of ecologically clean food.   

Title : Active carbons as nanoporous materials for solving of environmental problems

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John Sabin, Ph.D., Integrated Coastal Sciences

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Name: Johnnie Sabin

College: Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences

Major:  Integrated Coastal Sciences

Classification/Year: Doctoral candidate (5th year)

Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia

Hobbies/interests: Hiking, scuba diving, boardsports (wake/snow/mountain), photogrammetry, DIY electronics

ECU GOES WITH YOU 

How will you take ECU with you after graduation? I have learned to excel at teaching myself skills beyond those received in a formal classroom setting, so there is more of an ‘applied confidence’ for troubleshooting technical issues.

East Carolina University graduate student John “Johnnie” Sabin has worked five years to design and conduct research for his dissertation project focused on ecosystem restoration in the Florida Everglades.

This summer, he’ll be the first to earn his doctoral degree in ECU’s integrated coastal sciences Ph.D. program.

After earning undergraduate and master’s degrees in anthropology, he wanted to expand beyond the discipline and get more theory. His graduate adviser at Florida State suggested he check out ECU’s new multidisciplinary doctoral program in the Department of Coastal Studies.

Sabin navigated several challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, since starting in 2019. But he persevered and followed his dream of designing his own dissertation project despite not having an adviser or mentor at ECU who conducts research in the Everglades, a subtropical wetland ecosystem that spans two million acres across central and south Florida.

Sabin’s background as a social scientist and environmental anthropologist informed his creation of a monitoring framework for tracking restoration efforts. He conducted in-person and virtual interviews with dozens of Florida stakeholders — including industry, recreation, science and landowners including Gladesmen and Indigenous community members. “I built the project from the ground up, I reached out to people, I built rapport with people,” said Sabin, who has served as a graduate research assistant at ECU.

He became drone-certified to take high-resolution images to see changes in conservation buffers. His satellite imagery, geospatial analysis and 3D modeling are helping determine if restoration efforts are making an impact in these buffer areas.

“I’m using that to give bones to the ideas being expressed and asking what’s going on, how are wilderness areas changing, what are the sorts of water futures we want to see in south Florida — those were a lot of the questions,” he said. “I was looking at what undermines conservation efforts and how that plays out.”

The conservation buffers sit between urban, residential and environmentally protected areas, and help sustain habitat, connectivity, water storage and flood mitigation.

Sabin grew up in Atlanta and often made trips to Florida. He became intrigued with its geography, fauna and miles of canals. He loved history and the classics, fascinated by National Geographic and History Channel documentaries, and became interested in anthropology after a high school presentation.

To aid in course and field work and make extra money, Sabin developed skills and took gigs on the side throughout his time as a student.

A competitive diver in high school and as an undergraduate at Georgia State, he became scuba certified. He pursued an underwater archaeology specialty in his master’s program, investigating submerged landscapes with an interest in Native American sites and coastal areas that have been inundated by sea level rise, which brings a long-term perspective to his work, he said.

In addition to his drone certification, he became licensed to trailer and transport boats while at ECU. He scraped boats, was a dredge permitting specialist for a marine contractor, and completed other project work from creating maps and synthesizing data sets to generating data visualizations and computational modeling.

Johnnie Sabin takes a break from research while riding his mountainboard at Wildwood Park.

“I have learned to excel at teaching myself skills beyond those received in a formal classroom setting, so there is more of an ‘applied confidence’ for troubleshooting technical issues,” Sabin said.

While at ECU, he has been a member of Pirates on Water, the student branch of the ECU Water Resources Center, and helped revive an annual Tar River cleanup and worked on other community projects.

He also met his girlfriend, ECU master’s student Alexandra Stevenson, in his adviser’s lab at ECU. Sabin is planning to help on her coral reef research project in the Virgin Islands later this summer. “A lot of my work with drones and photogrammetry can be applied underwater to getting the coral structure,” he said.

For the next few months, he will be working as a conservation and cultural research fellow with EMIGRA, providing feedback on resource management and great hammerhead sharks in the Atlantic Southeast.

Sabin said he has had made lifelong friends and had great support at ECU from faculty members, his adviser Cynthia Grace-McCaskey and everyone in his integrated coastal sciences cohort, a small group who became closer in the tragic death of a loved classmate in spring 2021.

With graduation approaching, Sabin wishes he had more time to work on his project. “I’m really just getting started here. There’s a wonderful world that I’ve opened up with at least how to approach this holistic ecosystem restoration that I’ve deemed it broadly,” he said.

He wants the research to help people. “I have this interactive platform that extends from my research, so it’s not just a dissertation that goes on a bookshelf. That kind of gives people a way to monitor. It works like ArcGIS StoryMaps, and it’s a cool interactive thing that people can crowdsource information, they can download their own sort of data about these restoration areas,” he said.

In the interim, he has been polishing and rewriting parts of his dissertation, preparing for publication, and applying for jobs with a goal of working with people under and over the water — hoping to make an impact wherever he goes.

FALL 2024 GRADUATE PROFILES

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