Do you know that joke about the rabbit whose PhD was about ‘How Rabbits Eat Foxes’, and why it really did not matter because his supervisor was a huge lion? Well, jokes about the PhD process are abundant, but so are stories about ‘returning to life’ after a PhD. The web is bursting with blogs, webpages, and newspaper articles with recommendations on how to survive post-PhD, including how to get away from academia and enter the “real world”.  Suggestions include from personal branding to cherishing your network, and informal blogs from recent doctors coexist with professional advice.

However, finding a place in- or out-of-the-academia after the PhD is clearly an important issue that relates to major debates regarding the nature and purpose of the PhD. Our roundtable intends to discuss this topic with recent doctors from four different countries – Andrea Raggl (PH Vorarlberg, Austria), Andreas Sebe-Opfermann (University of Bremen, Germany), Per-Åke Rosvall (University of Borås, Sweden) and Sofia Pais (Centro de Estudos Sociais, University of Coimbra, Portugal) – who will consider not only their personal experience but also their general knowledge of the journey from PhD to the outside world.

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