Top 5 reasons to do a PhD in 2024

I loved the PhD. It’s the best thing I’ve done with my career.

No, that wasn’t a professor speaking.  Louise O’Flynn enrolled as a PhD student after more than 15 years’ experience with the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Louise’s PhD is improving financial, environmental, and social outcomes for the land management sector—and it’s helped her stand out as a leader in her field, landing her a new role as a carbon advisory specialist. 

In fact, 85% of UTS research alumni aren’t professors: our students go back into business, government, and community organisations as leaders and changemakers. 

Read on to discover the top 5 reasons to do a research degree. Soon it might be you realizing it’s been the best thing you’ve done with your career.

1. You want to create impact and change

A research degree is for people who want to make a difference to their corner of the world. 

Take Payar Radfar: his PhD research developed a new technology to diagnose cancer cells without invasive surgery. On the side, he co-founded a startup solving a major bottleneck for lab-grown meat, recently receiving over half a million dollars in funding. 

That’s what’s possible with a PhD.

PhD-level research makes a significant original contribution to knowledge: the point is that on the other side, we can know, do, or imagine something we couldn’t before. 

And that doesn’t just mean a thesis that sits in a library. PhD research can become a patented product, a software algorithm, a film, or a policy proposal (or a lot of other things). 

A PhD is fundamentally about innovation and creating the potential for change.

2. You’re ready to accelerate your career

A research degree is for people who want to add confidence and credibility to their existing professional experience. 

A PhD is still the starting point for an academic career, but it marks you out as a leader no matter what your field is. 

Matt Jeffriess was a sports coach when he started his PhD research, which focused on improving the decision-making and fitness of NRL referees. Now Matt works for HITIQ, an Australian healthtech business that measures the impact of sport concussions. 

Having the PhD background gives me credibility. 

"It’s opened opportunities and roles in emerging technologies where I have become an asset to the business because of my research experience,” explains Matt. 

3. Your field is facing a wicked problem 

A research degree is for people who are passionate about a problem they see facing their industry. 

At a moment when 75% of global CEOs believe their business isn’t adapting fast enough, there are enough big challenges to go around. Many PhD students focus on creating solutions they’ll be able to directly implement in their professions (and some employers pay them to do it).

Sue Hodges has run her own successful heritage interpretation business for decades.  Her PhD research demonstrates the economic, environmental, and social value of heritage interpretation—value she kept having to justify to clients.  Now in her 60s, Sue explains, “I started the PhD because I was researching this on my own." 

I just wanted to fix a problem that I’ve battled my entire career. 

4. You’re curious

A research degree is for people who wonder “what if?”

As Clyde Webster tells it, “One day, I was sitting at a bus stop watching a bird hop around a bush and thought about how parrots live and climb high up in the trees.” This moment of curiosity led Clyde to develop a three-legged robot that could revolutionise the way businesses and governments maintain energy and telecommunications infrastructure, bridges, and even the International Space Station. 

From a research internship with NASA to becoming the founder of his own robotics startup, Clyde’s PhD journey has kept that curiosity satisfied. 

5. You want to be challenged and inspired

A research degree is for people who want to be mentored by world-class experts, connected to a passionate community of innovators, and transformed in the process. 

Donna Lu never imagined a PhD could be for her. “I grew up as a second-generation Chinese-Timorese Australian in South Western Sydney. My parents didn't finish studying beyond Year 4.”  Then she realised the impact researchers could have on their community. 

I thought, I've got to do this! I can make a difference.

Now a medical coordinator with FIFA, Donna is keeping people safe at the 2023 Women’s World Cup. “It’s incredibly rewarding to be able to implement your research findings and influence protocols and policies that affect the health and safety of hundreds of people.”

You don’t need to have had a perfect ATAR, and you don’t need to want to be a professor to do a research degree. 

Every PhD is unique—it’s customised for you. 

No one else has your experience, ideas and drive to solve the problems you see in your world. What are you waiting for?

Explore research degrees at UTS →