Responsibilities and Guidelines

• Assume primary responsibility for the development of their research and career.
• Play an active role in seeking career and research advice, both from the faculty supervisor and from other faculty members as appropriate.
• Perform the research required by the faculty supervisor to a high standard and in accordance with all institutional and federal regulations.
• Participate in the initial career development plan and annual review process.
• Work in a collegial and cooperative manner with the faculty supervisor and other co-workers.

• Ensure that mutually understood expectations and goals are in place at the outset of the postdoctoral training period. This may be best accomplished during the review of the postdoc’s initial career development plan.
• Meet regularly (for example, once a month) to establish and foster a career development plan and to assess important aspects of the postdoctoral fellow’s progress. In addition, complete the postdoc annual progress review as part of the initial career development plan and annual review process.
• Strike a reasonable balance between the postdoctoral fellow’s responsibility to participate in research directed by the faculty supervisor and opportunities to develop scholarship reflecting the postdoctoral fellow’s own interests.
• Respect the postdoctoral fellow’s individuality, working style, and career goals and be aware that the rate of progress of postdoctoral fellows will vary.
• Maintain an atmosphere in which the postdoctoral fellow feels free to approach him/her for advice or discussion of differences.
• Encourage each postdoctoral fellow to seek advice and collaborative opportunities from other faculty members, or even to identify a second mentor, since the training experience can only benefit from a variety of perspectives.
• Promote ethical standards for conducting research, including compliance with all institutional and federal regulations.
• Accord full recognition of the postdoctoral fellow’s contributions to scholarship, including appropriate authorship of published work. (The School’s authorship guidelines provide guidance in this area.)
• Establish clear plans for how projects will be divided when fellows complete their training.
• Support the postdoctoral fellow’s use of the full benefits of their employment at Harvard Chan School, including vacation time.

To fully understand their obligations related to conflicts of interest, annual appointees should consult the Harvard Chan School’s policy available online at Financial Conflicts of Interest (fCOI) and Outside Activities & Interests Reporting (OAIR). This policy is intended to serve as a guide for Harvard Chan School appointees in structuring their relationships with industry and other outside ventures in view of their academic responsibilities.

Postdoctoral fellows should also be advised that permission to undertake outside activities such as consulting must be sought from and given by the appointee’s department chair or supervisor. At the beginning of each calendar year, annual appointees will be informed if they are required to report on their outside professional activities and financial interests. Further, the school’s grants administration officers must confirm that a current disclosure form has been submitted by each investigator, whether full- or part-time at the school, before signing off on a submitted proposal for federal funding. Finally, if the annual appointee’s department or program has additional reporting requirements, s/he will be informed of those requirements by the department or program.

Permission for postdoctoral research fellows to undertake outside activities such as consulting must be sought from and given by the annual appointee’s department chair or supervisor.  If the department or program has additional requirements, the annual appointee will be informed of these by his/her department or program.