Prof. dr. Melanie M. Schiller
Professor at Department of Modern Languages and Cultures & Radboud Institute for Culture and History, Radboud University
Member of the Radboud Young Academy
Who is Melanie?
What is your career path?
Melanie: I did my PhD in Amsterdam. I had a construction that is called Docent Promovendus, a five-year trajectory with teaching and research. I had 40% teaching and 60% research.
I had the dream trajectory. Towards the end of my PhD, my contract started to end, but I wasn't done with writing the thesis yet. Then I saw a position coming by at Groningen University, which was very much my profile. I applied anyway and I got invited to the interview, and everything went super well. But they couldn't hire me for the assistant professorship because I didn't have a PhD. What they did instead was offering me a temporary teaching contract while I was finishing my PhD, and it turned permanent immediately after I finished the PhD. After almost 10 year in Groningen, I applied for a full professorship position at Radboud (which I got), that is now a permanent contact.
I applied for external funding which I got in different ways, and I was postdoc in those funding schemes when I was already an assistant professor with a permanent contract. I was still a very young postdoc in the sense, because I had just finished my PhD.
What has helped you to get on this dream trajectory?
Melanie: It was partly because of the Docent Promovendus five-year trajectory. It's usually not working because teaching takes up so much time, and it almost always runs longer than what you’re paid for—which was also my experience. I took a long time for the PhD, even though it was funded the whole time with some additional scholarships. During that time, I did a lot. By the time I officially completed my PhD, I had already built a very solid CV: I had taught a lot of different courses, I had organized conferences and workshop, I had been abroad, I got additional funding...That's how I was able to move into the assistant professorship.
Also networking and establishing international contacts—ensuring that others were aware of my work—proved extremely helpful. I believe the PhD has been, and should remain, a period of inspiration: a time to discover who you are, what you want, and what you can do, while exploring and broadening horizons…That takes time. In the end, you can be a much more mature person, with a broader perspective, who understands how academia works instead of starting from zero after your PhD.
It's all about understanding how things work, and working part time as a teacher helped me with that. You participate in staff meetings where issues such as budgets, collaborations, and institutional structures are discussed. I believe it is extremely valuable to engage with colleagues who share their experiences, offering opportunities to learn both from their insights and from observation. PhDs can often come to work and sit in their office and go home again, and they meet their supervisors occasionally. If you work entirely on your own, you risk isolation and miss out on valuable knowledge.
Melanie’s Portrait of Postdocs
What does postdoc mean to you?
Melanie: I would expect some uncertainty, given the reliance on temporary contracts. So, from the moment you begin a project, you already need to think about what comes next.
It's also a period of orientation, of spreading your wings and becoming independent. You can go to a new environment, meet new people, learn about different ways of doing research...It's often about international mobility as well, getting to know a different system.
But it can also be very scary and stressful. Because maybe you don't know where you're going to live a year later. And it becomes very difficult to say ‘no’ to anything, since you may depend on that person for a job later. It’s very much about proving yourself and maintaining visibility—you have to be present, show up, and take initiative…
How did you come to the ideas about postdocs?
Melanie: From the experiences of friends and colleagues around me, I sense very different situations, but a common thread is the feeling of anxiety.
For me also, there was a period of reorientation just before finishing my PhD. Even after I got the job, I still found myself asking: Who am I in academia? How do I relate to this world? What direction to go in? Which disciplines or associations are relevant? What are the expectations? How can I do this my way? So, even though I formally had a job and there was no insecurity in that sense, the phase of reorientation was still present. I think the reorientation is never finished. But I would say that about two years after my PhD, when I received funding for a research project, this feeling was reduced. With the new research project, I developed a topic that built on my previous work, but also grew in a new direction.
What would (not) fall under postdocs’ responsibility?
Melanie: That is a really good question. So I would say independence, taking responsibility, and showing initiative… I also expect greater confidence—not asking about every single step, but supporting me as well, rather than only me supporting them. Co-solving problems, that I can depend on them taking more responsibility and also co-supervising PhDs, for example.
On the informal side, I would also expect them to attend staff meetings, even if they are not teaching. I would expect them to be involved in the group, come with ideas, suggestions, go to conferences, finding a new topic, developing more skills and different methods, networking, publishing their PhD thesis book or (start) writing the second book…
Postdocs’ roles in funding acquisition?
