I was wondering if there are people here who have two postdocs going at the same time? What are some pros and cons of this? It is for social science people and since my fieldwork is gong to be in the same region, I can do some multiple projects at the same time in the same field. Most likely, it willl be co-written postdoc projects which means I will be pre-named and with varied number of years on each one I.e not all of them will have same period of the postdoc. So one is for five years and the other will be 18 months, but in the same region but different institutions.

So they are both part time? Very interesting! I don't see why not.

Dear Hugh

In social sciences, it's all about fieldwork. Writing part of the project comes later but from what I have observed from other people, they are never at the university even when they return from the field. If they have great and understanding relationship with their postdoc mentors, then it all works out. Postdocs in social Sciemce is very bizarre and as long as you send regular updates and reports from the field including publications or organise workshops or seminars, that is more important than physically being present. Thankfully, I don't have problem with the later, I have no problem organising workshops as they and really fun...

If you are hired as a postdoc you will most likely have a contract with the university that you will work full time hours (~35 hours per week). Although it seems like you could do both jobs at once I suspect the HR departments at the unis wouldn't see it that way.

It could work if both were part time though.