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<b><h4>What broader responsibilities, apart from your research, have you taken on over the course of your career, both within your university and externally?</h4></b>

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<b>Dr Peter Hristov, Postdoctoral Research Assistant, University of Liverpool</b>

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As part of my academic career, I have assumed responsibilities both within and without the university. For example, I have been in the position of a teaching assistant, or a guest lecturer, as an examples of academic positions. As an example of outside collaborations or responsibilities, I have participated in consultancy work for private companies.
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<b><h4>What challenges and benefits did you encounter within these roles?</h4></b>

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<b>Dr Peter Hristov:</b> Both roles with and without university come with their own challenges and benefits. In my teaching responsibilities, the main challenge that I found was to be able to efficiently manage my time. While I was teaching and giving lectures, I was still doing my research, so I needed to be able to manage both at the same time. For example, I was responsible for delivering not only the module content, in front of students, but also mark scripts, supervise them in the laboratory while they work, and also maintain open office hours for students with questions.

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In terms of benefits, the main benefit that I got out of teaching is the pleasure of sharing my knowledge with others, and to be able to work with curious and dedicated students. In terms of consultancy work, the challenges that I've found are mainly to be able to efficiently understand, and clearly understand what the client wants, and to deliver the results in a way that is interpretable and clear to them. The benefits, or one of the main benefits, is that I was able to see an application of my theoretical work, in an immediate practical sense.
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<b><h4>What advice would you give to new researchers regarding such roles?</h4></b>

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<b>Dr Peter Hristov:</b> I would advise new researchers to assume as many diverse responsibilities as they can comfortably manage within their time. This will serve two purposes. Firstly, it will help them develop a diverse skill set, which may help them in their future careers, and secondly, it will teach them how to prioritise their time, and how to give time to more important things than others. I would advise them to reach out to their line managers, to their departmental heads, and other HR staff and superiors to be able to identify such roles, because more often than not, academia has a lot more to offer than just doing research. 