Melanie: I would absolutely expect them to work on their own funding application, which can hopefully lead into the next funded project for them.
Postdocs’ roles in teaching and mentoring?
Melanie: To some extent, also supporting PhDs with their questions, and assisting me in my research as well. I always learn from PhDs, but I would expect to learn more from postdocs. I would hope for them to teach me about methods that are new to me, or to introduce me to new fields, conferences, and networks.
Postdocs’ roles in management and collaboration?
Melanie: That's a little bit what I meant with coming to staff meetings, being part of what's happening in our group. When I mean the group, it's mostly all of the other teachers, professors…
Postdocs’ roles in connection with the society?
Melanie: Now I’m imagining my future postdoc again—this would be within my research project, which is itself aimed at achieving societal relevance. I would want them to take a leading role in solving problems and communicating with stakeholders, and together coming up with solutions, starting networks or organizing events with these people...
Do you expect postdocs to take initiative in their career development?
Melanie: Of course, yes. I think the core task for them would be to understand the system and how academia functions: if you want to stay, you need to know what is expected of you and try to meet those expectations to the best of your ability. For instance, understanding that certain things are valued more than others, and figuring out: Where is your heart and your passion? Why are you in academia? Understand the options you have and make choices according to what you want.
Support in career development
Would you support postdocs in their career development?
Melanie: First of all, that's my job to support their career development.
I think it's a two-way exchange in that sense. I hope that they can learn from me and my experience, and that I can help them, for instance, with funding applications and network or understanding how academia works, because that is the most essential thing. That takes time, but I also gain a lot from their expertise. It's a giving and taking.
What would you advise postdocs for their career development?
Melanie: What I was thinking is that postdocs are often hired as temporary teachers, which can leave them overwhelmed with teaching duties It’s very easy to get trapped in a cycle of teaching—constantly preparing new courses, often at the last minute when moving between universities. I would advise being careful not to overcommit to teaching or end up helping everyone else at the expense of your own work.
Would you support postdocs for non-academic careers?
Melanie: Of course—but then I expect them to take initiative, while I am there as a mentor, providing both guidance and emotional support. I would talk to the person and see where they want to go, what they want and who they should contact and how to do it. I would still say networking will always be important. Contacting people but also being confident about how you present yourself and your work and skills. A lot of the skills we have in academia are so important elsewhere, but we’re just not aware of it.
Is there support from your organization for career development?
Melanie: Not that I know, I do think postdocs fall between the cracks very often. There is a system in place for supporting PhDs and for teachers. For postdocs in our department, much depends on the type of contract they have.
If they are on a teaching contract, they will get support with the teaching. It would be up to the line manager to do the extra work on supporting them with research or getting another job elsewhere. It varies a lot depending on who your line manager is, and whether they have the commitment and resources to provide that support.
If they are on a research project, then there should be institutional help from the Research Institute, but also that is often limited as post-docs are a rather small group that often gets overlooked.
I would recommend every postdoc to find a mentor. It doesn't have to be a supervisor or a line manager, but someone else that you admire, that you look up to, that you think has good ideas and that you sort of click with. Find them and ask questions, to understand how things are working.
Is the postdoc position attractive to early career researchers?
Melanie: Yes and no. Postdocs are great because they offer, depending on what contract it is, amazing opportunity to work on your research profile, spread your wings, become independent...The positive aspects are discovering yourself in a new environment—studying in another country or university, meeting new people, and gaining fresh horizons, inspirations, and perspectives. All of that, I think is great, though also coming with the stress and insecurity that we talked about. But it's a fantastic time to grow up academically.
For many assistant professors it would be a dream to have one or two or three years of only research time. That would require substantial funding to achieve that, which is of course notoriously difficult to get . That's why I took that postdoc position in the project, while I already had a permanent assistant professorship. But this was of course a luxurious choice from the position of a permanent contract, which is the dream of many post-docs.
What can be done to improve?
Melanie: I would say, postdocs’ own leadership, thinking about what are the expectations from the outside that fall upon me, but also what are my expectations of myself and towards the outside.
Postdocs are not a PhD anymore. You're now becoming a leader, so starting to supervise other people, becoming co-responsible for other people. There are enough pressures all around us and we can't always be strategic, because things don't work out the way we planned or there are limitations to what is possible. But we need to be intrinsically motivated. Otherwise, it's all not worth it.