Dr. Leonie Helder
Postdoctoral researcher at Internal Medicine Department, Radboud UMC
Who is Leonie?
What is your career path?
Leonie: I studied Biomedical Sciences and two months after, I started as a PhD, all in Nijmegen. I did my PhD at the Department of Anesthesiology, and now I'm working at the Internal Medicine Department, but since the Anesthesiology department shares their lab space with the Internal Medicine lab, I didn't really switch my workspace.
While I've been working officially as a postdoc since December 2024, it feels like a lot longer because I‘m still working on projects that I started during my PhD. Because of the COVID pandemic, my PhD project had a lot of delays. In addition to funding from the university for the extensions, I was also put on projects to pay my salary, which I'm finishing now.
Leonie’s Portrait of Postdocs
What does postdoc mean to you?
Leonie: I think postdoc is a very crucial stage in your career as a researcher, between finishing a PhD and becoming an independent scientist. When you finish your PhD, you probably have some papers and have spoken at a conference, but you're not yet qualified to guide a team of researchers. You have to build those skills during the postdoc.
What is your experience with the postdoc?
Leonie: What I find difficult about a postdoc is that it's not structured at all.During the PhD, there are a lot of PhDs around you to ask for help, and there's the graduate school that keeps track of your progress.But as a postdoc, you have more freedom but also more uncertainties.You feel that you are evaluated, but you don't know precisely what you are evaluated on. And it's also hard to estimate what is expected of you, like how many hours should be dedicated to teaching, research, management and community outreach, or any other tasks.
What would (not) fall under postdocs’ responsibility?
Leonie: It really depends on how senior you are. I'm a first-year postdoc, so I would not expect much from myself other than gaining additional skills in research and analysis, because you're doing most of that yourself at this stage. As you progress, I would say you will start teaching other people, maybe supervising PhD or university students, to develop your teaching skills.
In the meanwhile, you have to focus on steady output, such as publications, visiting conferences, establishing collaborations, etc., to prepare yourself for the stage when you have to start writing grants and secure your own financing.
Roles in teaching and mentoring?
Leonie: I think teaching and mentoring is essential because you need to transfer your knowledge and skills to the next generation of researchers. But I also realized that training people takes a lot of time, which you’re often not given, because you are mainly paid to do research yourself. I really like helping people, but it's almost like you're being discouraged, because you’ll have less time for your own work on which you are actually being evaluated.
Roles in funding acquisition?
Leonie: Postdocs play a crucial role in grant application, because they have a deep understanding of the research and they are in the best position to explain the scientific rationale, the methodological approach, and the potential impact. That said, I do think the current funding landscape is challenging. Many grants involve multiple stages of lengthy applications and several rounds of interviews or presentations, and extended waiting periods for decisions. This can be incredibly time consuming when added to your already demanding research workload.
Roles in marketing research?
Leonie: It’s certainly important to connect with the public so that they understand the value of the research we’re doing. However, effective science communication is a separate skill set from the expertise required in laboratory research. I believe those roles would be better suited to professionals trained in communication and media. I’d like to dedicate my time to the research itself.
Roles in management and collaboration?
Leonie: Yeah, definitely. There are a number of collaborations that I'm currently involved in, and I really enjoy working as a team to solve complex research questions. But I sometimes feel underprepared to take on broader management responsibilities, such as overseeing people, coordinating project logistics, or handling financial aspects. These important responsibilities tend to fall to postdocs by default, even though we may lack the time or the specific expertise to manage them effectively.
I feel that there should be a more structured transition during your postdoc, allowing you to gradually become better at managing these tasks. In our lab, everyone is responsible for certain things, to ensure everything runs smoothly. But it can also mean spending significant time assisting others at the expense of my own productivity, which I feel reflects badly on me.
Roles in own career development?
Leonie: I think it's difficult moving through your career as a scientist. In the beginning of your career, you're very much judged on your knowledge, skills, and your output. But as you get on, you're supposed to become more of a manager and have a clear vision for upcoming projects. You need to not focus on the details as much, and instead train the people in your team and trust them to handle the work. That transition is difficult to manage sometimes.
For me, I also feel that I barely have time to think about my career development. There is so much work, the projects, the supervision, all of the lab related things, meetings and discussions with collaborators. And when you talk with your supervisors about next steps for your career, you’ll often get advice that is difficult to implement, such as going abroad for a couple of years, for a better CV. But as you are building your career, you’re likely also building a life. Of course it can be exciting to go abroad, but it means time away from your partner, family, and personal life. I feel that these practical restrictions are what can make a postdoc really challenging.
Support in career development
Do you feel that postdocs are well supported in their career development?
Leonie: I think you really have to ask for it. I did that during my last yearly appraisal with my supervisors, and I received some really concrete advice. But if you don’t ask, they will not likely prompt it. And often it stays very broad: What would you like? Would you like to stay here in the hospital? There is less discussion on how I could actually achieve it.
Is there support from your organization?
Leonie: There is the grant office support. There's probably other support functions as well, but I myself have not worked with them. From my co-workers’ experience, often they will give you a very general list of things to consider, less tailored to individuals.
Is the postdoc position attractive to early career researchers?
Leonie: A lot of people that finish university just kind of roll into a PhD. That's what it was like for me, the next logical step. And I never really thought about it then.
Now, I would say if you're going for a postdoc, it has to be a conscious choice. You really have to want it. It may not be the most logical choice, for your career, or for your personal life. If you enjoy the science and enjoy the process of designing studies, gathering data, publications, and so forth, then it's a really nice career. But if there is any part of it you don't like, or the workload is too much, then I have a lot of respect for people that choose to go a different direction in their career.
What motivates me to do the postdoc mostly is that I love doing the work, the actual work. I enjoy the puzzle of figuring things out, designing new assays, analysing data, discussing with other scientists. And I do enjoy the workload, even though sometimes it’s hard to balance with your personal life. It's not just a job or an income, I really just enjoy knowing and learning. And this is the best career for that, I think.
What can be improved about the postdocs?
Leonie: There needs to be a bit more appreciation. I've seen this happen a few times where postdocs just leave their institute because they don't feel that there is an interest in them and in their careers. You cannot treat a postdoc like you treat a PhD, because they have already proven that they can work as a scientist, and they are now at a different stage in their career development.
I understand that organizations are facing constraints when it comes to funding and positions, but I wish they would be more transparent about this. The route for career progression as a postdoc should be more clear, so you really know where you stand. More direct communication between the postdocs, their supervisors, and the institute would help in this, and I feel postdocs be a lot more effective in their roles if they are included more in the decision-making process.