Balancing business and academia

“My major motivation for studying chemistry and continuing to do academic research is my desire to help society live more sustainably. My parents aren’t scientists but my dad influenced me indirectly because he said he didn’t want to influence my career decisions. He wanted me to have full control of what I was going to do with my life, so I felt free to deviate from my parents’ career choices.”

In Germany, it’s common for school pupils to take a gap year between the equivalent of GCSEs and A-levels, and while Agi didn’t take the full year out, she did spend a summer in Australia with a couple who were both working in academia.

“Heidi, who’s now a close friend, was a physicist and she had four children and was working as an academic, living abroad, so I think that was definitely a huge inspiration for me. Although there was almost a generational difference in age, we really understood each well, we still do today.”

Building business experience

Agi moved to the UK for her PhD and postdoctoral research at Imperial College London but eventually funding for her project ran out. Another academic in the department offered her a position as a business manager for their new start-up company and Agi became the company’s first official employee.

“I was hired for my experience working with patents – I had filed a patent before so I knew roughly how that all worked – and they also liked the fact that I was bilingual in English and German, because two of their main competitors were BASF and Baeyer, and they tend to file their patents initially in German.”

While Agi gained some valuable experience at the company it wasn’t all smooth sailing, so when funding became available for her to return to the research project she had begun for her PhD, Agi decided to return to academia.

“I experienced the gender pay-gap in action when I realised that two male colleagues with similar experience and key roles were getting a major pay-rise and I wasn’t. I felt running the commercial side almost completely on my own for a year meant I was a key worker. When I resigned shortly after, the company offered me a pay-rise in order to retain me but I declined, because I had made up my mind to return to academia, but I also felt the trust had been broken.

“I decided that having the chance to develop my PhD project further outweighed the interesting things that I would learn with the start-up company. And there was also the possibility of a start-up company for that project, as well. So I would get that experience anyway just with a few years delay.”

A balancing act

Sure enough, Agi’s perseverance paid off and last year she founded her own start-up company, Chrysalix Technologies, which develops cheap and efficient processes for converting waste biomass into sustainable chemicals and fuels.

“The majority of my time is spent on academic research but most academic institutions allow academics some time to spend on commercialisation. My role in the start-up is quite high level but there are synergies. For example, at the moment we’re planning to apply for a grant so that the company can get some technical development done, and there will be some interesting academic parts to that project as well that can be published.”

As well as balancing her academic and commercial roles, Agi also has to manage her family commitments since having twins two years ago. She acknowledges that there are pros and cons to pursuing an academic career path.

“It never ends – you could always do more. Making sure that you enjoy your family life and also hit the targets that you need to hit as an academic is really hard, there’s a lot of stress. There’s a lot of pressure and rejection in this career path, applying for fellowships and lectureship is very competitive and the application process can be drawn out. Together with the fact that most early career jobs are based on limited contracts and may require moving countries and even continents, this can appear very daunting. 

Changing the culture

On the issue of gender equality in chemistry Agi sees the situation as reasonably balanced at undergraduate level but has noticed the drop-off in women continuing past PhD and postdoctoral studies. She thinks it’s important for women earlier on in their academic careers to see other women managing their career progression and family commitments, but would also like to see the community embracing more diverse support for young academics. 

“I can say it’s possible [to balance family and academia] and it’s ok. There has probably also been a change in the way that women feel they can take more maternity leave. What I’ve experienced at Imperial is that postdocs and academics do tend to take six months, nine months or even the whole 12 months of maternity leave these days. Most of that time is financially supported – Imperial, for example, have a shared parental leave scheme that offers maternity/paternity pay beyond the legal minimum. The university puts money towards equality, which is good.

“But it’s also really good to see people doing it and succeeding at it. The academic who started the first start up I worked for has a family, a start-up company and a successful academic group. I mentioned Heidi, the physicist in Australia earlier. I think role models like this are important: it’s useful to see women doing it in your own work environment, balancing family and academia, and succeeding at it.

“It would be great if academic chemistry was a field that is known for valuing equality and has systemically eradicated unjustified hiring and promotion bias for all minorities. I would like to see academic chemistry welcome more people who return to academia after career breaks or time in other careers - most lecturers seem to follow a standard career model – PhD, postdoc, fellowship, lectureship, with no career breaks whatsoever. Support for academic chemistry parents needs to be strong, consistent and visible, including at PhD student and postdoc level. The standards for achievements should not be lowered, but candidates could be offered extra time or support to achieve them, if they need this.”