An Individual Development Plan (IDP) is a structured tool designed to help graduate students identify, plan, and track their academic, professional, and personal growth. It serves as a roadmap to guide skill development, set actionable goals, and map out strategies for success. 

Creating an Individual Development Plan (IDP) will help you prepare for your future, regardless of the career you're planning on. In an IDP you outline a vision for your career and set goals to capitalize on your strengths and address your development needs. With an IDP you're taking a deliberate approach to increase the skills, knowledge, and experience you need to advance in your chosen career. The key benefits of developing an IDP include: 

• Helps you inventory your strengths and identify any gaps in your knowledge, skill set, or experience.
• Helps you identify the short-term and long-term goals that can push you toward action.
• Serves as an indispensable communication tool between your faculty advisor and you.
• Provides a visual representation of how to allocate your time working on specific goals.
• Acknowledges milestones achieved along the way, providing a sense of accomplishment and increasing momentum.
• Documents your development through assessment and reflection

Guidance

• All graduate students are encouraged to use an IDP throughout their program.
• The IDP is a document to be revisited again and again, to update and refine as goals change or come into focus, and to record progress and accomplishments.
• We recommend reviewing your IDP each fall and updating it in the spring in collaboration with your faculty advisor or mentor.
• Some academic programs may require an IDP as part of their annual review process—consult your department for specific guidelines. While IDPs may be required by programs, they are not submitted to the Graduate School for review.
• The National Institutes of Health (NIH) requires PIs’ annual progress reports to include a section on how IDPs are being used to identify and promote the career goals of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers associated with the award.
• As of May 20, 2024, the National Science Foundation (NSF) requires funded graduate students and postdocs to have IDPs. PIs will need to certify in annual and final reports that grad students and postdocs “receiving substantial support from such award [have] developed and updated annually an individual development plan to map educational goals, career exploration, and professional development.” 

The Steps

Click on each step for additional guidance on the process

Tools

The following discipline-specific IDP resources integrate self-assessment into the planning process. Some funding agencies require trainees to complete an IDP and to discuss it with their mentor.

MyIDP  

 Provides exercises to help you examine your skills, interests, and values and a list of 20 scientific career paths with a prediction of which ones best fit your skills and interests. Includes a tool for setting strategic goals for the coming year, with optional reminders to keep you on track and articles and resources to guide you through the process. Grid Item

ChemIDP

An IDP designed specifically for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars in the chemical sciences. Through immersive, self-paced activities, users explore potential careers, determine specific skills needed for success and develop plans to achieve professional goals. ChemIDP tracks user progress and input, providing tips and strategies to complete goals and guide.

ImaginePhD

A career exploration and planning tool for humanities and social sciences, ImaginePhD includes skills, interests, and values assessments, 16 job families that humanities and social science PhDs pursue, and 500+ career resources. The MyPlan section of ImaginePhD helps you develop a checklist or calendar plan, includes sample goals, and syncs to your Outlook or Apple Calendar.

American Psychological Association IDP

The American Psychological Association will guide you through the IDP process to customize your own plan of action and find the best job for you.

 

PHaSS-IDP

PHaSS-IDP is a free online career exploration and planning tool for graduate students, postdocs and early career professionals interested in public health and health related careers in the social sciences and some humanities. The PHaSS-IDP allows you to create and track SMART goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Action-oriented, Realistic/Relevant and Time-bound as a framework for your Individual Development Plan.