Choosing the right path to pursue a career in industry or academic research after graduation is difficult for every researcher. After completion of successful PhD degree, you have two roads to choose to travel. each path has its own pros and cons.
There are many differences between working in industry vs academia, but it always up to your decision based on your skill, career goals, financial requirement, interest, and job satisfaction.
In order to identify the significant difference between working in industry vs academic research, ilovephd provides the following 7 major differences.
7 Differences Between Working in Industry vs Academic research
| Academia | Industry |
| Responsibilities: In academic careers, you have lots of responsibilities such as applying for grants, Conducting self-directed research, Publishing papers, Teaching courses, Mentoring students, Performing departmental service. | Responsibilities: A career in industries mostly focused on applied research. You must be able to develop projects that meet the company goals as you support the business plan of the company. |
| Collaboration: Academic research is largely collaborative and team-work oriented. In this, you have the freedom to choose when, and with whom, you collaborate. | Collaboration: In industry, researchers are working toward a larger, shared goal. It’s critical for researchers to be able to collaborate and work as a team. |
| Workplace Culture: Academia is highly research and discovery focused, and much research is done for the sake of learning. | Workplace Culture: In industry, the works are typically more deadline-driven, as teams work to the business-focused problem. This work allows researchers to feel a sense of immediate impact in real-life applications. |
| Flexibility: Working in academia is the freedom to dictate your own schedule, choosing when to teach, conduct research, and publish your work. | Flexibility: Research in the industry mostly fixed on a standard 9-to-5 workday. |
| Intellectual Freedom: In academia, researchers can enjoy intellectual freedom, free from the constraints of short-term deadlines. Also, you have an opportunity to take classes and live with young minds to update your knowledge. | Intellectual Freedom: A benefit of working in the industry is that the funding and more state-of-the-art resources will be supplied by the larger organization. But unlike academia, it totally focused on only research. |
| Career Advancement: The career ladder can be difficult if only a handful of universities that may specialize in your discipline, or are actively hiring in a given year. | Career Advancement: Industry career opportunities are broader, however, and can range from research at the bench to work in product marketing or development. |
| Salary: On average, academics in the USA, including postdocs, make $50,000 to $110,456 annually. | Salary: On average, industry scientists typically make more money than academic researchers. As per the recent report, it starts from $74,587 to $154,263 annually. |
Know your strength
Finally, knowing your strengths can help direct you to the path that will increase your chances of success.
Hope, this article helps you to find the difference between working in industry vs academic research.
