Postdoc Congress

SAVE THE DATE: Wednesday May 20, 2026 - The Octagon (Mile End Campus)

The theme for the 2026 Congress explores how your responsibilities shape your research, your development, and the communities you influence within and beyond Queen Mary. The Congress will give postdocs an opportunity to commune with their peers, to hear about and discuss lived experiences as Queen Mary postdocs, and to amplify postdoc voice by feeding this back.

2026 Postdoc Congress

You can download the full programme here Postdoc Congress 2026 - Working Programme [PDF 56KB]

This year's Congress features

Dr Emma Williams – co-author of “What Every Postdoc Needs to Know” and author of “Leaving Academia Ditch the blanket, take the skills” leads a short workshop to help r postdocs make more deliberate choices about how they use their time and experience with a view to supporting their next career step.

Dr Isabelle Foote – a new lecturer in the Wolfson Institute for Population Health, joins two other postdocs and early-career academics in reflecting on taking ownership of their professional development and prioritising contributions to their local research environment alongside their research.

Table Discussions – these offer those in attendance an opportunity to discuss issues relevant to the theme, and to feedback your thoughts and suggestions to relevant stakeholders. These topics will be published closer to the Congress. See below for examples from last year's Congress.

Dr Szilvia Mosonyi, Senior Lecturer in Responsible Leadership in the School of Business and Management; Prof Claudia Garetto, S&E EDI Lead and Professor in Mathematics, School of Mathematical Sciences; and Dr Pierre Maillard, Senior Lecturer in Antiviral Immunity and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, Blizard Institute join a panel to discuss responsibility in different ways as it pertains to academic and research leadership.

Table Discussion Information (PDC2025)

Every year the Postdoc Congress features a series of table discussion where postdocs get to share about thier lived experience at Queen Mary Postdocs, and feedback to the insitution about this experience. This information is here for reference.

For a pdf version of these descriptions: PDC-25-Table Discussion Topics [PDF 179KB]

Visit the Congress Linktr.ee page, so that you can access the Padlets to support these table discussions.

Table 1: (Re)Defining Postdoc
What’s in a name? Being ‘a postdoc’ in a university is a diverse role. In this discussion, we want do gain your understanding of a what a postdoc does or should do within a university like this. What do postdocs want others at Queen Mary to know about being a postdoc?

Table 2: Postdocs as Early-career Researchers
Most postdocs see themselves on the early-career academic track. This discussion wants to understand how the roles and needs of postdocs overlap and contrast with other researcher roles at Queen Mary. What makes postdocs feel included or excluded as early-career researchers and academics?

Table 3: Postdocs as Staff
Postdocs are predominantly members of staff on research contracts. In this discussion we wish to understand what makes them feel included or excluded as staff members and how can the institution better communicate their policies, and reward and benefits programmes to postdocs.

Table 4: Postdocs as Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship, innovation and engagement are embedded in our research culture. What does it mean to be entrepreneurial and how is that relevant to you as a postdoc? This table seeks to foster discussion to encourage an entrepreneurial mindset amongst early-carer academics, as well novel career possibilities to consider.

Table 5: Postdocs as representatives of Postdocs
Are the needs of postdocs being accounted for in university decision-making? In this discussion we examine how postdocs can lend their voice to university decision-making by “representing postdocs” on a committee, and what obstacles postdocs might face to doing so.

Table 6: Postdocs and Research Culture
Following on from the HE research sector update on people culture and environment, this table discussion examines how postdocs experience research culture in universities. What helps postdocs feel a part of the culture or community, and how should postdocs empower themselves to improve their own research cultures

Table 7: Fostering disability inclusive workspaces for staff
Following on from the presentation on fostering an inclusive workspace at Queen Mary for disabled staff, staff with long-term health conditions and neurodivergent staff, the round table discussions are an opportunity to discuss the shared responsibility for all staff (non-disabled staff and disabled staff). This will include practical steps everyone can take, as well as identifying challenges and sharing opportunities, within the post-doc workspaces and community.

Table 8: Postdocs and Developing Research Professionals
What should career and professional development (CPD) support look like for Postdocs and how should this be resourced, supported, and encouraged. Through this discussion, we hope to understand the barriers to postdocs engaging in CPD and aim to better design our Researcher Development programme to better support postdocs.

Supplemental Discussion tables

Want to start a discussion with your colleagues about a different issue that is important to you? Remember to take notes yourself or designate a scribe from your group to update one our supplementary Padlets (we’ve set up 3).

If you’d like to take these conversations forward to action, make sure you fill out the MS form that is linked in the Padlets. This will help you keep in touch after the Congress.

Near the end of your conversation, try to distil it down to a single summary point for the conference co-chairs to summarise.