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"I like to move very fast and take a lot of risks compared to the traditional Swedish way."

--Mohammed Homman

"This choice was more practical because you try to build up a career, and if you do what people are already doing, you need to be very good, but also lucky, to make it," says Edwin Cuppen.

"By going to different labs," says Edvard Moser, "You learn different ways of thinking and you can create bridges between sub-disciplines and find something unexpected."

"Try and identify the people that can really teach you and help you very quickly," says Diego Centonze.

Given the opportunity, Jana Kadukova says she would definitely be keen to work abroad again. "In my opinion, everyone should try this once in their life," she says

"Even if being back at a postdoc position was quite difficult," says Valentina Emiliani, "this was a necessary step."

"They can be very good computer scientists, but they will not be hired if they don’t fit in the company culture" of Google, says new employee Oliver Heckmann.

Although "the researcher is free to do whatever he wants," says Marché, "I will be working in a team, so I will necessarily get interested in their field of research."

Like other professional doctorates, Eng.D.s combine an applied research project, usually in industry, with courses that are directly relevant to the candidate's profession.

Early-Stage Training fellowships offer Ph.D. researchers the opportunity to pursue specialised training for a period of 3 months to 3 years as part of their doctoral training.

In Spain, "Most people integrate into an existing and functioning lab," which gives them less freedom," says de Nalda Minguez.

This is an unusual position; I will have little bureaucracy and limited teaching.

Although Hébrard advises anyone with a passion in astronomy to go for it, he warns that "keeping your eyes and mind open is a good way to start in such a research field."

"Cases very soon demonstrated a great capacity for working with software and developing systems, a capacity that is unfortunately quite exceptional in experimental biologists." --Systems biologist Alfonso Valencia.

"[Schürmann] asked very important questions concerning the feasibility of the project, but did not do so sceptically, which indicated to me that ... he was already preparing to take on the challenge," says director of the Blue Brain Project Henry Markram.

Our own awareness of our primary driving force is perhaps of greatest help when we need to make tough career decisions.