CRO

[DoctorGilbertson]

Does anyone work for a CRO?

What is the work culture like - and how does it compare to research at a university? I have a "chat" with one this week after a pretty lengthy SAHM career break and having only working in the public sector before (and never at a very high level) I don't have much of an idea what to expect.

Thanks!

I used to work for a CRO (I'm now an academic) - personally I didn't enjoy it, but that may have just been the nature of the comapny I was working for than the fact it was a CRO iyswim. I was a project manager, which involved lots of talking to customers, developing project plans, managing the actual work to be done, reporting back to the customer and hopefully getting more work. The customer contact and developing ideas part was something that I really enjoyed. What I didn't enjoy was relinquishing "ownership" of those ideas, so there are a number of scientific papers out there which were completly my work but which I am not even an acknowledgement on as the customer has paid for the work.

Another good side is also the diversity of the work - you will often be expected to work on lots of different types of projects, usually linked to your specialism, but more diverse than you may work on in academia.

Thank you. That's really helpful. Yes, positives and negatives.

But mostly - I am very interested - you were able to move from industry back to being an academic? It is good to know that this is possible as well.

I found it not too hard to move from CRO to academia, despite the fact that my publication record was not as good as someone with an entirely academic track record. DP also moved from the same CRO to academia and we are both on tenured positions now. However, we were both working in very popular areas at the time we moved back to academia which helped.

Thanks again, really positive to know.